My husband and I have been friends with another couple for a long time, since before our children were born. They had a little girl and she has been like a daughter to us. She is pretty and very soft and sweet and she has been my husband's favorite. They are physically close, she has never had any boundaries around him, none.

When she got to be around 14 she began asking me what it was like to be married. About sex, questions she should have asked her mother. She asked me if my husband was gentle with me when he first had sex with me, because she wanted him to be gentle with her. I told her that she should not be thinking those things, she was 14 and she should be thinking about school not about having a man have sex with her. I was very firm about sex being something for adults, and I was more than firm about her seeing my husband as the man she wanted to be with.

One day, she was 16, I found her sitting in his chair with him, snuggled up in his arms while he read the newspaper. When she saw me she put her arms around his neck and kissed him on the cheek. She then straddled him and leaned into his arms, he held her for a moment, and tried to get her to sit beside him. But she just wrapped herself around him. I went over to her and had to talk to her before she let go. My husband told her that she wasn't old enough for that behavior, but in the end he takes her in his arms and consoles her and holds her.

I decided to speak with her mother. Her mother wont correct her. She has given up completely about this and has resigned herself that she is going to sleep with him, she told me that she already has, and be his lifelong partner. I went home and confronted my husband, if he had been intimate with her. He said no, he hadn't she was a kid. I told him what was happening that this was out of hand and we had to put a stop to it. That she couldn't be here with us alone.

Nothing helped, after six months of pure hell about this, her mother asked me to let her live with us. I gave in and at 17 she moved in to live with us. I know that this is crazy, but from the day she was born this was predicted. Other than the obvious problem of her attachment to my husband, she is in all other ways quite mature and does well in school and is well rounded. Her only vision is to be with him for her life, she talks endlessly about her life with us.

I don't ask her whether she has slept with him. I don't ask him. I have resigned myself to her being a part of our home. She has taken her place, I can't fight it. I can't help but feel like this is where she is meant to be.