Ken: I suggest a chill-out. Losing a bunch of games is not the end of the world, though it is regrettable. They can be replaced, one way or another. I don't condone sauceman's SF's actions, but I can understand them. Last I saw, no kid was born with an owner's manual, although you can buy a few hundred attempts at it at the store. Funny thing is that the more you read, the more you discover they offer conflicting stories -- one says left, the other says right.
And there are *definitely* no manuals issued when becoming a step-parent. I'm not sure I've seen a lot of those on the shelves.
In any case, parenting, from my now six-plus years of experience, is a lot of anticipation followed by flying by the seat of your pants. You make the best decisions you can in the situation, and hope that it was the right one. If not, you try to make it better later on.
I support the SF intervening to try to remove distractions to help sauceman get his grades up. I don't support the approach, especially if it involved actually throwing away a number of games; temporary confiscation is far better, IMHO. It's amazing what you can do when the power cable disappears...
When I was finishing high school (and you don't have to be 18 to finish, folks...), my dad explained the rules of his house, where I was living: his house, his rules. If I didn't like them, there was the door. I could discuss the rules, but they were there, and pretty straightforward. Curfew, chores... the list goes on, but not too long.
After I moved out, my dad used to joke about the rules. I've turned them back on him: my house, my rules. He agrees. In my house, he smokes outside, on the porch or in the garage. His house, wherever he wants.
One thing both of us know now -- neither one wants to live under the other's roof [img]smile.gif[/img] We've staked our turf, and we're keeping it.
Whose house is it? Whose food? Whose furniture? Whose car? Whose computer? Whose electricity? Truth is, as a child living under your parents' roof (be you two or twenty-two), there ain't a whole lot of fair. Parents can always bring out the "when you pay the mortgage..." argument, and you don't have a lot to fall back on.
Sauceman, I empathize with you; your situation stinks right now, and if I were you, I'd be counting the days to graduation and trying to figure out just where I was going to live after that. I might do some additional investigation to try to find out if the games are really gone, and I might also make sure that my SF knew just how much those games cost... that it wasn't 20 or 30 dollars or pounds, but a whole lot more than that.
Bottom line is that someone in the situation has to be an adult, or it can get way out of hand. If your SF is not being the adult well enough, you're best served by being the adult yourself. It sounds like you've been trying to do that all along, so I wish you peace and good luck as you make it through the next several weeks until you can put this behind you.
Peace.
*B*