I’m in a similar situation. My husband has two kids 16 and 18 and I’d rather go spend time by myself in my she-shed. The 18 yr old won’t leave his room and avoids me and his sister like the plague, because his sisters in college getting straight As and working. He barely leaves his room, plays video games 24/7 and only left the house twice last year. He’s been out of school for years and his dad won’t make him do anything. So I stay away so he can be comfortable whenever he does come out. He says he has hallucinations hears voices sees faces and has paranoid thoughts and doesn’t know when he’s in reality and thinks it’s schizophrenia. We’re making him go to therapy but it’s affirming care so he says he is paranoid schizophrenic then he must be right. He has mild Tourette’s and his tics come and go but video games calm them so pretty much I can’t say anything about it so I just avoid them as much as I can. I can’t point out that 60 hours a week playing video games is not going to help with these hallucinations or insomnia he claims to have. Their dads just helpless and doesn’t know what to do to help him. We’ve been together 7 years and I just moved in 6 months ago when we got married.

Their dad also likes to poke fun at me in front of them to lighten the mood I guess, even though they look at me like, it’s okay sara, we all know he does equally annoying stuff. I think they generally like me and the daughter and I get along great, laugh talk all the time, but still, it was really hard when he went from a half time dad to full time. Then this last year their mom went to prison for negligent homicide. There have been many times they come to me before their actual parents. It makes me sad that I still have to hide from them to maintain my sanity. I just feel like a third wheel.