Sexual obsession & mid-life crisis; this can't end well

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

A very close friend of mine has embarked on a course of action which I suspect will end up blowing his life apart. He’s become sexually obsessed with his 20 year-old step-daughter.

A little background: He met his girlfriend (Kim) 10 years ago. They’ve never married. He’s 38. She is 48, and has two daughters. Her ex is dead. The older daughter is married and lives in Maine. The younger daughter, the object of my friend’s obsession, lives with him. The mother, Kim, works in the western part of the state and has been living out there for a couple of years. She comes home for a day or two here and there, but has really left him to raise the younger daughter.

Anyways. He’s become obsessed. He’s already crossed the line at least once: he made some comment to her which was sexually suggestive, and she told her mother about it. I guess he managed to talk his way out of trouble, but from what he’s told me his girlfriend and some other family members can see what’s going on, though he has vigorously denied it. The girl is a real train wreck. Drinking, drugs, random sex partners, a couple totaled cars under her belt and at least a couple narrowly avoided DUIs. She’s a Jerry Springer-calibur hot mess. She’s also suffering from at least a couple fairly serious mental health issues for which she is taking medication(s), but I don’t know the extent, diagnoses, etc. In addition to these issues, I do know that she is bulemic and I also know that she has periodic episodes of going off her meds and becoming very unstable. He thinks she’s awesome. He enables her. Gives her weed and alcohol. It’s awful.

Based on our talks, it seems pretty clear that he’s weighed the pros and cons and he’s decided to go for it. He’s been dieting and exercising, getting fit again, bought himself a bunch of new clothes and so forth. I tried to caution him off this course of action, and he says he’s not going to do anything, but then he starts talking about her again and it’s pretty obvious he is going to do something.

Here’s my prediction(s) - best case and worst case…

Best case: He tries to fuck her, she runs to her mother, spills her guts, and he gets kicked out of the house and loses everything he’s built with this family over the last 10 years.

Worst case: He tries to fuck her, she calls the cops, spills her guts, and he gets thrown in jail with an attempted rape charge, gets kicked out of the house and loses everything he’s built with this family over the last 10 years.

She (the daughter) has already had him locked up once. As I understand it she was either hysterical or having some manic episode and he grabbed her arm to restrain her or get her attention or something. After this ‘incident’, she totalled her car, because she was drunk and high on (illegally obtained) prescription drugs. She told the authorities that she’d been upset by the fight, they needed to investigate, and he got locked up. It sounds like she was angling to avoid drug & DUI charges so threw him to the wolves to get the attention off of her and on to him. The case continued without a finding, but that was just a couple months ago. After this whole thing went down, she went and moved in with a relative in Florida for a month or two, during which time my friend was very upset about her being gone. She came back a few weeks ago, and I believe his obsession has seriously increased since her return.

I’m pretty worried about him. I’m specifically worried that this will end with the worst case scenario I outlined above. If that happens, he’ll probably end up doing time and have a record as a sex offender. At that point he’d be really fucked.

I don’t know what to do. I’ve thought about talking to his brother, but that could go either way. The brother is sort of selfish and not the least bit charitable with regards to my friend and his problems.

2

This is coming totally out of left field given my own personal experience, but I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if he’s already fucked her. She’s exhibiting behavior that could easily be attributed to childhood sexual abuse. It could be any number of other things, too, but if she’s lived with him all this time, I see big red flags.

3

I asked him point-blank last night if he’d already had sex with her and he said no.

I’m going to need some time to digest your comment, because I hadn’t thought of that at all, but I can tell you my (already high) level of concern has just increased sharply.

4

That’s your worst case?

He does fuck her and for a while carries out an affair. He knocks her up. Hilarity ensues as they go on Jerry Springer.

5

Springer appearance FTW!

6

Ew. He’s known (and helped raise) this girl since she was 10 years old? That’s so skeevy that I wouldn’t care less what happened to him.

Maybe I’m just crazy, but sexually harassing, attempting a sexual relationship with, or god forbid sexually assaulting a disturbed, vulnerable young woman who is dependant on you and who you’ve parented since they were a child richly deserves a divorce and no further contact with his daughter, and depending on how he does it, jail time and being identified as a registered sex offender for the rest of his life.

ETA: I also have to agree with what olivesmarch said. Whether or not he’s ever physically touched her, growing up with a father figure who can’t/won’t hide that he wants to fuck you can mess you up right good.

7

You can try to talk to him, and lay out the outcomes as you described above. But sometimes, when guys start thinking with only their hanging brain, there’s no way to get through to them that they are about to throw away everything in a heartbeat.

Can you get someone else to talk to him? I don’t know if a warning from a cop would do, or if it would bring the attention of the law to the situation, and maybe bring out that he’s already slept with her and committed a crime. But at this point, based on what you’ve said, it might take something like this (or some other clue-by-four) to get his attention.

However it comes out, good luck. It doesn’t sound like this guy has far to go before he’ll have some serious problems in his life.

8

I don’t think he’s going to take my advice. I’ve counseled him to keep his cool and not act on his temptations, but I’m 99% certain he wouldn’t leave that house. He’s seriously taken leave of his senses and I don’t know that he can see this all objectively anymore.

9

I really think you should tell the mother.

Whether or not he goes through with it (and my suspicion is that he already has), there is something drastically wrong with this man that he has become sexually obsessed with a child that he helped raise. I wouldn’t want to be married for a single additional second to someone like that. And I really don’t care that it’s a step-daughter either. That argument justifies the sexual abuse of any kid that happens to be adopted or parented by someone who isn’t related to them by blood.

Neither the wife nor the daughter deserve this.

10

The first step is to remove himself or the step-daughter from the situation. If you don’t do that it won’t get better.

After they are seperated they both need some help. Please note from what you describe you cannot give it to them. Even if you were a professional therapist, you’re too close to help.

Third, some things aren’t your fault, this is one of them.

Incest is clinically defined as any family member, including step-children.

But since both are adults this complicates it. Anyone screwed up on drugs only cares about one thing. Getting more drugs and not getting the supply shut off.

The only thing you can do is somehow make it clear to everyone involved they need to be seperated physically.

11

Vote 1 **olivesmarch4th

**And what the hell is the mother doing so far away when there has already been a problem?

I suggest that this fucked up family is beyond your help, Winston Smith. If as a grown man, your pathetic friend cannot perceive the impending peril, then run away, man! RUN AWAY!!!

This is not a mid life crisis. This is just a fuckin’ idiot.

By continuing to be his friend, does this make you an enabler?

12

Now that you mention it, I suppose it does. This is terrible.

13

A couple months ago, I told my friend he needed to get his girlfriend back into the house on a regular basis, and for a couple weeks she was coming home on weekends but now it seems she’s drifted back off. I have absolutely no idea what is wrong with her, but she doesn’t seem to be any better than the other two. He told me that the girlfriend divulged to him that if he did fuck the daughter, it wouldn’t bother her. He also has told me that the girlfriend has been asking the daughter’s friends if any of them are interested in fucking him with her as a 40th birthday present. He’s turning 40 this year - in the OP I said he’s 38, but he’s 39. My bad.

I don’t know if the whole family is seriously fucked up, or if my friend is just delusional. I think the whole family is just fucked up in a very, very serious way.

ETA: She sent him an email a couple months ago proposing a menage-a-trois for his birthday and asked him what kind of girl he’d want.

14

She’s 20 years old. That’s a legal adult.

From what you’ve posted, she sounds like textbook abuse victim, but we have no way of knowing if your friend perpetrated the abuse or some other person further back in her past.

It looks to me like it’s gonna end ugly, but the step-daughter is an adult. I’m sure this isn’t the healthiest of “relationships” but beyond that… I don’t think this is any of my business. Or yours. Not much you could do about all this anyway you slice it.

15

Well, I have a completely different personal history than you do Olives and this is exactly where my thoughts went to as well.

Frankly, if you’re buddy has this many boundary issues (which he clearly does) he may no have had actual sex with her, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s done other sexual things telling himself that they don’t count 'cus it’s not ‘sex’.

Personally, I couldn’t continue to be friends with someone who was behaving this way - the step daughter is an adult so I don’t think there’s anything legally you can do (although I don’t know for sure); however, listening to him go on and on about it does seem like support of his choices, even if in your head you’re saying ‘hell no’.

And her mom sounds like a real prize as well.

16

Send him a link to this thread.

17

That was my instant thought as well. If not outright sexual intercourse, than a lot more than just one comment. I’d say that her “messed up” behaviors are due in large part (most likely) to this situation. :frowning:

18

Seriously?

Olives’s comment above, that the daughter is acting like an abuse victim, struck me as both on and off target. On in that the daughter is acting like an abuse victim, off in that I doubt your friend would still be talking to you about screwing her if he had already crossed that line. If the mother is acting like this, however, then the other possibility is that her last boyfriend abused the daughter.

So, if you can’t get the daughter out of the house (sister, grandparents, florida connection), then you can’t do anything on that end to protect her. There’s really nothing to be done for your friend. Well, that’s not true. There’s a lot that could be done for your friend, but it would require his cooperation. Was he always this way?

Make sure that, when the bad explodes here, none of it hits you. That’s about all you can do for certain.

19

Oh wow. Red flag city. The girl has almost certainly already been abused – if not directly by him, then by other men in her mom’s circle. That is NOT the response of a mother actually concerned about her daughter; it’s the response of a pimp.

20

What a messed up scene. Here are some realities:

  1. She is his daughter. Even if he does not think of her like that, she does or at least did. He was there when she was twirling around in princess dresses. He was there for her first period. He was there for her first kiss. His job was to love her, protect her, to never want anything but good for her. She needed that to grow up right. And I don’t care if he only agreed to raise her to get with the mom. He agreed. He took on that role. Instead, he went home and beat off to the thought of her. He ruined her life by not being there for her.

  2. She was abused by somebody close to her. I’d peg this at 99%. I’d guess there is a 50% chance that he did it. If it wasn’t him, it’s someone he knows. He almost certainly knew what was going on. He probably enjoyed it.

Get the hell out of there. You don’t need friends like that.