Wow, so much going on here.

First of all, as a depressed person let me say that I am "non-negotiable" on the fact that being depressed does not give us the right to be mean to others, no matter if they are family or not. Your daughter is right to set limits. One of my other groups is caring for aging parents, and for various reasons we in that group have set limits for our parents. It is also important to have consequences for those limits, and we must impose those consequences. Without knowing more about the two of them, I'd suggest this limit: no phone or text abuse. (Yes, the word 'abuse' needs to be better defined!) I'd suggest a time out period for this; she will put her father on her phone's ignore list for a week (or a day, or a month, her decision) when this happens.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. Or so the saying goes. He must want to get better, and he must be an active part of it. If not, well, you see the cycle he goes in.

There are various "friends and family of" type groups here. This is the one for depression:

https://www.dailystrength.org/group/depression-supporters

Here is the one for bipolar:

https://www.dailystrength.org/group/family-friends-of-bipolar

Have you considered therapy for you and your daughter? It sounds like your daughter has a lot of issues dealing with her father, so a therapist who can help you two come up with coping methods would be good. He or she will need to take your word for it as far as what is going on in your X's head. Not all therapists are willing to do something like that, so be upfront about this when you talk to them.

Gentle hugs, and I hope you and your daughter make progress on this front.

Thank you so much!!!

Your daughter needs to turn her phone off. He has to learn consequences.

Depression isn't an excuse for being a jerk. My experience of my depression and that of others I know is that we end up being extremely considerate and utterly undemanding. We destroy ourselves, not other people.

I know he's the father of your daughter but I think you need to just turn and look at the daughter.
She lets him hurt her. She needs to roll with the punches. What's that saying? "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me"? Shame on your daughter then. Because she's had the information to know what's going on, but she's not changing her strategies.

And so are you. You're all playing the same dynamic game. She's letting him dump on her, and then she's coming to offload to you. You're letting her offload on you, and you're trying to carry the load. Don't carry the load. You are enabling her to enable him. You need to turn that back around, push it back and say 'you're doing this to yourself, darling daughter. If you don't like it, don't buy into it.'

It's too easy to make our kids into victims, because our hearts go out to them and before we know it, we're coming out with 'oh you poor darling, come here...' and we've done it again: enabled, propped up, fed the disorder and trained the child that there is nothing they can do to fix this that is within the bounds of acceptable behaviour.

So you have to be stronger: make her in the wrong. Tell her what she's doing to enable this man and feed his sickness. She needs to tell him she's not going to take this any more, and that every time he abuses her she'll code his cellphone as spam for a month. IE consequences. So far he gets to do whatever he likes like a child and you're training her to be a bad mother.

She needs to toughen up, and play a straight game. And sometimes that involves telling your father you won't take any more of his shit. The sky won't fall.

Thank you Bridgie you are so right!!! I just told her the other day .Turn your phone off!!!! She has gotten stronger and she is better at setting limits, but apparently not good enough!! I don't think that either one of us realizes that his anger and abusive behavior may not be part of his disease. I wish she would cut ties with him completely until he gets the proper help. I try to lead her in the direction of standing up for herself and not accepting his bad behavior. ITs a work in progress. Thank you for your feedback!!

I cut off contact with my parents for a year. They didn't know where I lived, worked, or had a phone number. I had to. For my sanity. It sounds like, for your daughter, that may be the boundary she needs to set - cut off contact. He's poison. I don't care if he's ill. Not everyone with depression is an abusive asshole like your ex. He's too poisonous for both of you. Talk to her about changing her number and email and cutting off contact. Dont' say it has to be forever. But she needs time away from him. She will never get better if she keeps him in her life. Go to a therapy appointment with her. Perhaps talking it out with both you and a professional will help her make that step. She feels loyal to him, loves him, and I did and do to my parents too. But enough is enough and you need to cut them off, at least for a time.

Thank you. I just told my daughter to join these groups. Hopefully enough people will tell her what you have and it will sink in. Good luck to you and thanks for sharing and caring!!!!!

As his daughter, she may feel like she doesn't have a choice. She may still feel like a child that can't escape his abuse, even though all she has to do is hang up. It's psychological and it's powerful. Can she get counseling?

I agree 100% that his abuse has absolutely nothing to do with his illness. He just uses it as an excuse to get pity from her and as a cage to keep her under his control. I'd ask her to maybe write him a letter, telling him that she's no longer going to communicate with him via phone because of the way he mistreats her. Give an email address and tell him if he wishes to talk to her, he can send an email. A bonus will be, if he abuses her still, she will have proof. It's really sad that he can't see her for the joy she is and instead, only thinks of himself having no compassion for her feelings. He may live to regret that. Yes, she would get a wealth of support on here. Good luck to both of you.

Thank you so much for your reply. She has and still is going for counseling. We are both surprised to hear from so many people that the abuse has nothing to so with his illness! Unbelievable!!! Thank you again!

There are books written on that very subject. Lots of people who aren't depressed abuse people, and lots of people who are depressed don't. It's his choice to mistreat her. If it was his illness, he would treat everyone that way and not have any control over it. It's painful for children of all ages to be hurt by their parents. I hope the counseling helps her.

I vote for changing her cell number. She can give it out to those she wants. Just turning the phone of punishes her friends, work etc... Counseling for her in how to deal with this would be good. She could work on a plan with the therapist how to reintroduce herself with her father. Underneath it all she probably has feelings for her father. She will need to find her strength in how she wants to deal with him or not She could decide just to walk away. Hard but doable. But she needs to figure out what the picture is like for her.