My 18 yr old stepdaughter has been acting out for a couple of years now. She had a verbally, mentally and physically abusive father and now all that 'junk' in her life is starting to come to the surface. She knows she needs counseling but refuses to go.

Lately her actions are launching out of control. Last night, unknown to us, she brought home a 30 year old male "friend" with the excuse that he was "too drunk to get home". I was furious because this isnt even the first time she's done it, and she was warned that it was completely unacceptable behavior and cannot happen again. Unfortunately Im not the parent, so there was no cannon fodder behind that warning.

The difficult part is that my dear wife is a total softy, and doesnt want to get tough with her. She knows all the pain her daughter's been through but I keep thinking she is only enabling this 'childs' outrageous behavior by not making her face some major consequences.

I think its time that SD needs very strict boundaries if shes to continue to live her or she can go live on her own. My wife doesnt want her to be in an 'unsafe' environment and wants to love her into a healthier place. I think thats noble - and misguided. That SD is already highly unhealthy and the only way she's going to make a change is if her life hits the wall. And the sooner the better.

We're both very frustrated. What do you do with an out of control adult stepchild? What do you do when you're the stricter one but you have no real say in the SD's life? Our counselors advice was just to give her 'safety messages' like Dont drink and drive and Call home if youre intoxicated and Use condoms, etc. Its driving me nuts to watch this slow motion trainwreck happen in front of my eyes and I canNOT believe a kid would have the gall to act like a skank in our house.