Seriously. The question was never “Should I enable my friend’s behavior” but rather “Can I help his step-daughter?”
Took out ACM’s comment because it wasn’t part of what I viewed as the attack.
You’ll probably have more clarification if you read the thread FloatyGimpy. I think the concern is primarily for the friend, rather than, though not excluding the stepdaughter.
And for the record, the sentence I wrote that seems to have caused all the ruckus was meant in a sarcastic, rather than accusatory vein.
I’d settle for hearing just the next chapter (i.e., what Winston does and how it goes down). I love the crazy situation threads, but unfortunately we hardly ever get to find out what happens in the end. And this one looks like it may be locked soon.
Whether you’ll admit to it or not, you owe me an apology. And with that I’ll drop it. On to bigger and better things.
Initially, the concernwas for the friend, not the daughter, and I’ll tell you why. As I’ve mentioned, I’ve known this guy most of my life and knew him to be a decent person. I’ve known the daughter for a couple years, and I think she’s a mess.
So, I came into this with some pretty solid pre-conceived notions about both of them, and that paints much of the beginning of this thread.
However, posting in this thread, and getting feedback from my fellow Dopers has once again opened my eyes and broadened my view. In this particular case, I now see that my friend may indeed already be preying upon this very vulnerable young person. This hadn’t occurred to me before. Nor had I fully considered the effect all this would be having on the girl. Again, I’ve broadened my view and am taking a less charitable and favorable view of my friend as a result. As that end of the see-saw lowers, my concern for the young lady is on the upswing.
Yes, I see now that it’s her that needs saving, not him. I don’t think the fact that it took me 36 hours to reach this point makes me a bad person. If you do, please feel free to open a pit thread on the subject of what an incorrogable so-and-so I am. But please do not further instigate me and derail this thread. It has helped me more than you’ll ever possibly understand, and hopefully will continue to.
Yeah, as if we ever hear the follow-up of this kind of story. Did we learn what finally happened in the found-BIL-diary-in-my-wife’s-panties case ? No 
I think the verdict on that one was that the OP was yanking our collective chain.
Sounds perfectly reasonable to me, Winston.
The thought that’s troubling me now is that I don’t know that there’s really anyone I can reach out to that can or will actually help the girl. I think the mother is just as fucked up as my friend. The sister doesn’t want anything to do with the hot mess. John Law can’t do anything. What to do?
Well,** Winston Smith**, you’re right back to my first post in this thread, which is you really can’t do fuck-all about it. You can try to talk to her. You could offer her a place to stay, or help her find a place to stay to get her out of that house. But if she’s been groomed for the last ten years, her brain is all twisted up and she may not even want to leave. I’m sure she thinks there is nothing wrong with fooling around with her mom’s BF while Mom is out of town. I’m sure she’s been groomed to think that way.
Upthread, you said this:
What concerns me is that you think you can fix someone else’s family. What makes you think you are that powerful, influential, and that it is your appropriate place to step in and fix someone else’s fuckeduppedness?
I mentioned this thread to my BF last night and asked him what he’d do in your situation. He said he’d have a serious sit-down with his buddy and let him know how fucked up his thinking is. If the buddy wasn’t open to change or doing the right thing by this girl, then my BF said he’d drop the friendship. I know I wouldn’t want to associate with a babyfucker (even if she is a legal adult now). It would feel to me as though I’m implicitly approving of this behavior by mere association with the perpetrator.
So I’m sticking with, it’s sad and tragic, but I still don’t see how it’s any of your business to get involved aside from telling your friend that he’s making you sick and why.
You’re right.
We talked a lot about it the other night - had a serious sit-down. I told him he needs to get it together and keep it together, and get past this fixation with the girl. I told him he’d only hurt her by coming on to her sexually. I told him a lot of stuff, all calibrated to get him to take a step back and cut the shit, but minus any ultimatums and I tried to keep it free of judgement. Trouble was the more we talked the more he revealed to me and the more trouble I realized he was in.
As far as why I think I can fix someone else’s family - I guess you’re right. I suppose I can’t. I wish I could but I’m no miracle worker, and like a few people have told me maybe it’s mostly none of my business.
That sucks, Winston. I’m so sorry. I was afraid it was worse than you thought, just from the few (obvious to me) abuse red flag signposts you posted about.
Remember, if we all stepped in to fix our friends’ lives, we would be depriving them of the opportunities to learn and grow all on their own.
I think now you must decide if continuing the friendship implies tacit approval or support of your friend’s behavior, or if it would be better for you to drop the friendship until such time as your friend comes to his damn senses, if, in fact, that ever happens.
Winston, I feel for you. As a husband to an abuse victim, and a brother-in-law to her sister, also an abuse victim, I have seen first hand (and experienced) just how badly damaging that is.
Hell, it’s managed to kill my marriage at this point. But that is another thread.
What I have learned from all this is that at some point you have to draw a line for yourself, and say “this, and no more”. You cannot save those who, for whatever reason, don’t want to be saved. Right or wrong, that is the situation.
I had a good friend, whom I loved and respected. He was one of my closest friends in High School. And then, a handful of years ago, I came to find out some very very dark things he had been up to. Very bad things.
And I, with heavy heart, have washed my hands of him. At this point, if I were to see him, I would ignore him at best, or attempt to end him at worst, depending.
Friends are amazing things, but you have to ask yourself if you, yourself, are willing to watch as a friend, someone you love and respect, destroys his life and possibly the lives of those around him while ignoring your efforts to save him. It’s a hard decision to make.
Know that there is a whole board full of virtual friends here for you.
I’m stepping in fairly late, and I agree with the vast majority of what’s been said.
- the daughter has been sexually abused before, possibly by him
- your friend, if he wasn’t the one who abused her, is still imploding right before your eyes
- the girlfriend cannot be counted on to help; she’s an enabler
- the law has little or nothing to say about what’s going on, short of coercion on your friends part
There is, though, something to be said on the part of social community. He’s your friend. Do you have friends in common? Do you share any other social facets of your life with him?
At some point, someone has to step up to this man and say “what you are doing is morally wrong and evil.” Do not try to sugarcoat it. Don’t try to excuse it. Don’t try to find reasons to make it less than what it is. Any argument he makes should be met with "what you are doing is morally wrong and evil.
It can’t just come from you, either. Other people have to weigh in on this. Common friends, buddies in the same fantasy football league, co-workers, relatives of his, relatives of yours that he knows from childhood, friends of the daughter, members of the friend’s faith community.
He has to be held accountable, and it has to be done by people he knows and whose respect he values. He has to know that the people around him are going to keep an eye on the situation, and if they see something questionable, confront him about it. Whether you can find any help for the daughter is another question, but you can at least take steps to make sure that this particular individual does not use her.
What I’m suggesting is monumentally difficult. I don’t know if I’d be able to pull it off. I’ve used my position as a teacher and a “required reporter” as leverage to straighten a step-parent’s behavior out. It didn’t last long, but it was a start. More recently, I stepped in when I felt a former student was in physical danger and reported her husband to his staff sergeant. That was over a year ago, and the fallout is still coming down.
But you know what? I have an answer to the question “what could I have done?” I did something. I did what I could. I tried to stop the bad stuff, and in doing so, I at least protected my student and her infant son. For a little while. If there are enough people willing to do that, then maybe, just maybe, something good will come of it.
Thanks, Tristan. I appreciate that. And I hope thing work out for the best with your missus.
The one who needs help is your friend. At least with regards to this situation. From what you’ve said he already made a comment to her and she already turned him down and told her mom, there is no reason to believe any further advances will be handled any different or any reason to think this girl needs any help in dealing with your friend. Hot young girls being hit on by creepy old guys isn’t as rare as you think nor as traumatic as everyone else is making it out to be, some people are acting like its a given that this asshole is actually going to get a young piece of ass just because he started working out and bought some new clothes. It won’t happen, i’m sure he’ll hit on her again and she will likely react the same way she did before.
Real world, if he is really, truly sexually obsessed with her I kind of doubt your sincere chats are going to have an impact. If he’s existing in a context where his SO doesn’t care if he has a sexual relationship with her daughter, and the daughter is often drugged and vulnerable, it’s only a matter of time till the big chunks of poo hit the fan.
He can tell you he’s conflicted and contrite all day long, but if he continues living in a scenario where he has access to her and is providing her with drugs, sooner or later nature will take its course re his urges. Unless he removes himself physically from that context and the source of his desire, and lives elsewhere a sexual interaction with her will almost assuredly come to pass.
I’d kind of start stepping back on this if I were you.Given what you’ve described there’s going to be a shit storm coming down the pike.
I think it might be a good idea to talk to the friend’s step-daughter, if you or your wife have any relationship with her at all. But unless you’re really sure that she’s hit bottom and is willing to change, asking the girl you described in the OP as a real train wreck into your house is a bad idea (do you have kids? I can’t remember). Is there anyway to get her into rehab? You said she was on some psyc meds, is she insured? Can the insurance take care of the some of the rehab costs?
While I agree with other posters she’s quite possibly acting out due to abuse, she might also just be a mentally unstable 20 year old. It certainly sounds like she needs out of her stepfather’s house o’alcohol and weed. Can you contact the relatives in Florida?
I think everyone is making way too big a deal of what is basically going to end up being a creepy old guy with blue balls and a mildly annoyed messed up young woman.
I disagree somewhat that this girl is trapped. Hot, young, promiscuous girls can easily get all the booze and drugs they want. Usually someplace to stay too. My guess is that she’s merely taking the path of least resistance by staying there and by taking advantage of the booze and dope he supplies her with.
And if your friend is really and truly obsessed with this girl nothing you say is gonna deter him; his mind will find a way to make it okay.
I suspect that the true sorry end to this situation is that they will either end up in a sexual relationship that is also emotional on his part, and that it will bring nothing but heartache and frustration for him, ending only when she decides to move out on her own or finds a guy she would rather live with.
I also suspect that if he leaves and she were to suddenly find herself living in that house alone, it will become nothing but a rampant drug and party house. On the other hand, if she leaves I think she will very likely end up as a stripper or streetwalker and addicted to much worse drugs than marijuana.
The situation just sucks all the way around. Despite the “string him up to the nearest tree” mentality expressed by most of the posters to this thread, the guy is the victim of his own hormones plus close night and day proximity of the object of his desire who is already doing the things he wants to do to her anyway. (It’s hard for me to understand how, if he is truly obsessed with her, he isn’t insanely jealous, but no mention of that was made in the OP.)
The girl, on the other hand, lost her father at an early age and is cursed with a mother who has largely absented herself from the girl’s life and who seems to regard her daughter more as a friend or buddy. So the girl turns to drugs, promiscuity and most likely a party lifestyle in order to try to get some enjoyment out of life and to avoid having to face the hard reality of her father’s death, her mother’s indifference, and lust, whether welcome, unwelcome or merely taken in stride, coming from the father figure she’s living with now.
If I were you I would try to convey all this to your friend in the strongest possible terms. Tell him that there is no way this can end in anything but heartache and trouble for him and that he needs to get out and find a place of his own and let the chips fall where they may with regard to his absentee girlfriend and her daughter. This may sound heartless, but there is simply no way he is ever going to be able to turn her around and so he needs to just get out and let whatever happens happen.
I’ve known girls like her at various times in my life and the good news is that they generally hit bottom and start to get straightened out once they hit their late twenties or early-to-mid thirties. Either that or they end up in jail, which can be a blessing in terms of getting off drugs and starting anew once they’re out. This happend to the younger sister of a woman I once knew who was a hard time druggie and thoroughly incorrigible. She got sent to prison in Texas with a minimum sentence of seven years. She later told her sister it was the best thing that ever happened to her.
So again, he needs to realize there is nothing but trouble, and serious trouble, if he continues on his present course, and that he needs to remove himself from the situation and let whatever the future holds for his girlfriend and her daughter happen.
ETA: And then on the other hand, what DigitalC said, which is a very real possiblity too.
People are fucked up!
I think it’s the moms problem, mainly. She must know/have suspicions about what’s going on… and she’s still with him? That’s the main problem. I have a 3 year old boy, and if I ever even thought someone was thinking inappropriately, let alone BEING inappropriate with him, they’d be fuckin’ dead.
My ex is 28, dating a 38 year old woman… wait wait, no, they got married. Anyway. He’s married to a 38 year old woman with a 19 year old daughter. Who he fucked about a year before the wedding.
I asked him how his girlfriend (soon to be wife) handled the news. He said “she threw a couple cans of beer at me, but we worked it out”.
WHAT!?
My ex and his wife have since left all of their children here, and moved a few states over, leaving the other parents to have full custody (which is fine with me). I talk to the womans daughter (the one my ex slept with) once in a while, since she lives VERY near me, and she’s seriously seriously messed up.
Yes, it was legal for him to sleep with the daughter, but ethical? Not at all.
Who do I lay most of the blame with? The mom/wife. She exposed her daughter to this man, and ended up in a horrible situation, and then proceeded to chose the man over her daughters.