Dear Cary: You want this woman to act like a bloody saint while a troubled teenager has taken over her house and her husband.

Speaking of her husband, he seems to have thrown his wife over and succumbed to the siren song of this young Lolita. He has behaved badly, but you've skimmed over his behavior completely.

My advice to her would be to leave. Her husband has turned on her and neither he nor Lolita seem to want her around.

So leave, LW. Leave the two of them to their own devices. They'll probably wind up having a sexual relationship, and who knows where that'll end up.

Not your problem. The two of them have turned on you and made your life a living hell. So dump them. Start anew somewhere. Take what resources you have, find someone to stay with temporarily, and start a new life.

There's a fine line between being a saint and a punching bag; you've crossed that line. Get out while you can, and let the two of them have the relationship they so obviously want.

Cary, that was very compassionate advice on how this LW can help save a troubled child. I can't disagree. However, the husband is wildly wrong in this case, and your admonition that he be warned about the emotional turmoil of this young girl was woefully inadequate.

The LW needs to grab her husband by the balls, figuratively if not literally, and read him the riot act. Tell this creep that he is fast becoming a pedophile. Remind him that he is an adult man married to this woman, and if he wants to stay married, he had better shape up immediately. Otherwise, he will be left alone with his 13 year-old object of desire (and that's exactly what's going on: this guy is fantasizing about the possibilities).

Yes, there is a troubled child who needs saving, but where is the justice in sacrificing the life of the LW for the life of this child? Saving this child must be a joint effort of the LW and her husband. Unless he gets his head on straight, the LW should leave him.

Cary,

ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND? This woman is being emotionally abused by her husband, compounded by the arrival of this niece. She needs help!

Her husband has developed a very unhealthy relationship with this girl, and if it hasn't already become sexual, it is at the very least sexualized. This child does not need further exploitation!

Telling this woman she should tap into her "compassion" to care for this child is adding guilt on top of her confusion and pain. She is being abused. The family is in a dangerous situation. She must seek help. They must find an appropriate placement for this child.

Dear LW...You had a good intention when you suggested that your husband help out his brother's daughter. Then it all fell apart. Why? Because this 13-yr-old (13 is the new 20, by the way) is way beyond the tools in your toolkit. You don't mention that you have children of your own, so you may have no experience..really..in teenage mood swings, let alone severe traumatization. While you meant well, your house has become just another battleground in this young girl's life. You never meant that to happen, but it did. And your husband is clueless and maybe not well-intentioned.

Get help immediately, for yourself first. Without you saving yourself, without your own psychological survival, neither you or your husband will be able to help this young girl to save herself. She has to be taught to save herself through the imposition of limits, consequences ('if you do this, then this will happen'), warmth, love and consequences with follow-through. Did I mention loving consequences? It's rotten that you have to be the strong one but you seem to be the only candidate. You're being steamrollered by your husband but you have to lead the way because you seem to be the only one doing any thinking.

I would suggest starting with any services offered by the school, if you belong to any religious group then go there, and then get yourself to one of the 12-step groups designed for family members of out-of-control people or kids. The right 12-step group can help you by letting you know you are not alone, this has happened to others, and the group will share their experiences and strengths with you. Your life needs to be saved, too.

Cary is way off on this one.

Sorry, I don't mean to be flip. It is a really moving letter. The pitch is pretty frantic to begin with.

_Allie, I've always enjoyed your perspective, and now I have even more respect for you.

As a former Child Protective Services case manager, however, I'm going with nefariousmuse on this one. The bond between the adults in this scenario has been deeply fractured, and it stinks in an all too familiar way. Unfortunately, childhood sexual abuse is so common that "where there's smoke, there's fire," most certainly should be heeded. Whether or not the husband is actually molesting the girl, this is certainly headed in the wrong direction. The LW needs to take bold action, without question. Get to safety and negotiate from there, if indeed there can be any negotiating.

It may sound terrible cynical. It may be true that the girl and the husband are bonding over shared pain that the wife cannot understand, but that is only part of the story. As another poster pointed out, kids like this do not know appropriate boundaries, and believe me you would be shocked to find out how many otherwise respectable, grown men will cross that line even though they know it is wrong wrong wrong. That there is conspiratorial intimacy going on between the girl and the husband, is obvious, and that should be enough for this woman to leave, but trust me, here, the risk is incredibly high that there is something more going on, or about to go on.