Son asked for advice - what would you advise him?

YABU to get involved in this!

leave him to make his own decisions, as an adult, rather than getting 😡on his behalf

This GF sounds like she has a cushy existence to be honest. She’s getting best of both worlds in so far as your family are entertaining her, feeding her, taking her on holiday…….all of which she is actually enjoying at her own home. Yet her family cannot offer the same hospitality to her BF, your son.

Seemingly, your DS has had his eyes opened by her comment regarding her forthcoming family holiday and the fact he isn’t invited because he won’t grovel to her dad…………your son has standards OP and you should be proud of him.

However, I do think the relationship is doomed long term…….what if they were to marry, can you imagine the wedding day and his pitiful life thereafter forever ostracised by his in-laws?!?!

Best he dumps her now and if I were you I certainly wouldn’t be entertaining her quite so freely.

What an absolutely ridiculous and patriarchal twat your son's girlfriend's dad is. Why on earth does he need an apology? I presume that your son and his girlfriend have apologised to each other about any previous behaviour that caused their break up.

I agree that their relationship has no future, unless your son doesn't mind apologising and accepting that this awful man will be controlling their relationship for years to come.

How would his girlfriend feel if you demanded an apology from her for hurting your son? I doubt that it would go down well.

There was a very similar post to this, a number of months ago. The Son had cheated on his GF, which is why they split up, and the Dad wouldn’t have him back in the house… so I do think context is really important

I agree with this to an extent but it depends on what the split was about and op’s son’s part in it I think? Also whether both families are the same nationality?

The gf may have taken responsibility and her dad may still be insisting on an apology from op’s son owing to some cultural reason or difference? Or because he saw his dd desperately distraught and upset during the split, and he feels very protective towards his dd and wanted to talk to op’s son to ensure the situation didn’t arise again.

It may seem old fashioned to us but this would be seen as normal behaviour in some cultures. The dad sees it as his job to protect his dd. It could come from a good place, not necessarily a controlling one.

Even if the past ‘treating each other badly’ included DS cheating first, that’d be between DS and his GF. Family might be rightly unimpressed with DS but should have been at least civil, which they haven’t been.

The only thing that could make their treatment of DS more understandable would be abusive behaviour on his part towards GF, but in that case it’d be v weird to condone it if DS apologised to GF’s father.

Long term this gets messier and messier. What happens if she gets pregnant and her family bar him from the birth/ insist he can’t come around with his child/ won’t visit their shared home because he lives there. Her dad sounds unhinged tbh but also you’ve not mentioned what they both did that was so bad to break up in the first place. Either way, it’s very toxic for such a young couple and I can’t see how it can resolve with so much bad blood under the bridge. Even if he apologised now there’s been years of ill feeling and it won’t change how they see him.

Had the gf not told DS she was due to go on holiday with her family - why had he ‘just learned’ that? Failed to mention that all other partners were going too?

The gf is at fault as she’s been telling (I’ll bet, one-sided) tales. I think the gf needs to step up and say ‘look dad, I’ve forgiven him, and he has forgive me. We are happy and have been happy for nearly 2 years. Can we agree to move on? I’d like him on the trip /I’d like us to have a lunch before that’
If needed she can get her siblings or mother to advocate too. If there’s any apology, it’s a three-way one that they all didn’t come to the table earlier.

Ds absolutely doesn’t buy or pay for any holiday til this is resolved.

It would depend on what happened between them. My dd once went back to a boyfriend that I just couldn’t welcome into my family. She was welcomed back into his and it was all very difficult. Fortunately we managed to keep communication open with dd so she had somewhere to go when she needed to run.

It’s a teenage love relationship spilling into adulthood, it’s time for it to end really. I don’t think your approach is 100% right either, all this ‘instantly and unconditionally’ treating her like your daughter stuff, it’s a toxic relationship that isn’t going to last forever, it’s not like she’s your DIL. She isn’t your child, he is. What did they do to each other during that split? The dad may have basis for being annoyed at your son and wanting to hear it won’t happen again, your son has chosen not prioritise his girlfriend by saying he’s sorry so he’s either 1) arrogant or 2) she’s the bad guy and maybe you should have expected more from her too.

No he shouldn’t spend his money taking her on holiday, she can sort her own holidays and he can save his money for himself. It’s also right her family don’t offer to take him away because rightly or wrongly he doesn’t respect her parents.

I would definitely be advising my son not to pay for her holiday, it sounds like she doesn't have his back at all.

I'm trying imagine myself in her situation and I just can't. My dad would never treat me as an extension of himself like this. Why on earth would he expect an apology? It's so weird and controlling. If I were the girlfriend I'd be embarrassed by my dad's behaviour, but she seems to think it's ok. That sets off a little warning bell for me, has she internalised this sexism? Does she expect to be "looked after"?

Some parents (I include my own mother in this) won’t move on from this kind of thing. It led to me telling her very little about my relationship as I’d have moved on from something, and she would be saying ‘he’s not welcome in my house now’. Its incredibly frustrating, and will lead to his daughter spending less time at home.

I guess your son wouldn’t want to go on holiday with her dad anyway given the situation, and he can’t expect to be invited given he refused to apologise. We don’t know the full story, and I guess neither do you, and whilst I don’t agree in him apologising to her father, a conversation with him after they got back together would have been the best approach. It’s a bit late now and this relationship will only get worse if they wanted to get married / have children. He should cancel his plans to take her on holiday as he’s only going to be resentful that she is going with her family / their partners.

Spit up!!

Spot on!

Why should he apologise to her dad? They have both treated each other bad and resolved it between them. Her dad needs to let it go he isnt the one who is in this relationship but his daughter. I dont think ops son has to apologise to her dad for anything and Im glad he hasnt.

I strongly believe couples should have each others back and keep their issues private. Now that shes told her family they will always treat him like this I hope he finds someone who puts him first like he does.

I think he should have just sucked it up and apologised even though the Dad was being unreasonable.

It’s toxic for her to be stuck between two men. He could have just saved her that pressure and stress. That’s what I would have done in your DS shoes.

I want to know what they did but actually that's not relevant. Why should your son apologise to her dad for something he did to her? Even if he did something really bad I can't see why her dad needs an apology. The fact his girlfriend wants him to go along with this, even though she did something similar to him and hasn't apologise to you, doesn't make any sense to me. I would say to him that the relationship should end because she is taking her dad's unreasonable side and she isn't treating him as she has been treated herself. I'm sure she would be horrified to think of apologising to you.

I think he needs to end things. Especially since she’s said he should have apologised to her Dad. No matter how well the relationship works when it’s just the two of them, if her dad continues to treat him like this and she continues to accept it he’s doomed to a life of misery. If they got married, would her dad refuse to come? If they had kids, would she be taking them to her parents all the time without him? Her dad is definitely the problem, but he’s not going to change so better to walk away then keep dealing with this unreasonableness

She's not a princess, she should be paying for her own holiday. Her Dad sounds insane. Your son should get out while he can and find someone more normal.

Well it really depends on what actually happened.
You have obviously decided it was not important and that's fine and probably sensible.
But the girls dad may have been witness to things you have not been or his daughter told him things he did not approve of or like. In terms of how your son treated his daughter.

My guess is the girlfriend blamed your son entirely for any poor behaviour leading up to their split, to her family. She took no responsibility for her part, and has allowed her family to continue blaming your son. If you think about it logically, if she'd been honest with her family - they were both 50/50 to blame for their own behaviour and consequent split - why would her Dad be insistent on an apology to him for the way your son treated his daughter?! He wouldn't be insisting on it, if he knew she was partly to blame, because you could rightly request the same from her, and it would be ridiculous! She's not going to stick up for your son, in front of her family, because the narrative her Dad has been led to believe is the one she's happy to go with. If she told him she is partly to blame, she'd have to admit her part, and then Daddy would realise his daughter hasn't been entirely honest with him or the rest of the family. I'm sorry to say but your son's girlfriend is immature, manipulative and this won't get any better the further into the relationship he goes.

If I was your son, I'd not pay for her holiday.

Any apologies are for her to accept not her father. It sounds like he's not happy about whatever happened so any holiday together would be awkward. He needs to realise that it takes two to make a relationship.

Given that his gf is making out that it's now all his fault I'd be having second thoughts altogether if I was him.

Why can't he go and talk to the dad?

In your situation as parents I wouldn’t have paid for DS’s GF to come on holiday with you, that’s OTT IMO!