DS spends all his time with GF and she doesn’t speak to us

There is no reason this young lady cannot learn to say please, thank you, hello, goodbye and have basic manners. I did, My DS uncle with an IQ of 40 did. My opinion is hardly ill informed

Your opinion is ill informed.
Those basic politeness words are the highest communication load words there are, precisely because they are the words that a child with SM will have been repeatedly shamed for not managing to say. For that reason they are left until late in any kind of intervention programme for children with SM.

Apologists? For recognising and calling out vile judgemental attitudes towards a condition that is classified in the DSM? Ok

I agree!
But this being Mumsnet people will be excusing her behaviours as some sort of syndrome , like only choosing to speak to certain people , which comes across as sulky and rude.

This was also me as a teenager. Hello undiagnosed autism.... My mother in-law always made me feel welcome in their home, always included me and catered to me, despite how painful I found socialising with them and I am very grateful for that. I got comfortable eventually.

Regardless, she is clearly making your son happy, and you're the adult here. Be consistent, be kind, be patient. You're sons happiness is the key here really.

I think at 17, you are at the stage of having to let go and trust.
"^ i think if someone pays for every aspect of your life, having a Sunday lunch with them once a week or spending an hour chatting one night, isn’t too much to ask if my DS^. " I am not sure that thinking that you have bought his attention is especially helpful?

It comes across this way to people who are ignorant of the debilitating condition known as selective mutism. And it is wrong.

This could be my sister in law 20 years ago. The whole family tried to make conversation with her but got one word answers back and she would sit on her phone playing games rather than engage with us. This woman was highly intelligent and travelled the world holding seminars where she could speak confidently with no sign of shyness. If she was talking about her specialist subject there was no holding her back. We thought she was just rude at the time.

Looking back and now understanding she has autism (we didn't know then and probably hadn't heard of it) I deeply regret not trying harder and giving her the time she needed to get used to us.

My advice would be to treat her with kindness and patience. I suspect over time she will become more communicative once she feels less overwhelmed and more safe. Your son obviously sees something in her that you can't yet see because she closes herself off.

Awful, judgemental, ill-informed and presumptuous. Please as I've said already on this thread, educate yourself and read up.on selective mutism

Exactly right, that level of shyness is unlikely with friends and a job and day release?

My son had one of these when he was 17 at 6th form College, a ‘shy’ girl.
She was in our house, looked me up and down! didn’t greet us,
behaved as though she lived there, asked me where was the instant coffee,
no please, I said I don’t have any, she tutted, took herself off upstairs to his room
and slammed the (large, heavy) door.

There was more. I asked her to leave. My son walked her to the station.

She telephoned on the landline early the next day when son was still asleep,
his phone switched off, demanding! that I wake him. I said I wouldn’t.
She was loud and abusive, critiqued my skill as a mother etc.
I said, thanks for the feedback.

She was 21, described to us as quiet and shy. Bizarre.

My bil early twenties had a girlfriend described as shy, in her twenties, worked in a mixed environment, went on political marches and demonstrations, had friends of her own, sat on our couch close to bil, didnt speak but boy could she put away the food and wine! The children avoided her, she never even glanced their way, let alone bring them sweets say, a bunch of flowers or bottle, fed, then left , shuffling out behind bil, no thank you, head down didn’t engage. Baffling but yes, rude.

DH complained loud and long about her charmless manner, lack of interest, monosyllabic responses, faint sneering and whispering to bil, all deemed as ‘shyness’. pfft !

Both women had behavioural problems although the first example didn’t linger
long enough to have any influence on usually phlegmatic son thank goodness.

Good advice here as ever, reduce visits, rude and disrespectful is inexcusable
in your home despite the bleeding heart apologists refrain on here.

Ds2s girlfriend was a bit like this at first I thought it was rude as I went out of my way to be over nice , once I calmed down she gradually became more comfortable and slowly became more friendly she was adopted and her adopted mother left the family home when she was 13 and had nothing to do with her. So she has been “rejected” by two mothers .
fast forward 18 months and she stayed here today while DS2 was on a early shift she came down when my mother came had some lunch with us it was lovely . Just give her time and carry on with your life , I think you also need to realise your son is growing up and teenagers are selfish so no
he won’t want to facilitate family time that wil come as he grows

I'd ask D's to commit to a new night a week spent with parents without the quiet one. Other nights I'd just smile and say hello and goodbye, and leave them alone. Over time she might be one a little more open with you.

Personally leave them to it. The more you push against the more he is likely to pull away. Just let him (and her) know you are there for them if they need you.

Thank you for this. I'm finding the responses on this thread really quite distressing, having selective mutism in our lives at one point, looking back I should have been more afraid of the ignorance out there than I even was. I feel so sorry for people facing these attitudes

I think she's not shy at all, but angry and controlling. There have been plenty of similar instances on threads on MN.

I would encourage your son to stick with his other friends. When his girlfriend is rude to you by ignoring you, I think I'd say something to my son immediately afterwards, so he can't pretend it hasn't happened.

If it's his first romantic relationship it's likely he's obsessed with her right now, but he needs to remember what he likes about his other friends and how this relationship is lacking that.

I think your real issue OP is not the gf, but how much your DS is pulling away from you and not spending time with the family anymore. Is he your eldest?

It must be painful to go through this, but it is really very natural. He needs to basically detach from your family in order to attach to a partner, friends - and eventually create his own home, family and children. It's what every teenager does.

I think this is what you're struggling with, more so than this particular gf.

She won't join you at the pub? Fair enough, she's 16.5 - that's young

Won't join you in your house when it's dinner time for a meal? That is a skill she is going to need to learn. Next time she is over, ask what she likes for dinner.

As it approaches dinner I would be inviting her for dinner at the table, or asking her if she is going home. Maybe she is a very choosy eater and she doesn't want to join you in case she doesn't like the food.

Maybe she is unhappy at home? It sounds like she is nearly moving in to your house

I understand, I too would be panicking about the long term of it but you never know, he might not even be with her that long.

Do you feel that he is being controlled? Because if you're not sure, I wouldn't bring it up with him as it might make him feel misunderstood and you don't want to push him away.

You could learn to say these things because you weren't diagnosed with selective mutism. You were diagnosed with other things.
That's like saying that my toes were amputated but I still learnt to play the piano so there is no reason a person with amputated fingers cannot.

No.

Honestly people's misunderstanding of communication anxiety really boils my piss.

Look, if you are frightened of spiders, you can be perfectly happy and functional until a spider appears in your field of vision.

That doesn't mean you aren't really frightened of spiders and are making it all up. It means that the spider is the trigger for the response.

Selective mutism works in exactly the same way. It is an inability to speak when triggered by a new an unsafe person or in a new and unsafe environment. So as long as you aren't being expected to interact with a new an unsafe person or in a new and unsafe environment, you will be able to be your true communicative self - and speak fully and freely. It's exactly like a fear of spiders, except that for "spiders" read "new or unsafe people".

The precise pattern of SM differs for every person who has it just like a spider phobia. Some are ok with small spiders like money spiders but are triggered by bigger ones. Same with SM; some kids with SM can speak to other kids but not to higher "authority figures" such as adults. Others can't speak to anyone apart from family.
In no case is it a deliberate choice; it is always and simply dependent on what triggers the anxiety shut-down response.

The fact that this girl is managing to say single words suggests to me that she very much wants to speak but finds it all very difficult. This is called "low profile selective mutism" btw.

What if you tried talking to her? You could ask her to have a cup of tea with you when she comes in, and then ask her if everything this is ok, and let you know that it’s important for her to say hello when she is visiting and join in for meals. She is a child, she is acting like a child and perhaps the best approach is to explain this to her like she is a child. I expect she would hate the confrontation, but maybe it would give her something to think about. It would need to be done in a gentle but really clear way.

It also comes across as arrogant , self absorbed and impolite not to speak to one’s boyfriend’s parents.

Hopefully he’ll get a more social girlfriend in time, Op.

OP, you said she's spending "every night" with your son - do you mean that she stays overnight every night, too? In other words, she's moved into your house, aged 16?

Where are her own family in this, if she's now effectively - or actually living at your house?

Also there may be a very good reason she can't learn to speak to say please and thank you. It is called selective mutism.
The fact that you are diagnosed with certain disorders does not give you the right to dismiss other people's struggles.

The OP has literally described a person with selective mutism. Look at the symptoms.
More reason to think it is this than that she deliberately wants to be rude and disrespectful to her boyfriends parents. Why would she want to ruin her relationship?
Think about it.
Jumping to the worst conclusion. Why?