This article touched a raw nerve. I had a similar experience with my own daughter. She was also 13, out of control, not going to school even though she was a brilliant student,being very oppositional, etc. We consulted with many psychiatrists and psychologists, who all recommended that she be sent to a therapeutic boarding school. My life, like that of the woman in this article, had become a living hell. I looked to a therapeutic school as the chance for my daughter to get "her act" together and for us to try to repair the family difficulties with the school's help.

My husband would have none of it. He decided that the problems in our home were all my fault. He sided with my daughter in casting me as the villain. It became a case of the two of them against me. He tried to convince me to leave our home for the "good of the family." When he did this, I finally realized that we didn't have a marriage and I initiated divorce proceedings. In the meantime, he allowed our daughter to drop out of school (at the age of 14). I could go on, but it was completely downhill from there. The only good thing to come out of this is that I got divorced and away from an abusive, irrational man who had made my life miserable.

My daughter is now 22, living in NYC through the financial support of my ex. She was admitted to Columbia University, even though she only had a GED, because of her brilliance. However, because she had never confronted or resolved her emotional problems she didn't last a semester. She is still in NYC, doing nothing that I know of, still supported in this by her father. She refuses to have any contact with me.

The point of my story is that the woman in the article has NO chance of succeeding with her niece unless she has the full backing of her husband. They must work as a team. If he instead sides with his niece against his wife, it is only a (short) matter of time before their marriage blows up. Perhaps it is heading that way anyway, but it's foolish of your columnist to tell the wife to "hang in there" and keep at it without the partnership and support of her husband. And you have completely dismissed the misery of this woman's life. She cannot be expected to continue to live with this misery when her husband is working against her instead of with her. Take the word of one who's been there!

Cary's advice is way off base.

LW, you and your husband are in a very dangerous position - and you need to get yourself out of the situation as fast as you can!

Allie's advice is much more sound than Cary's. Just my take on it - but I'm thinking of your safety and security first, not what's 'moral' by Cary's idealistic reasoning.

GSC

You probably need couple therapy, family therapy and the girl needs her own. If you can get the same therapist, to do it all, it might help.

The number one reason you need a therapist is the danger other readers have cited: If the girl makes accusations that have legal consequences for you or your husband, a therapist who has worked with you and the girl should be a very crucial witness for you.

Your husband has a great heart, but he appears to know nothing about parenting and he's now parenting an extremely difficult, manipulative, needy child. He stinks at it. He needs to learn how to help the girl. I can't imagine that if you give him an ultimatum, you or the girl, that he will choose you and not bitterly regret it.

Do you want to give him up because he can't abandon a family member who desperately needs help? That's the question you need to ask yourself. Is that the person you are? Is that the person he is? Is that the person you want to be? Or you want him to be?

You're at your wit's end, get help, but think hard before you take everyone's advice and ditch your husband because his heart's not two sizes too small.

At this point it's hard to know who is more disturbed -- the kid or the husband, and it is impossible to know what the relationship between them actually is.

The LW needs to get out of there right away and put some distance between herself and the Twilight Zone. She has already gotten sucked into that craziness too far and is basically under the thumb of the girl, with her husband's consent. Whether or not there is anything romantic or sexual between the husband and girl, it's a perverted situation.

Once LW is safely out of the house she needs to contact Children's Services so that they can ascertain what the relationship is between the girl and the husband. And then take it from there.

CT's advice that the LW stay there and try to fix the girl is insane.

I normally love reading Cary Tennis and I have frequently been amazed at his insights and his humanity.

But on this one he is largely wrong.

His advice on this one was - in all its earnest humanity - a prescription for guilt, sorrow and heartbreak all wrapped in the cocoon of "You can help this kid. You are what she needs in the world."

First, "Caught in a Bad Situation" is not going to be receptive to this because in his desire to help the kid, Mr. Tennis has failed to deal with the more important relationship - the husband.

This situation exists in large measure because of his actions - not the girl's. If this woman and her husband had a strong stable relationship and some experience in child-rearing, maybe Mr. Tennis's advice would be solid.

But this woman can't be expected to help this girl when the husband is enabling the bad behaviors to the detriment of his marriage to her..

Second, Mr. Tennis has failed to appreciate that this woman is in a dangerous situation with an obviously unstable 13 year-old girl. The potential for this woman to wind up arrested based on false accusations - let alone physically abused by either the girl or her husband - is already obviously very high. Pooh-poohing this in the name of "helping the child" is deluded and misguided.

Third, Mr. Tennis's assertion that "she is not at fault. She is a child." would be laughable if this were not such a sad case.

As a parent of two boys - the oldest 12 - you will do this 13 year-old girl no favors by adopting the notion that her outrageous behaviors are "not her fault."

Are the behaviors immature? Certainly. Are they enabled? Absolutely. Are they her fault? If she were 5, maybe not. But she is 13. Accepting responsibility for the consequences of ones actions are a critical part of this age AND the years leading up to it.

I appreciate what Mr. Tennis is trying to do. Unfortunately, he is wildly off the mark in giving advice that will leave "Caught in a Bad Situation" even more dangerously exposed - emotionally, legally and physically - than she already is.

This advice was far too facile and ignored the complex dynamics at work here. For all Mr. Tennis's insights, though, I'm surprised he missed what appears to be going on here.

The husband wants to be a father. The niece is the daughter he never had. "Caught in a Bad Situation", on the other hand, has become very aware that her husband would be a perfectly awful dad and an even worse parenting partner. She is re-examining her marriage goals and commitments in terms of his behavior - not the niece's.

This isn't about "abandoning the child" - others may (or may not) have done that already and it's apparent that the husband has done anything but abandon the girl.

In any case, it's wrong of Mr. Tennis to lay a "don't abandon the child" trip on "Caught in a Bad Situation" while being glib about all the other things that need to happen to make it possible for this woman to do just that.