I posted this on someone else's blog as a remark, (I vented a bit more on this one) but thought I might here too so I could possibly get some answers.
Hi.....I am new to this site, but I can relate to a lot of what is said here!! My husband has a daughter who is now 25 and she depends on him for everything. She has a part-time job, working 2 days a week for 4-5 hours. She spends her money on whatever she fancies. She goes to 'daddy', (yes, she still calls him that, she knows it just melts his heart) and tells him sad sob stories about how she just can't make ends meet. She never calls him unless she needs money or needs him to pay for something. He pays for her car and the insurance on it, she gets $500 a month (at least) for other things, I assume utilities, etc. She is always posting on Facebook how she is has been to this concert or that concert AND has the pictures to prove it, she is always buying movies, books, getting tattoos and piercings (in strange places I might add), goes to bars and always eats out. She is expecting him to support this lifestyle and makes him feel guilty because he and her mom are divorced so he will continue to support her. Can we say MANIPULATION??? She is in her 4th year of college, which he took out parent loans to pay for, while MY kids took out student loans and never once asked for help!! She flunked out of so many classes because she likes the bars and doesn't want to study and she sleeps around with any guy who gives her a second look. I'm so afraid she will get pregnant and expect us to raise the child.
I would find my toothbrush wet at night when I went to brush my teeth. I was afraid she put it in the toilet, so threw it away and brought out another one. I would then hide it in my bedroom when we would have her for the weekend. I would notice my shampoo and body wash disappearing and this girl NEVER took a bath or showered at my house. (Yes, she stunk something horrible) My saving grace on this was when he would take her swimming in the summer. That took some of the dirt and smell off her. She always came dirty, wore dirty clothes, and had NO manners. She always looked in my mail and snooped around the house. I was never comfortable with her in my house. (I am still not comfortable with her when she visits) This girl, as a child (I think she still does as one of my brand new eye pencils came up missing after she used our bathroom just lately), would steal from me. Strange things. Canned goods, toilet paper, things that belonged to my kids, once a ring I saved for 7 months to get.......she always spilled her drink, no matter where she was, just so I would have to clean it up. She would chew with her mouth open and make huge smacking noises as she chewed. It was so gross. She would cough and sneeze without covering her mouth and fart in front of us and just smile because we couldn't stand the stink. She never cleaned up her mess in the bathroom, including washing her toothpaste mess out of the sink when she was done brushing. I didn't expect her to do anything that my OWN kids didn't have to do, but I was accused of picking on his little girl. She would lie to her mother and dad about things I supposedly did, or that my kids did to her. One day she was yelling downstairs telling my son to leave her alone. She didn't know I was down there too in another room and my son was UPSTAIRS! My husband came running, of course, to 'get my son to quit' whatever, and when he got to the top of the stairs, he saw me behind her and her yelling for my son to quit, I told him he wasn't even down here, she whirled around like I smacked her, and then my son came to the top of the stairs and stood by my husband, showing him he wasn't 'bothering' his precious daughter. Nothing was said. I looked at her and just shook my head. It was always her doing something to get my kids in trouble. That incident led to us never having a weekend to ourselves, with my kids being gone one weekend and her being there that same weekend, and my kids being there the rest of the time until the weekends came up again that we had her and mine were with their father. The last time I asked her to clean up her mess in the bathroom sink, she went downstairs in the TV room and peed on my carpet. She was 10 years old. Had my son not went downstairs the next day to watch tv after she left and literally rolled into it when he got on the floor, we wouldn't have found it as soon as we did. I was irate! There was no doubt it was pee because it was yellow on his white shirt and it smelled horrible. She was no longer allowed in the house, but she and her mother had already decided that she would not see her dad anymore as long as he stayed with me. She didn't see him or talk to him again until she was a senior in high school. Guess what? She needed senior pictures paid for, and since she broke the ice and started talking to him again, he was more than happy to pay for them. She even told him the price of the whole package and he paid for it all. Over $280 and he got a 5x7 and a few wallets. I told him the pictures he got did not cost that much and that she gave him the whole package price and he said she informed him that was the price for the pictures he got. I told him he was crazy to believe that and he retorts with: she wouldn't lie to me. HA!
Now he is her personal ATM machine. I don't see this ending, but am entertaining thoughts of divorce. I have put up with this crap for 16 years and there is just no end to her manipulation and I can't seem to get him to see what she is doing to him and to us. She is his only child, which doesn't help, but I never would have married him had he more than one, seeing how spoiled she is. He doesn't think he is hurting her by giving in to her all the time. She calls, whining to him, over our lunchtime and dominates that time, she calls around suppertime, with more complaints: she doesn't feel good, she can't pay for this. Once at 10:30 at night, she expected him to drive 1.5 hours to come change the tire on HIS vehicle that he let her drive while hers was in the shop in OUR town (yes, he paid to have it fixed). So we were down to one vehicle: MINE. I just shook my head no. It was raining and late. She could call someone else. He told her he couldn't get there to help her, and guess what! She called him back in an hour and said it was fixed, that she called a boy in one of her classes to help. DUH! The time before that when she needed his vehicle because hers was 'broke down', she brought his vehicle back wrecked. Yes, he paid to fix her's then had to turn around and get his fixed. We were almost 3 weeks with only 1 vehicle. She was never compromised of a vehicle, but we were. We always end up on the short end when she is involved.
I could write a book, as could everyone else on here. We are in dire need of help for the enabling parents and manipulative adult children. If the parents don't wake up, they are going to be in so much debt, as WE are. The children will never change. Why would anyone change a good thing and one that WORKS!? I don't know that there is anything we, as the step parents (I hate to even be classified as that), can do other than live with it or get out of the situation. Any ideas on how to make him wake up and realize what is going on? He can see it in other people, but doesn't see he's enabling his own daughter. She is really going to be lost when he passes away........