Disintegrating Relationship with 18-Year-Old Daughter

Hi, all. Sorry if this is long; this is my first post!I'm the single mom of an 18-year-old daughter. I've been a single mother from day one; my ex-husband left our home when she was only 8 months old. He was physically and emotionally abusive, arrogant and entitled. Little has changed. I had full custody from the start and he was permitted the standard every other weekend visits. He canceled about 40% of those visits over the entire span of my daughter's childhood.  He has done his best to turn my daughter against me with lies for years and as she's grown older, she has gravitated toward him because he has never had any rules/chores for her. She craves his attention because it's been difficult to convince him to fulfill his visitations over the course of her life. She has not attended any of my weekend family functions for two years because she didn't want to miss the opportunity to spend that weekend with her father.Fast-forward to the present. My daughter's attitude has changed practically overnight from sweet, helpful, and eager-to-please into oppositional, argumentative, and borderline emotionally abusive. I realize that some of that is her age, but she's more like her father every day. She has made it clear that the fact that she turned 18 means that she can do anything she wants in my home. Her biggest issue right now is laziness. She refuses to work more than six or seven hours per week, despite the fact that she is constantly offered additional work hours. She spent her entire savings account ($1,200) in one month on junk. She's finishing up her first semester at community college and has announced that she wants to spend the next year not attending school or working. She says she needs to do some "self-reflection" and relax. That entails skateboarding, running, painting, and hanging out day and night with her unemployed, drug-addicted boyfriend of about two months. Needless-to-say, I'm at my wit's end. I should mention here that I am a woman of modest means. I work full-time and make just enough money to get by, so for my daughter to expect to live in my home for a full year without doing anything of substance is neither realistic nor fair. Her father will allow her to live in his home for free when the fall semester ends next month, but he will not do anything to help her advance to the next stage of her life. That was always my job.I spent my daughter's entire life so far working at the local state university so that she could attend for free (she did not earn good enough grades to be admitted out of high school). I moved to a school district I couldn't afford when she was in the third grade in order to provide her with the best possible education. I dedicated all of my time to her, knowing that she had a father who was simply not there for her consistently. I am heart-broken that she is behaving this way. As her attitude and conduct worsened over the past year, I told myself on a daily basis that I needed to embrace her leaving (if only for my mental state), but now that the time has almost arrived, I'm a mess. Does anyone have any advice for a mother who is facing an empty nest and the possibility of the end of her relationship with her only child? I will enter therapy soon, but I thought some moms and/or dads here might have some thoughts.Thanks in advance for any constructive advice or similar experiences you may want to share for a very sad mom. via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2S6AyIK