AIBU to not allow 18 year old DD boyfriend to stay over

[TAG30]

My daughter got her first proper boyfriend a few months ago. She is almost 19 and he is a couple of years older. She has been very honest with me about everything and prior to this boyf, she had not been sexually active but she recently booked herself an appointment at the DRs to get the contraceptive implant.
She was constantly getting cabs home from his house at 3am as i didnt want her staying over but this seemed silly on my part as she was almost staying there anyway. Therefore, she has been staying over at his house a lot recently - to the point where i never see her now.
Am i being unreasonable to not want her boyf to stay over here? My DH is absolutely against it as he would feel uncomfortable knowing they were in bed together in the room above us and to be honest, so am i. Its just that now, shes never home and spends all her time there with his family. Is this just a case of needing to let go or would you allow them to stay over?

If he cared about anything but sex with the DD then he would be happy to visit her parents in their home

You are assuming it is only him that wants to have sex all the time.

Once again, I totally agree with mathanxiety. Allowing an 18 year old to have a boyfriend spend the night confers a status that demands far more maturity and evolution.

I may temper my position in time to the extent that I'd allow my 26 or 27 year old son to bring a (long-term) woman home to share a bed, but I would never, ever, ever allow an 18 year old to do this.

Me and my Fiance have been together over 5 years, but still live at home due to finances i'm 25 and my DP is 27 I'm still not allowed to stay over at his! (Despite his sister at 16 having her boyfriend to stay..my DP is their little baby)

Due to this though I have seen them twice in the last year, my DP has become closer in a way to my DM and Step Dad and he stays over 60% of the week.

I just feel if I was allowed to stay over evenon the couch, I would have a much better relationship with his parents and so would he.

I was in a pretty similar situation with my DD. Ultimately your house, your rules.
I did decide in the end that I'd rather 'get over' the weird thought of them being in bed together in my house and have her feeling happy bringing boyfriends home then it forever being an issue.
For me the thought of my DD feeling uncomfortable/restricted with what is realistically very normal behaviour (being sexually active at 18) and being put off being at home outweighed my dislike of the fact she'd be sleeping with him while I was in the house.
I got over it quickly. It is part of accepting your DD is growing up and then you have to make tough decisions about what sort of adult relationships/households you want. I want my DD to always feel comfortable introducing new boyfriends and having them to stay in years to come and I realised I'd rather be a welcoming family.
It is completely up to you though - that was just my logic when I really thought about it and realised I was 'loosing' my DD to her boyfriend's family.

I think it just makes it very very clear to your adult children that their home is very much their parent's home and not theirs. Which is perhaps the aim of some, but it feels pretty unwelcoming to me. However I expect my children to essentially leave home at 18 so perhaps I see things differently. If they have long term boyfriends/girlfriends that they live with during term time I think it would be a bit crazy to pretend they weren't an item when they visit after that.

I'm suspect in practice it depends on the behaviour of your child and whether or not you like the boyfriend (as well as space constraints etc).

dh and I didn't want to have sex all the time when we were 19/20 (or after that for that matter) but we did want to be treated as adults and not children. The way my parents behaved made us both very uncomfortable and so we didn't want to spend very much time with them. That didn't stop us socializing with our friends, but my parents wouldn't have seen that because they didn't know what was going on in my life.

I would let him stay. What are you worried is going to happen? They are responsible adults in a loving relationship - this is a good thing.

"it's not just about the sex, it's about the intensity of serious relationships at a such a young age"

Ragwort ... yes, I agree.

I also have an old friend whose parents allowed her boyfriend, when they were both 18, to stay over at their house in her room. It got to the point where this lad was practically living at their house 24/7. The problem was that this situation changed what was really a hormonally-driven "Sweet Valley High" summer teen romance into something far more intense and serious, and normalised the idea, for my friend, that adulthood and sexual relationships automatically meant cohabiting with a boyfriend.

This ended up having cascading implications because when they both went to Uni in the same city, they thought it natural to just get a flat together instead of individually going into halls of residence (this idea again was supported by her parents).

The result was that neither of them made many new friends at their respective universities, they were both socially alienated from their new environments and, when my mate realised the lad wasn't really a good match for her, it was incredibly difficult for her to break it off because, at 19 years old, she shared a flat and bills with him and hadn't built strong enough alternative social support networks. She ended up staying with him for another year and a half in a climate of abject misery.

But it was that early normalisation of what adulthood and a relationship should be like, supported by her parents' assent, that caused the most damage. The long term implications, twenty years on, have been that my mate cannot cope with a) living on her own or b) not being in an intense relationship -- which led her to make some very odd choices when her marriage broke down. She simply never did that young adult freedom thing; from age 18, she has always had a pseudo-husband in tow or waiting for her at home, and it has affected the development of her sense of self and independence.

Of course, I am not saying this happens to every young 18-year-old woman whose parents allow a boyfriend to regularly stay over, but I have seen enough awkward consequences over the years to suspect it is not such a good idea.

But there's a world of difference between staying over now and again and moving in together. I see what you mean about parental support of relationships involving co-habiting normalising the idea that a relationship 'should' automatically/usually 'progress' to living together, but I don't think OP is going to encourage her DD's BF to spend a lot of time at her house. Also, she's already spending more time at her BFs than at home anyway.

I think you make a very good point about not setting too much store on relationships at that age; encouraging young people to do their own thing and discover who they are seems healthier to me too. But many a student plunges straight into a full-on relationship in their first year of being away from home and spends most nights sharing a single bed with their gf/bf in student accommodation.

However, if I'm sounding defensive it's because my 18YO student DD and her BF were allowed to stay over when they were 17/18 - then she moved into student accommodation which she didn't enjoy with her BF spending more time at hers than at home, until they got a flatshare together (with another student). I worry that when they break up she'll be out on a limb (and very upset of course) and I think it's a shame that she now seems to feel the need to consider someone else when cooking, socialising etc instead of doing what she feels like. However, I 'let' her take this flatshare because they had looked at flats before she told me, his parents are okay with it; they would have done it with or without my approval. (and their family homes are both within commuting distance of their unis)

However, I don't think you can necessarily be sure that your friend's problems were caused by living with a boyfriend. It sounds like she's blaming her parents for her actions. Many people always have a relationship on the go for fear of being on their own - I was like that when I broke up with a long-term BF at the age of 19. Also, letting young people stay over might arguably shorten the relationship - familiarity breeds contempt.... She doesn't know what would have happened if she hadn't had been in that relationship....

We can't make our DC have perfect, healthy attitudes to their self-development (unfortunately) but we can support them in making their own choices and help when they take a tumble.

In the case of OP's DD though, not letting her BF stay at OP's home could push her into moving in with him..... (I don't mean to scaremonger - but with teens a pragmatic approach is usually the way to go IME)

choco you assume he wants her to move in with him! My DP loves me to the moon and back, and I him. We just aren't ready to live together! At all! he loves me being there but he is a young lad who needs his space. I'm more mature than he is and would love to move out, but I'm waiting until he is ready to fly the nest.
I'd love to live at his, there's just no space for me there.

I'm not assuming anything! I was countering posts giving scare stories about the effects of letting two 18YOs spend the night together in their own homes!

I wouldn't have wanted to live with my BF when I was 18 either. Have him mess up my room and inflict his fussy eating on my mealtimes? No thanks!

I've just reread the OP - DD is nearly 19 and her BF are 21!

All the same, this is the DD's first 'proper BF' by all accounts, making it all the more important that her parents try to get a sense of perspective across to her.

now, i have been allowed to sleep in the same bed as my boyfriend since i was 14, now that i am older i see that 14 is too young, however, i would have no issues if both were over 16, they are young and if they are serious about being together i would hate them to feel that i was there enemy. both are over age, in fact both are adults so in my opinion, yes you are being unreasonable.

No sleepovers unless married, happy with the rule I had and happy that continues! Why is sex treated so lightly these days?

I will be teaching my daughter to respect her body, and not to let all and sundry use it, fgs what are we teaching youngsters these days?

Oh landrover, so will you be teaching your daughter that only her one husband may use her body?

I don't know why sex is treated so lightly, I'd much rather DD1 were not making the choices she does, but it is her body and her choice to make not mine. And it is certainly NOT any male's (or female's) choice, and no one is using her.

Me and dh slept together at his house aged 16. It was with his parents knowledge. Mine would have had a fit!

We are still together 30 years later

Is it just evil boys that use girls bodies and then leave?

Double standards.

My dds and dss were allowed stop over guests post 16. They are pretty normal really.

I think it's a bit wierd to be so obsessed with your dds adult body and choices op and fear you will see less of her unless you treat her with the respect an adult deserves

My MIL thought that I was dh's first girlfriend. In fact he'd just not introduced the previous ones to her. But I suppose it depends on what you mean by 'proper', I was his first serious girlfriend I suppose.

I am teaching my children that sex should be fun, with someone they like and trust, and that both parties should find it enjoyable (enthusiastic consent). I'm not giving any different messages to my son than my daughter, except that I've told him that should he accidentally get a girl pregnant he shouldn't expect to have much say in what happens next and may well find himself supporting a child for the rest of his life.

I think YABVVU.

She's 18. She is an adult in a consenting relationship who wants to spend time with the person she loves. You not allowing her to bring the person she loves to her own home to spend the night is just showing you still see her as a child and have no respect for her.

It's not as though she's 15 - she's old enough to make her own decisions. Yes, it's your house, but people need to get out of this dictator mentality that adult children still have to follow the same rules they did when they were a kid. Honestly, if you were my mother I'd be telling you where to go.

I'd rather know my daughter was somewhere safe... I'd let the boyfriend stay over. I have to confess I don't really understand why a parent wouldn't let their adult daughter's boyfriend stay over - it doesn't make any sense to me. But then I also think that saving sex for marriage is a really bad idea... Each to her own, I suppose.

Like others have said this can be your position but you're experiencing the consequences - seeing less of your DD

Incidentally I'm married to the boyfriend my parents let stay over (over a decade later). Relationships at this age aren't automatically temporary.

Precisely, primary! I've been with DH since we were 19/20. I trust my DD's judgment and I know that she and her BF are serious about each other. So it would be ridiculous to say he couldn't stay over as she'd just go to his house instead.

If the consequence is seeing less of dd, is it worth it? Only you can decide that.

When I was 18 I spent nearly all my time at my boyfriend's house because my mom wouldn't let him stay at mine. In hindsight he didn't particularly treat me well but I was too blind to see it - maybe if my mom had allowed him to stay and witnessed how our relationship really was she probably would have opened my eyes and saved me a lot of heartache. Plus, there were always lots of undesirables at his house (which his parents didn't seem to care about) and my mom had absolutely no idea what my life was really like (I painted her a happy picture) because I was effectively pushed out my home and into that of my boyfriends.