I was married before and left an emotionally abusive husband when I was 40.   I met my second husband 7 years ago and we have been married for nearly 4 years.

My husband is a lovely man, often too lovely, leaving him open to emotional and financial abuse from mostly certain members of his family. He had nothing when I met him that was not negated by a mountain of debt which we have cleared together and are now doing well.

It turned out that he was terrified his manipulative ex wife (from whom he separated 4 years before I knew him) would withdraw all his visiting rights with his children unless he did exactly as he was told. He was also (and still is) ridden with guilt about leaving. He went through periods of time when he was living on beans on toast but they never went short of anything at any time.

When he moved down those 400 odd miles to live with me, his younger daughter, who had always been unpleasant to me, took a turn for the worse, encouraged no doubt by her mother who was resentful of losing her gravy train (quote from my husbands friend).

Despite the distance, throughout visits and via phone calls and e-mails and even the odd comment in a (rare) letter, I have suffered continuous sniping and emotional abuse from the younger daughter during all the years I have known her.

She often tells her mother lies about me and then the mother rings my husband to complain about me. I once tried for several days to contact both daughters to remind them to send my husband a birthday card. All that happened was the younger one phoned my husband to complain that I had rung her at school!! The card they sent was late and contained a letter from the younger daughter asking her dad for money and then making a rude comment to me at the end as a P.S.

Obviously everyone says I am the adult and this girl is the angry young lady .

Despite this I have always been pleasant to her and made her time with us as nice as possible. Only once did I dare to tell her off, in front of my husband to avoid the usual lies (which were told to mother anyway) when she tried to spoil a 40th birthday party I had organised for my husband.

My daughter is a challenge and can be very difficult but I have never tied my husband s hands, telling him  he can discipline her as he sees fit, after all he does have to live with her.

On the other hand I have never been permitted by my husband to tackle his daughter's atrocious behaviour as he tells me that he doesn't see that much of them and doesn't want to fall out with them when he is with them. He continues to give his younger daughter anything she asks for, despite her never toeing the line, even to the extent of truanting for a third of her secondary education (permitted to by mother of course).

What really hurts is that he never takes her to task even when he is hopping mad with her. She has never once sent him a card for Christmas or birthday or fathers day on time and it is very rare for her to send a card at all. This Christmas all he got from her was a phone call to ask him for money.

This weekend just past, we were at the elder daughter s 21st birthday party (paid for entirely by my husband of course.

It was a nice evening despite the girl's mother being there until my daughter disappeared. Ten of us were going frantic looking all over this huge building in the middle of a big city. I thought she had been abducted. She was eventually found hiding in the men's loo with a boy. I was very angry with my daughter and after I had read her the riot act, I asked (still with raised voice unfortunately) the girl's cousin if it was him that was with my daughter as I had seen him leaving the toilet just before she was found.

It wasn't him but my apology to him was not enough for my stepdaughter.

She came looking for me as my husband was helping me on with my coat and in the middle of a bar packed with her friends and family, screamed at me with her nose an inch from my face, threatening me and swearing at me and wagging her finger in my face.

I was stunned. All the while my husband was standing next to me and never uttered a peep in my defence.

The following day I asked my husband if he found her behaviour acceptable. I said if I had spoken to the daughter like that he would not have stood by and just watched. I asked him to take her to task over her continual bullying of me and to tell her he found it unacceptable. He said that he would do so but when we saw her briefly that day, he just gave her a hug and said nothing. (Mother was there!!) Hey, at least he didn't give her £50 which is probably what would have happened had I said nothing.

There are never any conditions attached to meeting her frequent demands for cash or expensive items/hobbies.

I really feel she is old enough now to hear that she should not disrespect me so much. I also feel that she should be sanctioned when she misbehaves. She obviously feels that she can do or say anything she likes without the slightest consequence.