Advanced Security Settings

For the advanced security settings to work, does the userid needs to be an integer field?
I have two tables:
table 1 user

userid is a varchar field

name

password
table 2 maintable

id autonumber

userid varchar

etc...
Users Table: OwnerID field I use userid from table 1

Main table: OwnerID field I use userid from table 2
I selected "users can see other users data; can edit their own data only" but it doesn't work. No one can edit anything even his or her own data as the edit option is not even available on the page.
Basically, I want user to be able to see everyone's data but only edit and delete their own data.