To not meet my daughter's waster, manipulative boyfriend

All you can do is be there for when ot all goes wrong you cant reason with people who deliberately dont see the red flags and keep their eyes firmly shut, and of course be prepared to have to house her and future grandchildren

Mine wasn’t a waster but he was bad news - erratic with a violent temper when drunk. Split up then went back 🙄. My poor parents. They never criticised or said much. I lied and lied to them though pretending I was seeing friends not him.

Had to come to the conclusion myself. What pushed me was that I wanted marriage and family and knew I could not do that with him (though he wanted to get married). I moved cities to break out of the cycle. Then met DH at my new job who is perfect. My parents LOVE him and still do 20 years on. I shudder to think if I’d stayed with him. Probably be in a woman’s refuge by now.

How are things now OP ?

Brilliant post and sound advice

Madness to be giving her money.
She needs to face her reality.
You giving her money is prolonging this.

Her decisions have consequences.
She needs to face them.

Is she happy?

Know thine enemy.

Meet him, hold your tongue, keep the door open and be ready

DD met a similar sounding man. She was 16 and told us he was 23. I found out from a friend he was actually 31. The story is very similar to OP's. He had one son, but he never saw the child and paid no CM. We did meet him as she just brought him round without warning on a few occasions.

She was at college. He did have a job in a shop, but was sacked for stealing the takings. He got another job as catering assistant and was sacked for stealing bottles of spirits. That pattern carried on.

She then went to uni in the same city. He took her student loan money and she was working 2 waitressing/bar jobs to pay their rent. Luckily uni saved her. She made some great female friends, which displeased him. He became more and more controlling and tried to drive her friends and us away. Final straw was when he was arrested for attacking the security door staff in a local nightclub where DD had gone for a good friend's birthday. Next day she rang me, begging me to come and pick her up at a set time (when he was out boozing).

You have my sympathy OP. I'd go ahead and meet him though. DH didn't want to, but he gritted his teeth. I also used to go around to their flat, all friendly, just to send a message that he wouldn't get rid of DD's family that easy.

Sorry if it’s already been asked - but who looks after and entertains his kids when they are around? Is he a good dad?

I was in a similar situation to your daughter for five years, and it was tricky. My parents ultimately were nice and included him, but calmly expressed some concerns early on so I know what they thought. The thing that made the difference was seeing the life I could have without him and what I was giving up staying. Having nice plans with friends, thinking about holiday/travel opportunities, having interesting and stimulating conversations, hearing about others' hobbies, that's what did it for me. I wonder if you could facilitate/suggest thing and/or mention what family friends are up to in a neutral way? Then maybe it could develop into 'DD, are there any holidays/hobbies/ambitions you're interested in?' I hope she realises soon

But yes I would meet him. Better the devil you know etc. Be civil, polite. He sounds like he won’t have much interest in you all anyway so it’s likely your DD may see him being disrespectful or grumpy or uninterested in you both and she may find that unattractive.

Agree with most PPs - refusing to meet him is a mistake and does not help your DD. It pushes her towards him; it gives him grounds for isolating her from you; it makes her feel forced to decide between you and him etc etc. Don’t give him excuses to isolate her. Be as neutral and civil as you can be.

You might benefit from reading up on how to support loved ones who are in abusive/possibly abusive relationships. There’s a book called something like “Helping Her Break Free” which deals with this.

I think she will eventually wake up to it all and realise she’s been taken for a ride. I only pray that it’s before they have a child together. No woman happily pays all the bills and housing for herself, a man and his 3 kids with nothing given in return without eventually hitting a wall and realising they’re being used.

I might be being a bit dim, but why do you feel you should meet him? Has your dd asked you to @ManyBooksLittleTime
I am completely guessing here, but is the money thing being mentioned more because of the kids school holidays? Is your dd taking them out? Are they around more? Is she having to buy more supplies than usual ie food/loo roll/shampoo etc?
She sounds like a young woman in over her head and under mounting pressure.

He is a cocklodger and a user. Waste of space. I am being polite.

Keep those invitations going. Can you decorate a room in your house and just say, here is a room, any time, day or night, no questions my darling girl.

Put it this way- he would probably be happy if you did not meet him and visit her because then she wd be more isolated from you, which he could then use to his advantage.
So visit - be part of her life . This may also dilute his impact on her - her being one to one with him is what you don’t want.
you are not colluding but supporting yr daughter and claming your power to lessen his .
Also trust that the family values she has been brought up with will be inside her and they will come to the fore.

I would go the other way - invite yourself round, open curtains, lie back on the sofa chatting constantly- these things would annoy someone gaming in the living room all day. Be incredibly nice and cheerful but annoying - visit often, make yourself at home, do some hoovering and loud tidying. If she is out of money for food call over with some and stay and eat with them. Maybe if he gets angry at you coming round when you’re just “being nice” your daughter might start to see him as a lazy waste of space! I wouldn’t withdraw from her and hope she cops on - I would smother him with a mother who pops over every weekend!

Echoing others saying meet him, what you don’t want is for her to feel she has to defend him to you and thereby prolong the relationship. It will be difficult after this period of time but I think if you can act normally with him and don’t point out all his faults she will eventually see them for herself and you will be there to support her.

He sounds awful, but it might be a case of keep your enemies closer.

If you end up making her withdraw into him even more it will make things worse.

By voicing strong negative views about him you will possibly alienate her further.

There's a slim chance this guy has turned his life around, and though he's not a successful person, he's her partner and she wants to be with him. Ultimately that is her choice.

The best thing I think is keep her close and do meet him, to try and see what he's really like. But you can't force her to stop seeing him.

Would she come on a holiday with you? It'd be nice to take her somewhere lovely, maybe she could have a taste of freedom and independence and maybe even a holiday fling with someone nice, who'd lift thos rose tinted glasses she's got for her bf off?

I agree with the posters saying to meet him. You very much need to keep your dd on side. A conversation with her about this being her life would be really useful. Something along the lines of... ‘We love you very much. And we just want you to know that we realise we have been going about this all the wrong way. Because this is your life and we want you to lead it and that may mean making some mistakes along the way. And instead of telling you what to do, we figure it would be better to just be here for you, loving you if ever you need us.’

You could put that in a text if easier. And then you can agree to meet him. She will probably do a hallelujah my parents get it now. And hopefully it will be the beginning of the end of the relationship. As others have said, the rejection of him will be pushing her further towards him. You don’t have to love bomb him, just treat him with basic courtesy and sew any seeds of doubt you can without overtly criticising him. Eg ‘I am so proud of you. You’re such a hard worker / so good at your job. I guess it’s worrying never having enough money because x has told you he finds working too hard. You’re just so resourceful.’ That may be too overt. But along those lines.

Is she pushing you to meet him or is she ok with how things are and do you still have an ok relationship/meet regularly with her? If she’s not pushing it then I’d leave it. If she does want you to meet then I would meet and be as polite as possible - he’ll likely show himself up anyway so don’t make it into something that you can be blamed for. This type of situation normally only ends when she sees sense and if that’s not happened so far then I doubt anything you have to say will help. Just stay supportive and hope she doesn’t make any life-long commitments with him.

I wouldn’t be giving money though. She needs to understand the consequences of being with someone that contributes nothing is that she might not always have enough money.

You don’t have to giver her money. You say she has a high paying job. Put your foot down.

I don’t think my poor DD has a nadir unfortunately. What she endures is horrendous. We can only hope she comes back to us. She tries to maintain contact but it’s not very much. Thanks for the reply.

Why is she wasting her youth on this man?

I think you should meet him but maintain you’re not happy about it. Also be clear that you don’t think he’s the kind of man she should consider us a long-term option.

However, as another PP said there is really nothing you can do to make her see sense I have a friend who basically wasted her 20s on a complete waste man. She knew she was terrible. We knew he was terrible. She ended up being a single mum for him now in her 40s she will openly say that was the worst decision of her life but none of her friends could make her sense and unfortunately you can’t make your daughter
see sense, she’ll have to learn the hard way