Son asked for advice - what would you advise him?

Regardless of what happened I'd think if he was bothered about the relationship he'd have apologised to the dad. Just stuck it up and move on. If I was the gf his refusal would tell me all I need to know and now thinking he should withhold gifts and what sounds like access to your family as punishment sounds very tit for tat. These issues wouldn't be cropping up in a happy and healthy relationship. Sounds like your son should end the relationship and do some maturing. Also what makes you think the gf has the ability to talk her dad round.

If this was all sorted before the father really has no right to keep digging up the past

The holiday would certainly not be a barrel of laughs for OP's son. The father sounds like the sort of bully who wants to control his daughter and her partner. He would just see the apology as a weakness and would be pleased that he had got his way by paying for holiday.

Do parents really get this involved in their children's relationships these days? In my day, yes, girlfriends/boyfriends were totally welcome in our parents' house and there was information flow etc, but me and my siblings and my friends would have been MORTIFIED if our parents had known any of the specific details of our relationships. Both your DS and his GF seemt o hvae way too much family involvement in their relationship and the whole thing reads like a couple of toddlers arranging playdates.

On 07/01 this year, the OP posted that DS and his GF broke up twice, most recently getting back together in Oct 2024 ad PP said.

She added that both breakups were caused by mutual, drunken, alcohol fuelled cheating. This is what the GF’s father seems to want her son to apologise to him for.

So I stick by the idea that such an apology is out of bounds. The demand for one raises all sorts of questions about the girl’s relationship with her family.

The whole thing is not a picture of a match that was meant to be.

They are so young. They don’t need to ‘make it work’. They are not married with children. They need to move on.

The gf’s family clearly have a weird dynamic considering they apologised to your son on her behalf for her cheating on him. Did the gf apologise to you for cheating on him?! I think if he had given a reciprocal apology at that time (weird as it may be) then it could have avoided all of this ridiculous drama.

I would be advising my son that he’s too young for all this, he should be out having fun not settling down with a girl who doesn’t support him and is happy to see him being treated like this by her family. They have been together on and off since 16 which is just way too much too soon. Is he working or at uni? Is this relationship/dynamic holding him back? That would be my concern. Ask him how it will feel in 10 years time when they could have a child of their own and he’s still being excluded?

They could have had a conversation, not exactly apologising, but certainly expressing regret at what happened and ensuring dad understood that things would be different going forward. That would have been a mature thing to do at the time. Parents would obviously have been concerned.

It’s up to the gf to ensure her dad understands that things have changed, but if he’s never been around them, then it’s not hard to understand why he’s not been invited on this holiday.

Now is the time to either build bridges or finish the relationship; it’s bought things to a head.

Apparently, yes:

remaining.
4PawsandATail · Today 09:16

You say they got back together in summer 2023 and everything has been fine?
I recognised this story so I searched your posts and in January of this year you said they most recently got back together October 2024, which is it?
In any case, I don't think they're meant for eachother.
I think my dad would be pissed off too. You don't know how reasons. It's your choice to treat her like family and it's his choice not to.

SallyMcCarthy · 07/01/2025 09:54
Her parents know she cheated just as much [as my DS] - they both apologised to my son for her cheating when it happened.

The family sound bonkers. I'm not sure that I would welcome her into my home quite so much as OP does.
(Sorry to go dragging up old threads, OP, but you are being very slow in coming back to this thread you started.)

All the parental drama aside, I'm not liking the sound of the girlfriend. She sounds spoilt and a taker and unwilling to stand up for what is the right thing to do. These are not the kind of character traits you want in a partner long term.

I mean they're 21 FFS. No one needs to put themself through that much grief for a relationship at that age. I don't think they're compatible, the dad obviously is an arse and I think he should cut her loose.

Your son and the GFs father are both very stubborn and the GF is stuck in the middle of it. If she still lives with her parents and depends on them financially it may be very hard for her to stand up to them. Her dad may not realise the GF did any wrong in the relationship and may just see that your son hurt his daughter. I think your son should go and speak to the dad for his GFs sake and to enable them to move on with their relationship. The dad sounding like a stubborn and controlling person but there needs to be some end to it and I would encourage your son to be the bigger man here for his GF.

Absolutely this

What did treating each other badly entail?

End the relationship.

The dynamic of dad/daughter would be enough to put me off tbh. As others have mentioned, unless you son did something that directly impacted the dad, he isn’t due an apology and to demand one is bang out of order. To then cut off DS even though his daughter is back with him is too controlling for words. It shows a lack of respect for his daughter (she’ll never make a decision if it goes against what daddy would want), over-stepping boundaries, need to control and bullying. Does your son want to be with that sort of family for the rest of his life?

Flip side to the dad’s behaviour is the possibility that the GF will be used to being daddy’s princess. Never does anything wrong, dad always there to fight her battles for her…black! If they get married & have kids, whose family do you think will be dominant? Who will be popping round every other day, paying house deposits/buying them houses, saying where everyone’s going on holiday?

Tell your DS there’s plenty of other fish in the sea (that don’t come with dysfunctional family baggage). He’s young, relationships should be fun and stress free!

Or until her boyfriend was upset about the holiday / the deserved or undeserved consequences of whatever "treating each other badly" means...

It does depend very much on what your son did to his daughter.

personally, I would have spoken to him. Your son knowing her dad was upset but not being willing to speak to him is not good in my eyes.

equally, her dad being that controlling not good either - he could have just rung your son and asked for a conversation

the future is already complicated as it means if they had kids together this strained family relationships will be a problem

I’d advise my son that this relationship is going nowhere, he will always be excluded from family events and things like weddings, having babies will always cause problems, by the sound of it what dad says goes and ds’s girlfriend sides with dad.

cut his losses and move on.

i certainly wouldn’t be telling him to apologise to the dad unless he had personally said or did something to the dad.

I'd be quite concerned about why my son wouldn't apologise. If he's sorry about the way he treated his gf at the time, then why not apologise to her dad?

These things DO affect the family too - they deal with lots of the fallout and the distress of their child, and are there to support her whilst all the angst is going on. Many fathers are naturally protective, and it would be perfectly normal to want some form of reassurance that things were genuinely going to be different going forwards.

If he's not even able to apologise for something he is supposed to be genuinely sorry about, then as a parent, I'd be wondering if he really meant the things he'd said, and I'd be sharing that opinion with my daughter, even though I wouldn't cut him off. If there had been even a whisper of abuse though, I would cut him off in a heartbeat - and would be VERY wary going forwards, even if he did apologise.

Since we don't know what 'treating eachother badly' entails, it's really hard to judge. I don't think this relationship has legs though. They are on totally different pages on how to deal with this schism.

I think their youth is a big part of the problem here. She's almost a child and still needs the comfort and protection of her birth family. She's not independent enough to see her father's behaviour objectively or to stand up to him. She might well grow out of it over time, but it could take twenty years, or she could stay an emotional child forever.
Hard though it is, I think you need to dial. back your own behaviour ro mirror theirs and not include her on holidays etcetera. This would be fair to your son and encourage her to grow up.
Unfortunately, if they stay together, it could also alienate you from your son if in the long term he does start to go to her home more and she then doesn't want to come to yours if she feels you have been 'punishing' her.

I would advise him to break it off as it sounds like this will always dog them.

I don’t get the apologise to the father for treating his daughter badly, the father doesn’t own the daughter. The daughter was deserved if any apology but the father sounds a control freak.

anyway it won’t last, time to start checking out.

Well I thought if there had been abuse the couple should part ways.

It had not occurred to me that perhaps the DS could have behaved with the GF family in such a way that they actually deserve an apology also until someone (you I think?) mentioned the possibility upthread. It is certainly a valid point.

Poor girl. Why should she have to potentially damage her relationship with her family for a boyfriend? She’s 21! They’re not a married couple with kids. She needs to preserve her relationship with her family and to ask her to jeopardise it is not on.

This is a good point.

I do however think that the emotional impact isn't completely irrelevant. If their DD was completely inconsolable by whatever he did (and I mean beyond "mere heartbreak") and if the emotional impact of that affected the family? I do see why they have a hard time simply "allowing" him back and treating him as if nothing had happened...

I also agree with what @MikeRafone wrote: It is perfectly possible that whatever your DS did is something his girlfriend's father simply can't "forget" / pretend didn't happen. It is possible that he doesn't truly want the apology for himself but that he wants to know that your DS truly understands that whatever he did was wrong, from her DF's point of view unforgiveable and can't ever happen again. Whether that is his right is debatable. But what parent wouldn't want to protect their child? Especially if the believe that whatever your DS did was borderline abusive, criminal or simply highly unethical?

As for how you treat the girlfriend: I believe that you have been treating her with respect and care because that is how you want to treat her. That shouldn't be transactional and you shouldn't make that conditional on her father's treatment of your DS.