Yes, I'm afraid the recession makes everything a zillion times worse.

My B and SIL are desperate about the situation ,but just can't face the confrontation and showdown that it would involve. The thing is, not unnaturally, what they want most of all is to detach daughter from the boyfriend (because he's twice her age, with no job and no home). I know that in the end people make their own decisoins about their boyfriends/partners, and to that extent it isn't my B and SIL's business who their daughter has a relationship with. But it IS their business when she turns up and dumps herself and him on them! (This hasn't 'just happened' - they arrived around a year ago!)

It's all just hopeless, unless they change the locks!

But what really gets me (and this is me, I know!) is that my niece just seems to have NO sense of responsibility! She really does seem to think she has a right to go on sponging off her parents because she 'can't cope'. She has the best of both worlds right now - she is the 'little girl' living at home with mummy and daddy looking after her and paying for everything, PLUS she has the boyfriend to have sex with and play at being a grown up with.

My B and SIL are kind and generous (and feel endlessly guilty about the life-mess their daughter is in, though God knows why, they have made excuse after excuse and given her SO much help)(too much, of course, and it's ended up her being a life-cripple) - but they are being exploited shamelessly. They know it, and hate it, but just don't want a row....

What a mess!

Julie.