Another poster said: "If it were me, I would pack my things and leave. "

Me too. And also, as another poster said, the problem is not the child it's the husband. He is woefully unaware of what the situation requires (a united front) and (in my sad experience) he won't listen if it's the wife who is trying to tell him they need a united front. He will tell himself it's just his wife's fault for not being loving and patient enough.

After she's gone and he has to deal with the situation, THEN he may turn to an expert or someone whose judgment he values (obviously not his wife) in desperation and believe the expert or other person...but, in my sad experience, he isn't going to listen to this wife about it.

I say cut your losses. Maybe later on the husband will get a clue, consult an expert, listen to someone else who knows what they're doing, and see that he's been handling the situation wrong. Maybe later on the husband will realize he was wrong and apologize to the wife. But in my sad experience she can be a saint and her husband *never* value her sainthood he can always go on thinking she's not being loving and patient enough because he doesn't know. Can you tell I've had a bad experience with something like this! I did have a bit of a similar experience and I was a *saint.* No one ever knew what a saint I was except the daughter who wrote me a nice letter years later. The guy? He didn't give a **** if I was a saint. He was too clueless to know the contribution I made. I was so out of there and yes I'm bitter.

Great posts from Nebraskagrrrl and Farnsworth.

It's a noble and brilliant idea to 'save' someone - but it's not always possible, and it's not always advisable.

Right now these two are not helping this girl. It doesn't help her in any way to see that she can 'edge out' a wife. It just reinforces her dysfunctional ideas about relationships and home life. If the LW and her husband can't sort this out between them then they ought to retire from the fray before the collateral damage from this girls life spreads out to include them.

Whatever happens I agree with Cary about the urgency of this situation and that the girl and her carers need help and assistance. Others have gone through this or are goign through this - I admire you, Nebraskagrrrl - and a lot of wisdom has been accumulated. Good luck.

...to me, the biggest alarm bell going off is the combination of the uncle and niece "acting like a couple" (to the extent of shutting out the uncle's wife) and the niece's past allegations of sexual abuse. God help them both, but it wouldn't be terribly surprising if there were another, seedier (to put it mildly) aspect of the uncle-niece relationship. Even if there isn't, the uncle's behavior in this situation is ten kinds of inappropriate and immature.

I also don't think it's the wife's job to "save this young woman's life". Sure, if she's an absolute saint, it's the altruistic thing to do, but so is selling all your possessions and giving the money to the poor. The niece was dumped into her life, the uncle and niece acted together to make her life utterly miserable, and SHE has to repay their betrayal with massive self-sacrifice? Not seeing it.

Letter writer, The advice you got from the columnist is wrong. It is all wrong. The business of saving people works like this: one at a time, and you start with yourself.

There will be no saving of this child until she learns that she is a child (IE you and your husband take control [ie he wakes up]), that she will be taken care of (ie you and your husband are adults, she is not, and you two will meet her needs), and that she can stop trying to wrest control out of the situation. Ie until your husband decides to start being a parent, not a friend, and lets you do the same.

Please read about reactive attachment disorder or other attachment disorders. You may recognize your husband's niece.

This child has been through a lot, I'm assuming. She certainly has a good command of manipulation. I'm raising a very challenging child who also comes from a traumatic background. She has tried to triangulate (set up conflicts between two out of three people in the triangle) many times, but my husband and I are a united front.

This little one needs a united front. She's currently getting away with this stuff and is learning from that that manipulation will get you what you want. The writer's husband should wake up and small the coffee. He and his wife need marriage counselling pronto and I hope to god the counsellor lets him know that he needs to be taking his wife's side and trusting her.

Once he becomes the primary caregiver by himself, instead of the wife, then the little one will spend her venom on him instead. Read up on Reactive Attachment Disorder and find out some fun facts.

A woman writes in to say that her husband has taken on a child with a past that has led her to be totally out of control. And he isn't doing anything to make the situation any better. on the contrary, he is enabling this child in her out-of-control behavior. He is pushing his own wife out of their marriage, and putting the child in her place.

The woman was not consulted about the situation. The woman is being punished for the child's behavior. The woman has lost her marriage and her home, and has gotten nothing in return for the exchange. She writes in to ask what she should do about her marriage and her home situation.

And Tennis tells her she should scoop up all the shit that has been raining down on her life, put it in a big bowl, and eat it.

I totally see the rationale behind wanting to save this child. But there are thousands, if not millions, of children whose lives need some responsible guardianship. This woman never signed up for any of this. It is cruelly unfair to act as if she should take responsibility for this broken life.

If you want my advice, poor Letter Writer, you need to give your husband an ultimatum: You or the niece. You may be willing to consume all the shit that Cary seems to think it is reasonable for you to consume. But even if you do, you need to make it clear to your husband that his current behavior is not in the child's best interests, in his best interests, and certainly not in your best interests. And if he refuses to begin acting like an adult, and like a parent to this child, then he is on his own.

If it were me, I would pack my things and leave. Your husband seems to have made his choice, and that choice doesn't include a place for you. Why should you take on years or decades of heartache for not foreseeable reward?

Go live your life. Find a man who isn't willing to take advantage of you to your extreme detriment.

And ignore Tennis' advice. Yes, it would theoretically be good and noble if you could actually help this girl. But why should he expect you to just give up you life that way? I don't think you should just give up your life. Your husband has given up your marriage.