Thanks AJ and Ss,
I think you may be right Ss. I also think that her father is one of those people who have always been very selfish (his history shows it in spades) and he encourages her to be much more selfish and even tells her that it gives her "power", something that he has been doing all his life. He enjoys controlling people (a C that he and my MIL saw when they D'd said that he was the best example of a sociopath that he had seen in his 30 years in the field) and has total control over my W right now. Even my kids have noticed this and are upset by it. When my W went too far in her "self-care" in the past her mother or friends would help her see what she was doing. With her father, he does the opposite, giving her permission to go too far with others but at the same time keeping control over her. It's a dance I have seen between them in the past but now that she spends more time with him than anyone else, it's out of control. When my W first started to reconnect with her father, she went out of state with the girls to help with her grandfathers memorial service. She had been there for almost a month when I flew in for the service and visit. When I got there I found my W acting awful. She was ignoring her kids 11 years and 7 years old at the time, leaving them alone all day to do things with her father acting like a little girl visiting her dad. She was mean to them and insulting to me. It got to the point when her father excluded her daughters and me from a dinner party he had for my W (there was room for over a dozen people, just not me and his grandkids! He asked us to just stay away and we all could eat when "they" were finished!) and my W just let it happen, the next day I told my W I had had enough and was going to leave with the kids and she could stay as long as she wanted, I had enough. Of course she talked me out of it. It was a few months after that trip that my W became depressed.

My girls have said many times over the years and even more so lately that they hate the way their mother acts when she is around her father. She gets mean and uncaring. She is selfish as well. I think my W is in pain and wants it to stop badly. She feels like this is more important than taking care of her kids but also knows when she goes too far. When her father is around, he gives her "permission" to be as selfish as she wants by telling her that it's OK to act that way. It's a very sad situation but in the state my W is in, one that no one, not even even those closest to my W like her mom and relatives can get her to see. The fact that her father is very sick and she is worried that he will die soon isn't helping either. It gives him even more control over her and boy, he does use it! When my D19 saw him for the first time in a while, the first thing he said to her was "This is how death looks" (referring to the fact that he is very thin and pale from chemo).

I know that until he is out of the picture, either going back to the state he lives in or he actually does die, he will continue to influence my W to continue to go too far. Until one of these things happen ( i have a feeling he is setting her up to go back to where he lives when his treatments here in TX are over which is why he has been encouraging her to D, that way there won't be anything in the way stopping her) I really don't think she will stop acting the way she has.

Of course all this is meaningless as there is nothing I can do. At this point all I can do is try my best to deal with the consequences of my W's action, try and keep my D's from as much harm as I can and hope that someday my w will be able to stop and realize that she took it all too far.