Hi, I've posted in here once before about my LTR and her mother. Essentially, I was asking for help about her health problems and how living with her psychotic mother was quickly killing her. We’ll call her “K”. My daughter is “L”. This is a bitch of a long post but it’s not a simple situation.

I set what I thought were healthy boundaries for our relationship, let K know my expectations regarding her mother and how much I was willing to deal with. The relationship progressed just fine and I was willing to see about moving in together. Eventually, last May, I decided she could join my 8-year-old daughter, L, and myself in my apartment. At the time, I figured it was a win-win. I wanted K to move in, sex was still good, she treated me like a king and it would get her away from her abusive-as-fuck mother.

Things went well for months, we loved being together so much (although in hindsight I wasn't scarce enough) and we had a nice little family going. K kept up with the housework, she had a good attitude, she distanced herself from her mom and our sex life stayed strong. She even got to the point of making all of L’s school lunches and sending little jokes with her that she'd read to the class. It was great. I was happy, got promoted and a 20% raise, stayed in shape, lifting heavy.

As time went on though, the inevitable began to come up. K’s health problems (Type 1 diabetes, fibromyalgia, acute kidney disease, osteoporosis) began to wear on her and as much as I tried to help, she felt like a failure for being sick and I started taking over nearly all the responsibilities. She couldn't work and was denied disability for the second time. She would talk about how much she hates herself for being sick and letting me down, and I would console her. Probably too much because she started to use it to get attention. It's easy to think that you can defend against that kind of attention-whoring behavior. You can't tell when it stops being genuine and starts being about getting affection for nothing. 2/3 rule gets blown the fuck out of the water.

I started noticing that K’s attitude had changed from one of determination and high-spirited effort to an increasingly sarcastic and abusive frame of reference. She had always had a bit of a victim mentality, which I gave her some slack on because she couldn't help being diabetic, or having fibromyalgia. But it kept getting worse. She was eating foods and drinking drinks that didn't help her conditions. She would be out of commission for days and seem upset if my daughter and I had any fun while she was sick (I would wait on her hand and foot while she was sick). Little comments like "I'm glad you two had fun without me", expecting me to say that it wasn't fun without her or if L innocently said it was fun anyway, K would be cold to her for the rest of the day. Essentially she was starting to take out her sickness on us.

K snapped out of it sometimes. Realized she was being childish and would love-bomb me trying to make things right. But they never lasted, and it got to the point of her telling me that if I upset her it would make her sicker and inferring that keeping the apartment clean helped her feel better (how the fuck am I supposed to deal with that kind of statement?)

Things continued to decline and I was searching ways to help or fix the situation I read books on dealing with pain, tried to help her cultivate a positive mental attitude, read self-help books for chronically ill people to her, did whatever I could. Being a leader, provider, attractive and capable man was constantly cancelled out by her sickness. Months without sex went by. Not your typical dead bedroom, but close enough. It started to become clear to me that things would never get better, and as much as I cared for her, she would continue to be more and more abusive due to her sickness, even if she didn’t want to.

To clarify, she went from being sick and bitchy maybe 10% of the time when she moved in to being sick and bitchy 90% of the time. And if it were just me, I could handle it. Ignore her when she’s being ridiculous. But my daughter can’t/couldn’t do that. She doesn’t understand how chronic pain might cause someone to act a way they don’t want to, or that sometimes people use sickness as an excuse to treat people however they want.
It all came to a head last Friday night. K was being insufferable and I was ignoring it and having a good time with my daughter, until my daughter went up to her for a hug and K said “I love you” and L replied “I love you too!”. K replied under her breath to my daughter “at least someone does” I had done nothing to her that night, I even went to the store to get some of her favorite foods for her. But, I didn’t get some of the foods I thought were bad for her that she wanted. I guess that is where the “at least someone does” came from.

Using my kid in a perceived argument or slight is where I draw the line. I ignored it at the time, put my daughter to bed, and confronted her about it. She tried to play it off as a joke but the tone and intention was abundantly clear. I told her that she either needed to seek mental help to learn coping mechanisms and avoid taking shit out on us, or she had to go back and live with her parents. There were a lot of knockdown, drag-out fights before this, but this was the last straw. It couldn’t all be her sickness, when her mother came to visit her she was smiles and rainbows, but wouldn’t treat me with half of the respect. She was treating me exactly how I had grown to let her.

The next morning, I repeated what I had said, seek help, or leave. K was gone when I got home from work. She sent me a text saying she was staying with her parents for a while. I just replied “ok”. I didn’t hear from her for days until she sent me a text asking if I wanted her to take my daughter to her dentist appointment. I replied no. Last night she texted me asking if she can call my daughter. I ignored it. She’s continually telling me that my daughter must know she still loves her, etc. But taking no responsibility for the situation and the fact that she chose to leave instead of getting help. I’ve replied to nothing and muted all her texts. 99% of her stuff is still here.

The thing that strikes me the most is that the longer she lived with me, the more she started talking to me like I was her abusive mother, and that her mother was now treating her good, so she’s forgiven and an angel now to K. I don’t see any way out of this without being painted an asshole who “abandoned” a sick girl, or let her come back and hope making her leave put the fear of God into her to not abuse us emotionally anymore. Please tell me objectively what to do, because I’ve got no clue what the right move is. My gut is telling me to cut her out of my life, regardless of the sickness.

TL: DR LRT with progressive disease began being abusive to me and my daughter, I told her get help or leave, she left, now she wants to talk to my daughter, presumably out of guilt, and I don’t know how to proceed. ?)

Edit:Formatting

Update: This is exactly why I posted here. I needed this slap in the face. I love my daughter. I guess I was holding onto something that wasn't there because L's mom abandoned her on my doorstep and K was the closest thing to a mom she's ever had. I should be thanking God I don't have some of the custody problems some TRPers have. I can't help what K does. All I can do is wish her the best and cut her out. Who knows. Maybe that will be the catalyst that provides her some sort of change and eventual peace in life. But L is my world and I should have more faith in myself as father. I'm better off with just L than hoping K and I can be L's parents together. Thank you all.