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I have to confess that the context of this letter troubles me deeply, and my angst is for the teen, who seems to be disfuncitoning at the whim of a raft of wealthy and neglectful adults.
Mom is crazy and out there somewhere...
Dad is focused on a new life with a trophy girlfriend and a condo with a view.
Trophy girlfriend is now recognizing the concrete realities of a 16-year old, who will be part of her life for two years until, blessedly, the girl can be appropriatetly shipped off to college, where she can bounce around until something else happens.
The nanny, whom so many writers feel is a solid and loving individual, strikes me as a bit obsessive and neurotic as well as incompetent.
I was raised, in part, by nannys and housekeepers, a custom in my mother's family of origin, and possible in my childhood until the money ran out. For me, it was the single source of affection and perceptual self-awareness in an otherwise brilliant but drunken household where both parents engaged in addictive behavior as a foundation for other malignancies of function. (frankly, I would not have an adult life without the affection and discipline of a caring nanny or five - my mother used to fire them when they had "bonded" with me....) A good nanny educates to self-awareness, self-actualization and self-care, which seems to exclude this nanny on a sweeping basis. In fact, I suspect the relationship is, by now, somewhat crippling.
With as much money as seems to be floating about, and given Dad's obtuse neglect of everything but finances (perhaps) for the last four to five years, it would seem to me that the best solution for the kid is to ship her off to a very good, very small, very private private boarding school where, in the hands of skilled educators in a holistic environment, she may have a chance to focus and "catch up". it will certainly not happen in the dis-abling environment that this young woman finds herself in.
Kudos to LW for defining her own boundaries of interest. that said, I find her values horrific, but apparently effectively well-matched with her boyfriend. I suggest that with the girl safely in boarding school, these two feckless folks can become entirely selfabsorbed while watching the surf from their new residence.
But - I don't think that love and affection create the basis for this adult relationship of what may be functional convenience. If it were, LW's attitude about the offspring of her "beloved' might be entirely different. From all that is said, one suspects a relationship between two folks for mutually opportunisitic interfaces... her proffering foward youth, he proffering forward some relative affluence.
Stepparenting is not something that anyone intentionally seeks out, I suspect. I certainly did not. That said, when I fell profoundly in love with a woman who was divorcing a toxic husband, I realized that it was a "package deal", very, very early on, and moved forward accordingly. Being part of his life and upbringing was a profound honor, frankly, in retrospect. Was it easy? Na. was it worth it? Yep, first for the woman that I love, then second, for the relationship that my stepson and I carved out, on our own, out of mutual awareness and respect.
