Hi All,
I am hoping some of you will post your experiences of the situation below, which concerns my 17 year old step daughter.
In a nutshell, she met a lad 3 years older than here while on holiday with the family several years ago. He lives about 150 miles from us. About 5 months ago, she announced she was seeing him. They have seen each other in person for 44 days during this period of time.
She stayed with him over half term last week. They were going to end the week by travelling to Southampton, where he was going clubbing with friends, and she was going to get the train home (too young for clubbing).
She called my husband distraught because she’d missed the train, lost her ticket, didn’t have any money, and he told her that he wasn’t coming back because he had a dinner date with friends. After several attempts to call him, he only agreed to return after she told him my husband was coming to pick her up.
On the journey home, and over the weekend, a number of revelations have occurred:
- Not long into the relationship, she told us that he had had a major fall out with his friends. At the time they were described as unreasonable.This was revealed to be because he had either shoved or verbally abused a girl on a nightclub floor.
- In the summer, she went to a music festival. We received a call from a random stranger saying that she had come across my step daughter hysterically upset and that her boyfriend and her had quarreled. At the time, my step daughter said that it was just an argument but could never come up with a convincing argument as to why the stranger called. It was now revealed that when he came back, he took his glasses off, stamped them into the ground, and then blamed step daughter for making him angry. This happened while the well meaning strangers were with her – and they told her that he was not a nice person
- He punched a wall while angry with her. Oh, and pointed out a dent in a wall from a similar event with a previous girlfriend who he described as “controlling” - so he is pretty unlucky in his choice of girls!
- He threw his car keys at a female friend's car, causing another bust up with his friends.
- He’s told her she is not to discuss their arguments with family under any circumstances.
- He was removed from a football match by the police, allegedly for throwing a paper cup of water.
- He gave her three months to “change her ways” and if she didn’t he would dump her. Then, when she took issue with his behavior, he said she would never dump him.
- I infer (may not be correct) that he has been quite insulting to her. He got very angry about the train station incident and said that she had embarrassed him in front of his friends. I also infer that alcohol is a very bad thing for him.
Quite possibly there is more to come.
She initially agreed with our assessment that there were too many red flags here, but then has been wracked with guilt and says things like “I will try harder not to make him angry” as well as excusing his behavior. They are now supposedly “on a break”.
The whole family are united in saying that this needs to end, but we have no sway over her. Despite giving her reading about the symptoms of abusive relationships, she persists with the “but he’s nice most of the time” comments.
She is 17. Technically we can prevent her from seeing him. But in practice it would be difficult. She is quite headstrong.
I am looking for help: if you have experience of this, and how bad it can get, would you mind posting? I am hoping if I can show her the experiences and reactions of people on here, she may realize that this is way beyond what is acceptable and that we are right to be very concerned.
Many thanks.