Worried about my niece (15) and abusive boyfriend

[Pearlofthesea]

Hi, I’m posting on behalf of my sister. Her daughter (15) (my niece) is seeing a lad (14 almost 15) and he treats her really badly and my sister and I are so worried but we just don’t know what to do.

She has been seeing this boy for almost a year but he seems verbally and physically aggressive towards her. The way he talks is quite frankly vile, he can’t string a sentence together without swearing. He has anger issues and according to my niece has broken things in his house because of his really bad temper- punched holes in walls, slammed doors off his hinges etc.

He quite often calls her names (she says that’s just the way he speaks) and often slams doors in her face if they are having a strop.

My sister says if she tries to stop her seeing him she will just rebel and do everything behind her back. I suggested my sister talks to his mum (she has her phone number, but she says she doesn’t feel comfortable with this (my sister is really introverted and can’t face this).

The boy is always in trouble in school, frequently excluded for smoking and swearing at teachers, he’s really popular with a lot of friends and is handsome, and my niece just is completely smitten.

When we try and talk to her she just says he can’t help it because he has problems. (Possibly ADHD)

Despite all this, he comes from a good home, lovely parents (according to niece), professional, well off, big house in the expensive part of town - of course none of this should matter but I think my sister just feels intimidated because she has low self esteem.

We are worried he will get physical with her and hurt her in some way.

What can we do?

[Tableclothing]

Find out who your local domestic violence charity is, find out if they have a young people's worker, if not, most services accept 16+ as adults so you might have to wait for her birthday to get her in.

Failing that, it might be worth sharing some of the information from the Women's Aid website with her.

Lots of young people don't (sadly) know what a respectful relationship looks like, and do need to be taught.

[justbeniceplease]

True about needing to know what a respectful relationship is. Does she see any good examples? Positive reinforcement is massively helpful in terms of showing her what's 'right'