You obviously have not dealt with your own pain, if you think you can just take someone in who is in emotional pain and the fact that they have all the trappings of a good life means that the pain will go away.

Look at how much pain you are in, multiply that, and you can now understand what her inner life is like. The behavior is bad, but you cannot deal with the bad behavior at the level of the behavior, when you're talking about emotional pain. Well, you *can,* but it is ineffective.

You think you have to "eat it?" What about her? She didn't ask for all this pain to be heaped upon her, and now she gets shuffled to another house where she is expected to play-act, to "get with the program."

I'm not trying to be rude, I'm just trying to illuminate the actual problem. Because people can run around for years, lifetimes, wondering why surface actions don't solve deeply rooted problems. The time for naivete (sp?) has passed.

She needs to be heard. She needs someone to see the real her, because believe me, there is a huge amount of shame and desperation going on in there. Try, if you can, to get away from what "should be" and focus on what "is."

You are the adult. You are the elder. You are the bringer of wisdom. Don't like it? Well, sorry, that's what you signed up for.

leave soon. leave now.

I am disturbed by the tone of some of the posters here. This girl is not an evil Jezebel. She's a kid - an angry, emotionally ravaged little creature - who wanted to see how far she could push the boundaries.

If you guys want to be angry at anyone - be angry at the husband. This girl's behaviour might be inappropriate, but as the adult, the husband bears the responsibility. Right now, he's acting like an immature fool - at best. At worst, there is something even more sinister going on.

The pain of losing family will screw up anyone's life for a good long while, but there's no excuse for subsequently taking that pain out on a child.

I know that the mainstream media just loves to push the image of the seductive Lolita sex kitten on us all - but if you've actually read Lolita, you will remember that she was the victim - a little girl who got in way over her head, and was trapped due to the fact that she lost her family (what a coincidence, eh?). Even Humbert Humbert admitted as much in the end (not that this made him any less of a selfish "pentapod monster" still living in a gruesome fantasy world).

Who knows what will happen to the LW's niece? She might become a sociopath. Or she might win the Nobel Prize one day. Or live a perfectly ordinary, decent existence.

Don't write this girl off. The LW might have to, if only because of her husband's bizarre and dangerous behaviour, but as for the rest of us? Where do we get off blaming her for what is going on?

Take the manipulative little brat to Nebraska and drop her off.

You have to start getting through to the husband. Doing all the journaling and talking with the cops thing in the emotionally charged atmosphere dynamics is dangerous. It's likely to backfire and the blowback will be earthshaking. Yours, not hers.

Yes she is scared and probably frightened but you can't deny the idea that she knows damn well she is 'plugged into her uncle' and mainlining her bullshit, and enjoying it too. It's a powertrip and she freaking well knows it. In her powerless life, she has POWER and you don't.

Unless and until she can reconnect with her husband and get him to realize that he is being played, there is nothing here to 'fix'.

My sister is twined with her father, he gives her money, cars and even a house. She pisses most of it away on a live-in 'boyfriend' that had a stroke and can't work and throws her out ever two weeks in a fit of mental instability. She came to stay with us once and it lasted a week. The lying and secrecy was unbearable. Yes, it's good and a 'christian thing to do' to help people but bringing a thermonuclear device into your home doesn't make sense.

It sounds like the marriage wasn't very strong and the added weight of the girl has caused the spinning to become more erratic. If that's all it took then there wasn't much stability to begin with. As I said, opening your lives to someone who needs the help is a good thing but allowing yourself to be used and abused by that person is just stupid.

I'd recommend getting yourself (to the woman) set for a major life change. Stash money and see who's name is on things like the car. Hell, buy a used car and keep it in your name. Then, when you've got yourself set and somewhat protected, give an ultimatum. Her or me. Or maybe phrase it as 'start seeing the damage that you are allowing her to do to the relationship or I'm outta here'. Use a little more tact but you get the idea. Her power trip over your husband has got to be over or else it will get worse. They are now teamed up against you. Now is the time to decide: Ultimatum or jump. You can't continue to live like that and the bitch, excuse me, the child of satan, needs to be brought down to reality. Coddling the monster isn't going to work. The wounds in your marriage might be too deep now to resolve. Keep that in mind...

OK, this is a creepy situation, but let's look at things objectively.

1) You don't know for a fact if she has been molested or not. I know that you are supposed to believe a child when they make such an accusation, but the ease with which she's made accusations at school and at home about you and god knows who else makes me wonder how true that is. It might well be true - repeated, serial molestation might be the root of her problems.

2) Everyone, please... step back for a second. There's no evidence that this girl has been molested in any way by your husband. It's creepy, yes. Inappropriate? Yes. But molestation? Let's let the pros decide that one.

Maybe it's my misfortune, having grown up in the white trash ghetto of a white trash town, but I am actually not shocked in the least to read something like this letter. The white trash I was raised amongst was the trash that was so trashy the rest of the town didn't want it within city limits, so it chucked it over the river into its own little principality of Yeehaw. I've known 13 & 14 yr old girls whose mothers welcomed them dropping out of school because it meant they could pay for their own smokes, and who were happy to see their daughters living with jailbird boyfriends 8 or 9 yrs older than they were because it meant that it cut down on the mother's food bills.

I got the sinking feeling whilst reading your letter that you've taken this girl and her problems on board without fully understanding the rules of the particular tribe she's been raised in for the last 12 plus years.

So, here's my perspective. The girl has probably been raised in a similar sort of haphazard fashion to the 13 & 14 yr olds I've mentioned. She's the child of a one night stand... and doubtless knows it. How good do you think that makes her feel about herself? She needs more attention and security than your average kid, and she has figured out two very effective ways of getting them. She has figured out that the fastest way to either get attention or to get an adult to do what she wants is to threaten them with the authorities or to pour on the sexual/saviour charm. Hence the lies, hence the "no one but you can save me" stuff with your husband. If there was no attention or power benefit, she'd stop the lies. But because there are actual cases of horrific molestation and abuse, thankfully, for those kids out there who have been molested, the investigations will continue.

I don't know if the girl is being molested by your husband or being groomed, or has sexualised the situation because of her age and what's happened to her in the past. That's for the professionals to determine. And you need a raft of them. She's making accusations about abuse that have been investigated and dismissed? Call the people who did the investigating and talk to them about what's happening in your house. The lies, the accusations, your sense of dread and fear, and your best intentions and hopes for the situation. See what they recommend. If she's cried wolf a number of times, there will definitely be an argument for her (and her living situation) to be assessed. She may well be taken away from you. There may be all sorts of shit that hits the fan in terms of accusations directed by her at you and your husband.

Starting now (and definitely while the pros are investigating), I'd have other people stop by the house and sit with you on the nights you're alone with this kid. Explain what's going on to them. Most people will back you up. She claims you smacked her? In front of whom? Unless your husband believes that everyone you know is lying along with you and is in some secret cabal of abuse, the penny will drop. And if he actually believes that, well, the professionals will sort him out, too.

There's a temptation with kids to think that all they need is fresh air, stability and love and all will be well. That's true, most of the time. Some of the time, though, it isn't. Sometimes, you just didn't get there in time. You might, possibly, be there again. But you can't take her to a place she doesn't seem to want to know.

And your husband... OK... maybe, just maybe, they share a bond of grief? He lost his brother, she lost her dad. Maybe he's guilty about the girl's past and his noninvolvement and doesn't know how to cope. No excuse for him to start shouting at you about crazy things you've allegedly done... particularly when you've made it clear that you're avoiding your niece because her claims are psychotic or cynically manipulative. Either way, again, time for the pros.