You wouldn't be losing your marriage over a wishy-washy teenager, you'd be losing it over the fact that you and your needs are not as important to your H as his needs and his desire to avoid conflict with his child rather than step up, be a man and parent her. You'd be losing it over the fact that he'd rather blame you and disrespect you than deal with his responsibilities and failings.

I'm sure your SD is not pleasure cruise and because she's an adult, I wouldn't hold her completely blameless either. But a marriage is between two people, you and your husband and if HE chooses to allow certain behaviors, that's on him. She didn't take marriage vows, he did. And he sounds like a coward. It sounds like he really would rather end things with you than risk having princess mad at him because he held her accountable for anything.

So rather than worry about being made out to be bad guy, consider whether or not this is behavior you want to deal with for the rest of your life. Because even if she goes away to school or gets a job and apartment or whatever,guilty Daddy isn't going to change his spots. He will still allow her to disrespect you, will probably give her money behind your back, and will blame and shame you every time you have a problem with her behavior or his actions and reactions to her. You will constantly be accused of making him chose.

And when (sorry not seeing a big if here) it gets to the move out point, Don't screw yourself and move out of Your house. Throw his crap out and change the locks. He is making this happen, no matter how he tries to spin it or gaslight you. Unless he is willing to take responsilibility and set some boundaries and stop blaming you for his failings and punishing you for his fears, this is going to end badly. You love him, but you need to love yourself more fit now and protect yourself because he's making it by clear that protecting you is not his priority. It's marriage is not his priority. Living a life of the least resistance and least effort seems to be where his head is.

What Aeron said is it in a nutshell. So many women here myself included were so in love with our husbands and wanted nothing but the best for them. We desperately wanted them to be happy and encouraged and actively participated in helping THEIR RELATIONSHIP WITH THEIR KIDS. We all finished up living the same life as you are now.

She will be 19 may move away to school, and your hanging in hoping and praying, at some level just knowing it will all be different then. It won't. You see, she could move to Timbuktu and that would not change your husbands feelings for her one iota. She could spit in his face and he'd excuse it and try even harder to make her like him. Your DH is your real problem.

So you know. My husbands daughter is in her thirties now. She went so far as to get pregnant to get daddy to herself. She thought her baby would be so special to daddy he'd dump me and go running to her. When she gave birth to the nuclear weapon she actually told daddy, if you want to see it, leave her. Her of course being me. That child is two, he hasn't seen it and he is in counselling and on antidepressants. He would even after that and many other appalling things she has said to him, have her back in his life in a heartbeat. The only thing that stops him is I will NEVER bring that evil back into my life again. She told him to choose her or me and now i agree with her. She will never accept me and I'm good with that. But I will never accept a husband who puts the demands of a grown woman who is a selfish, spoilt, nasty, egotistical, narcissistic brat with an over inflated sense of entitlement over mine. A husband who expects daughter to come first last and foremost all the time, is not for me. I would rather lose my husband now than myself.

This woman, well my DH actually, in catering to this woman has caused a huge problem in our marriage sure, but I have at least come to my senses, developed some self esteem and finally saw, she wasn't making me sick. DH was. He in demanding his daughter get it all her way to make her happy, betrayed me. After all of this, even though he hasn't seen her in two years, as I said, he hasn't changed one little bit. He'd bring her back here tomorrow if he thought there was a snowballs chance in hell I'd play nice. Never going to happen.

Did he choose me over her, hell no. He chose me because he was looking after himself. He knows his daughter just wants him for what he can give and do for her, she cannot look after herself and no way in hell would she ever look after him. So at 65, he's decided better stay with the strong independent wife who is capable of looking after me, than going to the self centred daughter who expects to be looked after.

He won't change, you have too. Either put up with it, or stand up and be counted. DH feels caught in the middle, yeah, they ALL say that. Don't fall for it. He refused to stand up and support his wife, he chose his daughters happiness over yours, and you loved him enough to stay. If he'd done that to his daughter, she'd be gone in a minute, he knew that, so HE put himself in the middle, that way he thought he'd keep both of you. If he feels so trapped, and caught in the middle, well he can choose to get off that fence he's been sitting on for years and choose a side, or you can push him off the fence over to her and choose for him. Either way a decision will be made and YOU will feel far better for it.

Oh yes lucky momee, after 8 years of blaming me, of saying, he didn't hear her say that, he didn't see her do that, he can't remember that, your just looking for something wrong with her all the time, you don't like her, you don't want me to have a relationship with her and blah, blah, blah. He had the nerve to say in counselling a few weeks ago that HE DID KNOW WHAT HIS DAUGHTER WAS DOING, BUT - He didn't want to say anything to her, because he WANTED HER TO LIKE HIM.

Well, that worked well for him didn't it. Now she doesn't like him, but that's nothing new, she never did, and I don't think too much of him either. He put me through hell, made me think I was going mad, and all along he knew exactly what she was doing.

It is sad, because I was besotted by him. He was the love of my life, my soulmate, I used to be so excited to see him come home. He took all that away. Still, on the plus side, he may have squashed the special spark out of existence, but in its place I have filled the gap with self respect, self esteem and a "healthy" love of self. I never ever loved myself, I always put others especially DH first, never worried about me. Now, I realise that in having no respect for myself, in never caring about having my needs met ( if he was happy, I was happy), I taught him it was okay to just ignore my feelings, needs, wants and desires, why not, I did.

He knows what his daughter is like, but she is his daughter . As a mother of 3, I get it. No matter what our kids do we still love them. BUT, in DHs case, the problem isn't that he still loves her, it's that to this day he would STILL IGNORE her behaviour, still not acknowledge it, still not address it, because that's who he is. It is partly cultural with him, part ignorance, part laziness. The Italian way is to pretend the family is perfect, that the children respect the father, and never to admit your child has flaws. Lie if you have to, do whatever it takes to keep up the act. He will never change. That is why I had to.

The only winner in the end was me. I found myself, I grew, I aquired confidence and I realised I mattered. I am stronger now than I have ever been. I'm not angry, I'm not bitter or resentful anymore, I have accepted that there is something wrong with my husbands thinking, his behaviour towards his daughter was certainly not in her best interests, lets be honest, his failure to parent his daughter has cost his daughter her father. I believe my husband has a personality disorder and if runs right through his family. But that personality disorder will never destroy me again. My husbands sense of self, of self preservation, of looking after himself first, I believe lets him see that I have grown stronger, he knows he has lost his power over me, for the first time ever I think he is afraid. But again it is all about him being worried about him. People like this really are incapable of change. I understand that. So I had to find a way to make sure I survived the narcissist in him. The best way to do that was to care about me first him second.

Good tjio, because he won't make the decision, he doesn't want to look look like the bad guy. He wants you to be the bad guy. That's how these men are.

When the day finally came that I said no more SD in my home, I told my husband tell her. He didn't. She arrived on my doorstep, I saw them pull up the driveway and immediately went to DH. I told him she was here, he could tell her she wasn't welcome here anymore as I was never going to put up with her abuse again, or I'd do it for him. I nearly fell over from shock when he said YOU DO IT. Now his gutlessness wasn't what shocked me, I was stunned to think anyone would allow someone else to tell their child you are never to come back here. I could never have put my children in that position. But he did. I guess I was shocked by just how selfish he truly was. He was prepared to let that happen to her, he was prepared for ME to ban her so I would be the bad guy not him. He put her in that position because he was trying to make himself look good. Act like he had nothing to do with it, it was all me. I think you have a husband like mine. He won't change. He won't make decisions, and while I get that you are doing the right thing in trying to allow your husband to do the right thing, to step up be a man and a father to his daughter. I think he can't do it. You are just dragging out the inevitable, you will have to deal with this in the end, so don't waste too much more time putting up with this and waiting for him to man up, He is incapable. That's just how it is.

One more thing. Know your enemy.

My husbands daughter I thought knew NOTHING about her father. In fact when she was pregnant and trying to use the pregnancy to get daddy back, she was talking about naming the baby if it was a boy. She clearly not liking her fathers obviously Italian name, comes out with, dad your middle name is Joseph isn't it. Well, no it's not, he doesn't have one and at the age of 29 you'd think she'd know that. But nope, amongst a billion other everyday things she didn't know about him, that was but one. But I missed something. In thinking she was too self absorbed to know anything about anyone daddy included, which was 99% right, I missed something. She knew him better than I did in one very important area.

She knew my husband was weak, that he was easily manipulated, that he only saw things the way he wanted them to be, not as they truly where. She knew she could use and abuse not only me, but him as well, and he'd ignore it because he wouldn't like that and he'd pretend it wasn't happening. She knew that long before me. She played her fathers weakness well. She failed however to see my strengths.

Remember these women have lived with daddy all their lives, they have been manipulating daddy and playing on his weaknesses since the were little girls. You won't change how they have been conditioned since birth. You won't make your husband admit to it because he knows it, but he wants to hide the fact that his daughter plays him so he will deny, deny, deny. You can only manage this by taking control of your own life and making good decisions for you. Your husband can then decide to follow you, or stay with his daughter. You don't get to control his choice. But you do get to take action that's in your best interests, and if that hastens his needing to make a choice, well too bad.

I am really sorry for everyone who has been through this. Collectively we seem to come with some of the answers but some of the experiences are just sad for us as wives. I do not think parents need to sacrifice the chance to love and be loved in partnership.

Have you read Step Monster by Wednesday Martin? I found it helpful. My situation sounds similar to all of yours in quite a number of ways. The willing blindness of the father which hurts not just us but ultimately the child.

Also with disengaging. I find it works when I really can switch off. As soon as I let the craziness creep under my skin or try to communicate about it to my DH it all goes wrong. As a woman disengaging is hard because we do care about children.

Question? Why are these SDs so desperate and focussed on their Daddys? I wasn't. I loved my dad but never assumed that I was entitled to lots of his time or money. At 17, I had a busy social life, full-time job on the holidays, boyfriend, licence, saved for a car and to fund myself overseas. My 17 year old SD has no interest in any of those. Where we have pushed her hard she has done bits we ask for. Has anyone figured it out? Is it the imbalance of the divorce ring them too much power over Daddy and Mummy? Is that like a drug or something? I just don't get it. Why not just get on with their own lives? It seems unfair to me, we provide comfort, money, support and just want a bit of independence in return.

I love the following from Emotionally Beat Up.

"She knew him better than I did in one very important area.

She knew my husband was weak, that he was easily manipulated, that he only saw things the way he wanted them to be, not as they truly were. She knew she could use and abuse not only me, but him as well, and he'd ignore it because he wouldn't like that and he'd pretend it wasn't happening. She knew that long before me. She played her fathers weakness well. She failed however to see my strengths.

Remember these women have lived with daddy all their lives, they have been manipulating daddy and playing on his weaknesses since the were little girls. You won't change how they have been conditioned since birth. You won't make your husband admit to it because he knows it, but he wants to hide the fact that his daughter plays him so he will deny, deny, deny. You can only manage this by taking control of your own life and making good decisions for you. Your husband can then decide to follow you, or stay with his daughter. You don't get to control his choice. But you do get to take action that's in your best interests, and if that hastens his needing to make a choice, well too bad."

This describes my situation perfectly. I love the hopefulness in the message as well. I have to lead. I guess I have been figuring that out. it is much healthier. Let the other games play out.

Fresh start, that's it in a nutshell. Move on and leave them to play their games. Things turnaround mighty quickly when you, the punching bag remove yourself from front and centre of their self centred madness. Life can be good, we get so caught up in "their" dramas we forget that. Let them play, move on and live your life in happiness and normality. It's far better and healthier that way. When they don't have you caring or your attention, the game suddenly isn't as much fun.