So my bf and I have been dating for 15 months now. He is 10 years older than me has an ex wife and a kid that just turned 9. They live half way around the world in Italy, he is lucky if he sees her once a year. I have never met her but will get to meet her in about a week but only for a few hours before she heads back to Italy. Her living situation with her mom is not the best one but because Italy is so Catholic the government will almost always side with the mom with custody especially with a non-Italian father. Her teeth have rotted, she doesnt know how to do basic things, and she has no structure in her life. My bf is thinking about truly fighting for custody of her because of it. He asked for my opinion and I was very honest with him that he needs to think about the affect that it will have on both their lives. He wont be able to do anything he wants when ever he wants to anymore. She doesnt speak a word of English so school will be tough and she will have to go through ESL. I knew many kids in school that were going through ESL and they mostly hung around with kids that they could speak their first language with which was mostly Spanish...not a lot of people in the US speak Italian so that could make her more distant and feel like an outsider. Her whole life is in Italy not here. She loves her dad and seems to prefer to be with him over her mom but it isnt that simple with an international kid. If she lived in the US I would tell him to take her in a heart beat but she doesn't so it is not as simple as he would like it to be. He is thinking about it as her parent(as he should) but that means I will not and I will think more rationally. And unfortunately that also means that I need to think about me. I just graduated from college I am 22 years old moving away for work while he finishes school so we are going to try long distance. If he gets her then he wont be able to come see me as much which means that we will barely see each other cause I will be working more 6 days a week than not. And if we lasted the next 2-3 years we were going to get married. So then I would be the step mom of an 11 year old and have to make decisions about where I would transfer to off her not just me and him. I know it all sounds very selfish but it is one thing to be with someone who has a kid in another country and another for him to live with her...it is a totally different situation. I do not know if I can handle it. I have been honest with him and told him I will have to think long and hard if I can handle it. I did not want it to come off as "its me or her" but of course it did. He should choose her to the very end. But when a new situation is introduced it can be hard and I think I am allowed to be selfish in this and think about me. This is not a situation that has been a thing for our whole relationship this is a new big thing that I did not initially agree to. I think I am allowed to be hesitant. Of course I am not saying that I will leave if he gets her cause I don't think I will but I am allowed to think about if I can handle the changes it will bring to my life too.