Disengaging from the dysfunction is the only way in the end. Most of us spend years turning ourselves inside out trying to make it work. Eventually we become so stressed and anxious we make ourselves physically ill.

A year ago last August I was at the point where I did not care if the marriage ended. I saw no reason to stay married to a man who felt that I should sit back and allow his daughter to isolate, ignore, humiliate and insult me, while my husband sat back and by his failure to address it, was actually encouraging it.

So I banned his little Princess from my home, and told DH he was welcome to go with her.

It was not pleasant for a few weeks, but then he seemed to settle down and was actually happier in himself. SD seems to sense when he is getting his act together and of course phoned him to drag him down again. This up and down ride went on for a while. Eventually I confronted him on it and said I wasn't prepared to live with the mood swings. I'd send him off to work a happy camper. SD would ring him through the day, and home would come this bad tempered angry pig, who could not hide his contempt for me. I told him I had given him the opportunity to go live with SD a few months earlier and HE made the choice to stay. However he could not stay and make my life a misery. I would not put up with abuse from his daughter and I would not put up with it from him. I again gave him the opportunity to enc the marriage ammicably and he could go live with his daughter. He stayed. Once again things settled down, and whilst I could always tell when he had spoken to her, he did try very hard to hide his moods.

Despite having nothing to do with SD for a year, she was unbeknown to me, working behind the scenes to cause problems with FIL.

Last August almost a year to the day that I banned her. Her boyfriend approached me in the SC Car park and told me my FIL had given him and SD permission to cine to my home and instructions to "just ignore" me.

That encounter ripped me apart. I thought I had a close relationship with FIL. over the years it was me he came to for help. Not my DH not his daughters, and certainly not SD. SD in fact had barely spoken to him in 10 years. She didn't even tell him she was pregnant. Her baby was 2 weeks old before she rang him to let him know she had a child. Now here he was supporting his blood and throwing me to the wolves.

I had of course noticed his attitude towards me over that last 12 months had clearly deteriorated, and that day boyfriend let be know why. SD had been crying to FIL and presenting herself as a victim to him. FIL stood by his prodigal granddaughter.

This encounter with SDs boyfriend was too much. I was absolutely gutted. My husband true to form did nothing. He refused to speak to his father, his daughter or get boyfriend. In fact he wanted me to just forget it.

That was the turning point for me. I completely disengaged from his entire family. But I realized something. Although I had disengaged from Sd a year earlier I never really felt comfortable with it. I felt bad that things had turned out like that. I felt bad for my DH. I always saw things through his eyes and felt some guilt about the mess.

Now after that encounter with the boyfriend I am guilt free. I handle everything differently. I no longer take so much as a look from DH without asking what the look was for. I have my children and grandchildren in my home whenever I want. I used to feel guilty when they were here because his were not. When DH eventually made it clear he wasn't happy with MY grand kids spending do much time here I made no bones about bringing up the reasons mine were here and his were not. I was no longer afraid to remind him that it was HIS DAUGHTER who had issued the ultimatum to him that if he wanted to see his grandchild he had to leave me. I do not bring her up in conversation at all. However if DH makes noises in regards to my family and us resentful of our closeness I am not afraid to remind him WHY we are in this situation.

This change in be has come about because I am guilt free. I used to say I didn't deserve to be treated so badly by DH and SD. I used to think it wasn't right and it wasn't fair. But now it's more than a thought or a feeling. Now KNOW I don't deserve it. Now I really believe it. Now thanks to boyfriend giving me the key to the door out of this family, I am finally free to see things more clearly. My DHs family have personality disorders in varying degrees running right through it. I was never going to win. In fact remaining there hoping things would get better would have sent be to an early grave.

Now it is all on DH. He can live with it. He can ignore it or he can turn his back on it. But he cannot take any if it out on me. Now thankfully he seems to be getting that message.

I think the way you ignored the bait your husband threw at you and gave him the cell phone to sort it out himself was brilliant. Step away from and out of their mess and dysfunction, let your husband kill or feed the monster he created, and feel no guilt about handing all the responsibility for fixing up his mess back to where it belongs. With him.

It can get better. But first you really do have to disengage, not just physically but from your heart and you have to be guilt free.

At the moment things are good. But a phone call from Sd could change that for DH. But not for me. I no longer get sucked into the vortex. DH I suspect will not continue to go through this on his own. While I am not part of his dysfunctional family they cannot throw their spears at me. That only leaves DH as their target. DH created all of this because he is basically selfish. That selfishness will be the reason he too will eventually walk away from it. For now he stays because of his Italian guilt upbringing. His father is 89 and not well. Once his father goes. DH will I suspect become his own man. But whatever happens. My future and my happiness are no longer dependent on DH. I am happy within myself. This 10 year nightmare has given me a new found confidence, has allowed me to develop a sense of self esteem and self worth. It has allowed me to grow and to learn. In many ways I am grateful for the experience. Without it I would still be the ever loving ever serving lap dog I was raised to be, instead of the woman I have become.

My husbands daughter is the same. I do not understand though how our husbands are so keen to enable their daughters that they will sit their and allow these women to lie about their brothers, our husbands sons. What I see us they have given all their pride and loyalty to these sick women and there is none left for anyone else. Not their wives not their sons. Very sad state of affairs because there are no winners here. Especially the daughters they are trying to put up in pedestals. Everyone hates their daughters.

Nothing new there. My husbands daughter has made it known she wants to see us both dead. Didn't stop her asking for a new car. Accepting a new washing machine for her new house then hinting for a fridge. Some 3 years ago the company my husband worked for closed down. Sd asked if he had been paid out. He said he had 7 months wages paid to him. Now the worst part of this is she had only just been told he had prostrate cancer. Knowing all if this. She did not ask how he was. No, she asked about the money, then said good. Now you can buy me a boat. I've always wanted a boat.

Nothing on this site is unbelievable to me after having known my husbands daughter. NOTHING.

Yep EBU, mine too. Never asked how dear old dad was or his cancer. Just bitching front and back of seven pages of how he abandoned her for me.(she is 32 and married) and the other one wrote 4 pages single typed spaces of how she hates me and he should grow balls and leave me.(that one is married also with 3 kids) Never once said how are you doing, do you need chemo, radiation etc. Funny thing is, they saw their own mother die of cancer so you think they could pull one little urge of empathy for him. That is very creepy. He raised them alone for 9 years, never went out, was there every second of every day for them. Didn't marry me until they were all out of the house. That's the reward he gets for being a true full time dad. So sick.

She's driving me. My husband said nothing at all when she asked fir the boat. Not one word. The room just fell into an embarrassed silence. Then she piped up again and started telling him she was getting $2000 back in her taxes. So I suggested she take that money and buy her father a boat. Again no one said a word this was not the first time and not the last this crap came out if her mouth.

Towanda, these 3 idiots had just lost their mother. Yes you would think they'd get the value if life wouldn't you. But this evil bitch only thinks if what's in it for her when people die. Hence her new found attraction to FIL. He is 89.

The mother died from a build up of fluid around the heart. She went to bed and just died at 63. The daughter who lived with her is a nurse. Yet the mother never saw a doctor for this chest infection. Seems she had been sick for weeks. Then dad has surgery for prostate cancer they cane into the hospital the night of the surgery and while he was still out to it sat around and had Friday night drinks. She and the middle brother had mixed vodka with a lemon sift drink and whisky with coke and sat in that room drinking. They never visited him again in hospital and the oldest son never came in at all. That is how they treated their father 4 months after their mother died.

Yes shesdrivingme, and I am thrilled to say I am strong enough now to make a decision to not have people like her in my life. She is my husbands daughter. That is unfortunate. But being my husbands daughter does not mean I have to have her in my life. He may very well love her in spite of the fact she wants us both dead. I on the other hand feel nothing for her. I choose not to have her in my life because I know the things she is capable of and that is the only reason. She is not my cup of tea. I don't love her, I don't hate her, I just don't like the person she is and with her as with any other person I felt uncomfortable around, I choose not to have her around. I feel much better for that.

I agree these women do have personality disorders I think mine has NPD and Borderline Personality Disorder. Two GPs over the years and one Clinical Psycholigist have warned me to stay from her and they didn't know the half of it.

My husband's daughter has no friends, and she thinks that's because people are jealous of her. She thinks she is beautiful, and she is very plain, she thinks she has the best house in the street, and even my husband said he didn't like the house at all. The inside is a bit of a dogs breakfast and the outside is really bland. When they moved in the house across the road was finished and the front garden done. She copied every bit of that garden, and then said, our garden looks so good the neighbour across the road has copied it. I think by that stage she had convinced herself that's what happened. She took full credit for desigining her garden all by herself, although she and her brother (who lives there), did not lift a finger, it was all left to the boyfriend to do. But the worst thing of all, is she had nothing nice to say about those people because they copied her garden. Totally insane.

She has a vicious temper and I think that what happened in this family is, she is the only girl, and she got away with murder, when she lashed out in temper and attacked her brothers DH thought it was funny. I know this because before I ever met her he told me one day, and he was laughing about it then. Now the brothers I suspect are terrified of her and tow the line. Daddy still thinks she is a little girl and can do no wrong, she threatend to jump out of a moving car one night, - why? Because she was screaming at boyfriend because he did not hate and myself the way she did, and according to him, as soon as he said, look, they have both treated me nicely, so I have no reason to hate them, she opened the door and (pretended is my thought) to jump out. Well she sure as hell scared boyfriend, he never disagreed with her again.

She like your SD felt that daddy should show her unconditional love and he should demand others do to. There was never a time when she came here that she at some point during the visit did not tell daddy "I am YOUR DAUGHTER" you should do this, you should say that, you should give me, give me, give me. She felt that as his daughter she had special rights, more special than her brothers, and as for this wife, well I was nothing and she was constantly reminding him of that.

A few years ago we installed a peep hole in the front door. It was done the same day her boyfriend came around here to WARN DH and myself that he feared for my safety. He felt she could really do me harm. The minute he left I told DH we were going to the hardware store and getting a peep hole so I could see who was at the door before I opened it. You know what he said...............Don't be stupid, he's a liar.

These women are what they are, but their fathers have a lot to answer for.

I hated it when the princess would withhold herself from daddy and not call him. Because for years he did take it out on me. Ah! The games she played.

I have a feeling he sooner stick forks in his eyes than do that now. He knows I will not go back to being that doormat of a wife he used to have. I will not be anyone's emotional garbage can. He can take his temper out on the person/s who are causing the grief.

next time, tell her, "your father's WIFE will now tell him his kid wants to ask him for something." }:)

Yep I'm with forgotten wife on that one. }:) My husband's daughter used to say is MY FATHER there, she would come to the door and when I opened it.........is MY Father there. At first I didn't pick up on it, it took me forever to realise what she was actually doing. Marking her territory like the alley cat she is. A normal person would have just asked is dad in etc., nope not princess evile. It was always right to the end MY FATHER and all her demands on him were "I am YOUR DAUGHTER" you should, you need to, I want, but it was when I looked back on it constant and consistent. Usually she would through in, it's all okay for you, you've got your cushy little life. She made constant remarks about him having a happy life and they were made to make him feel guilty. Now of course having come out of the long dark tunnel I see, she was jealous. She didn't want me to give her dad a happy life. She wanted to punish him, she wanted him to suffer and seeing me make him happy is more than likely what inflamed her anger.

She's driving me. Just let her have it. If she is rude to you, put her in her place. You do not have to take their disrespect. They are adults now. If they haven't learnt consequences from their parents then the rest of us will teach them. If our DH's don't like that, well that just makes for equality in the marriage doesnt' it. We don't like stuff either., }:)

Well done to you. Well done. They are just like every other bully. Once you standup to them, they back off don't they.

My husbands daughter was the exact same. Take all give nothing. Her overinflated sense of entitlement was beyond belief. Once she came to see her father on Father's Day. She had never done it before and has never done it again. Turned our that year she was actually pregnant and not married so she was just softening daddy up for the bombshell she was going to drop 4 weeks later. Anyway she turned up with her brother her boyfriend and half a dozen cakes. She says to dad. Here dad. These are to share. My husband got one. I got none and the 3 of them polished off the other 5. Two weeks later she arrives with a box if chocolates one week late for his birthday. Again had never seen him for his birthday before. So she hands him the unwrapped chocolates. Tells him he is wrong about his birthday. It was not the week before. And then tells him she had stolen the chocolates from the nurses station. At which point she says open them I want some. 2 weeks later she breaks the news to her old fashioned Italian father she is pregnant. Haven't seen of heard from her on Father's Day or birthdays since.

Do you blame the daughter or the parent who accepts and ignores it. To my my mind my husbands acceptance of this is approval and she learns from his approval that this is how you treat people.

Funny my DH's son had a Prem baby a week before his special child. His baby was born at 28 weeks. That baby was close to death. DH didn't ring him once. Worse he rang the special daughter daily. I cannot imagine how that must have hurt his son. In his case it had nothing to do with not bring able to deal with it though. Although I agree he doesn't deal with illness in himself or others well at all. But it fir him was this. Special daughter was youngest child and only girl. But that position was not good enough. She wants to be an only child. She never allowed her brothers to speak. She spoke for them and they sat there and allowed it. All interaction between DH and his sons went through Sd.
As a parent it was his responsibility to put her in her place. As a parent he needed to teach his children to respect each other. Instead he supported Sd in her bid to be the only child. In her dismissal of her brothers as part if the family. Instead she sees them as two people who are only there to do her bidding. And he should never have allowed her to grow up treating his sons, her brothers this way.

In elevating his daughter to this position of power he created a monster. A monster he fed continuously throughout the years. A monster who has now finally in a last ditch attempt to either get DH to leave me or punish him for not leaving me, has destroyed DH's relationship not only with his sons. But with his father as well. His father is 89 and has cancer. But he barely and I mean barely speaks to DH because of SD's lies and half truths. And of course an old mans stubbornness and stupidity.

I blame DH for crippling his children. For raising them in a Secluded world in which Sd was the princess ss were the ugly step brothers and DH saw himself as SD's Prince Charming. Who could grow up to be a normal healthy productive member of society in an environment like that.

While I believe that as adults we are at some point supposed to take responsibility for our actions, for our lives, and the way we live it. In spite of our upbringing. I have come to the realization that some parents like DH who have an unnatural emotionally incestious relationship with their daughters, never give their kids the tools to mature into adults and to live their own lives.

I see Sd as the most evil woman who has ever crossed my path. But I also see a disturbed young woman who has never had any guidance from her mother or her father. It was easier for mum and dad to stay together for years hating each other and desperately trying to play the daughter off against the other parent so they would be the parent Sd liked better I have the impression mum saw clearly how much "in love" DH was with the daughter and she was trying to make the daughter like het better than dad.

Can you really blame Sd for having mental health issues.

These women see nothing wrong in themselves. Part of the personality disorder I think.

DH's kids are feral white trash. The are ignorant, they are amazingly dumb. They cannot talk about anything but themselves. It is as if there is no world beyond themselves. All 3 of them have never lived alone. They are being looked after by their partners. They may as well be living in an assisted living faculty. Yet neither they or DH see it.

They are all in their 30s now. None of them have ever lived alone.

But hell they think they are special and the rest of us had damn well better respect them.

This is nasty but I am not trying to be nasty here just trying to show how bad this is.

All three of them are very plain, they all have a look of retardation about them and the strangest wishy washy eyes that hold no soul. The daughter has the longest face and ears I have ever seen. Yet she cannot keep her face out of the mirror it shop window. When she was pregnant she said if she had a girl it would be pretty like her. AND she said she wondered if it would be blonde like her, or dark like the Italian boyfriend.

She was genuinely shocked when I said there's not much chance of it being blonde when you are naturally dark.

This woman has naturally very dark hair which she has been bleaching since she was around 15. And she thinks she's now such a natural blonde her baby had a chance of being blonde like her. 30 years of age, works in a hospital recovery room and thinks she is smarter than every other nurse or doctor for that matter, and she forgot she wasn't really a blonde.

I absolutely agree the daddy worship has caused them to grow up in Fantasy land.

DH always stuck up for them no matter what. It was never their fault.

Sd was rostered to work a public holiday. She was to get penalty rates for working it. She decided to call in sick that day because she had demanded and been refused. .................penalty rates for the shift AND a day off in lieu.

She ran this past DH and he said that was fair enough and if the hospital didn't agree, then she should call in sick.

I asked DH why us it that when he worked at penalty rates why did he not also get the time off. He said, in front if his daughter. That's different. Oops silly me, of course it's different for mere mortals. Sd on the other hand. Well she's special. She's special all right. She needs to have a complete mental health check up to determine exactly how badly special she is.

Too true Sandye21 too true.

I remember 1 occasion when Sd was having the most awful tantrum on DH. in front of his wife, his son and her boyfriend she was letting DH know in no uncertain terms what a no good piece of crap he was and giving him instructions on what he needed to do for and give to her in order for him to get back on track and start being the servant to her the master he was born to be. It was humiliating for everyone present except her. The longer she rambled, the more confident in her tirade she became and the more evil she spewed forth from her foul mouth.

Mum had just died and the older brother wasn't agreeing with miss bossy boots about the house. So amongst other things she wanted daddy to sort him out.

Eventually I said, ok I think that's enough. I am not having you come here and speak to your father like that, and your father will not be fighting with your brother fir you , DH at the tine was about to have an op for prostrate cancer and yet she was just wiping the floor with him.

Well with that she bursts into tears stands up picks het handbag up off the table throws it in the ground smashing her mobile phone tells me to get "F" and runs out crying.

Now at this time I had been copping her abuse for around 7 years.

Brother gets on his knees and scoops up the contents of het handbag and he and boyfriend go running after her. DH tried but I warned him if you go out there to pat her better after all that abuse she has just hurled at you don't cone back in. Sd and her people must have been on the driveway a good 15 mins (clearly waiting for daddy to cone to his senses) before she sent boyfriend and brother back in for her shoes. Boyfriend tells daddy she is upset because her mother just died.

After DH has a full in discussion with boyfriend and his son and puts them in thrift place, even though they had gone nothing he goes outside to see Sd. I thiught he'd finally seen the light that day.

Alas two minutes with SD and in he comes. What does he say. You have to understand she has just lost her mother. And, he says. They are my kids it's not up to you to interfere. That came straight out if SD's mouth and he came straight back in to put me in my place the minute she complained. Yet in all the years I had told him she needed to pull her head in he never said a word to her. I upset her once and here he is her knight in shining armour defending and supporting this woman who had just been berating him to the point were I finally stood up for my husband and this is how it all finished up. Sd was the victim. My victim in fact and I needed to leave her alone.

feral white trash - sounds familiar.

And not sure how DH's spawn ended up that way. BM and DH come from nice families. Both are educated and can be taken into polite society. I hate BM but she does know how to act and has always held a job. But both sons - feral white trash.

Sandye if Sd was stupid enough to ever turn up on my doorstep again DH would go for the hat trick. The last two occasions she was here, the first he said, don't open the door, the next time I said you tell her she's not welcome or I will. He said, you tell her and hid. No reason to suspect he wouldn't make it three in a tow.

It would absolutely be me, but the last time when I told her never to come here again, I was sick to the stomach the next time I would be calm, confident, secure, relaxed and HAPPY!

NODOORMAT. Yes really, he's fine with that. Why not, that's what happened. I hurt her, I had the nerve to suggest she get some manners and show some respect. He did not raise his daughter to be a well mannered polite young woman. He raised her to be a spoilt, selfish, greedy, manipulative little bitch, with no regard for anyone, a complete lack of empathy and an overinflated sense of entitlement. So who the hell do I think I am expecting her to behave like a normal human being. Like a grown woman.

I pissed the pair of them right off. It was me. I am a total bitch. And as DH often said, if I had just put up with her crap, she (and he) would have been happy and we would not have had any problems. SEE ALL MY FAULT. No doormat you need to adjust your thinking. How dare you suggest DH may be a little off base in his rationalizing of this. DH is perfect Sd is even more so, he knows this, he taught her all she knows. So it's not them its me.

BLOODY IDIOTS, THE PAIR OF THEM

So, roll on Christmas, the first in years I will not be spending any time with DH's family. I am so looking forward to it.

I will be spending Christmas with my kids and grand kids and other members of MY family. We have it all planned and we will have a lovely Christmas because we at our core are a happy family, who pretty much roll with the punches and don't hold grudges. At this stage I'm assuming DH will be there. Don't care though. If he wants to go to swan hill and be with his elderly father I'm absolutely fine with that.

Whatever he does, stay with me or go to his dad, this will be their family Christmas. DH goes, his father will Whinge and moan that I as his wife should have gone with DH. FIL will bring up all the shit with Sd and do his utmost to make DH feel guilty. FIL will phone Sd and get her to go up there with boyfriend and baby and they will all get stuck into DH for being the horrible son and father that he is, and let him know exactly what a bitch his wife is. MERRY CHRISTMAS.

OPTION 2. DH does not go, spends Christmas with myself and my family. DH will be stressed, he'll. try to hide it, but he will be worried because he knows his dad will be furious with him. His family will be up in swan hill talking about him not being there, angry as hell. Remembering all the things he has done that have displeased them. They will spend the day angry about DH and myself. MERRY CHRISTMAS.

So you see, not matter how or where DH's family spend their Christmas, or with whom, they spend it, they will be angry and bitter for Christmas.

Me, well this will be my happiest Christmas in years. I have done my very best I know I tried. I know that DH and his family have serious issues in their family, issues that they have had for so long, they think the life they have is normal. Issues that I can do nothing about. Not my family, not my problem. My conscience is clear. I will spend the day surround by peace, love, happiness and laughter. MERRY CHRISTMAS.

They say the first time you do something is the worst time. If I feel so good spending Christmas this year, DHs family free. Next year I'll be floating like a helium balloon

I wish you all from the bottom of my heart at the very, very least a peacful day. I obviously wish you a whole lot more of peace and laughter, but at the very least, a peaceful drama free day.

That is disappointing news about your daughter. But your right. They are safer at home and that's what's important. Still
Doesn't sound all bad. DH maybe having an eye opening moment and that's good.