My 16yo DS and his girlfriend (and her mum)

[workworkworkugh]

I'm going to write this in point form, I just want to get some other unbiased opinions on my son and his gf of 5 months.
Our point of view is that the relationship is not a healthy one.
We understand that at this age teens start to move away from the family unit but we feel this is above the realms of 'normal'

*she gets mad at him if she doesn't have his full attention.
*she gets mad at him if he hangs out with his mates, so he hasn't hung out with them for 3+ months.
*last time he did she dumped him.
*she cries if he's not at school
*she gets mad at him for playing his Xbox (and not answering her call on the first ring)
*he got a new Xbox for Xmas and she's already making noises about him playing it too much, also about his sport that he loves playing is starting up again soon and she's getting sad about that.
*he spends every single day with her, anywhere from 6-14hours
*it's like he feels guilty if he spends time with us so has to make it up to her
*he can't spend a full day with us as a family, not even Xmas day
*we invite her to our house and to things we're going to but she refuses
*at one point he didn't eat dinner with us for over two weeks as he was with her
*they send literal pages of gushing to each other every single day about how much they love each other and the kids they're going to have 😳
*her mum seems to encourage it (the intensity) which doesn't help
*the Mum, who is 50yo, has texted him (in reply to his messages) "thank you my beautiful James Arthur, you're so adorable" along with a kissy face emoji (not his real name obviously)

We're happy for him to spend time with her and don't stop him much, but it's getting to be too much. We miss him and sometimes want to see him too.
He seems to know it's not right but 'loves her', and I remember young love, we're only in our 30's, so we're happy to be flexible but it still feels very unhealthy to us.
We also don't want to alienate him.

So AIBU and how to we put some boundaries in place, because he clearly doesn't know how to!

We need to stop derailing WorkWorks thread here. She isn't going to want to read all this bollocks in the morning.

Hope any updates are positive OP

It does make me realise, that no matter how young we should be on it with our kids about what is a healthy relationship. And telling them to steer clear at early stages! It so often is excused as ‘well they are young, intense’. My son had a really, really intense GF last year, she was controlling him. One day they talked for 10 bloody hours! She wanted to speak to me, she would phone him when he was with his mates at a part and insist he come outside her window at 3am (I was cross as it was dodgy part of town for my DS, no way should he have been there, aged 16, on his own - she told him not to tell me) etc.

It abruptly ended which I was pretty happy about. We talked about it and I said it wasn’t healthy. My DS never even saw himself as being coerced, he felt he ‘had’ to be there for her, that it was the manly and gallant thing to do. He thought he must be a bit rubbish when she constantly complained that he didnt’ pick up his phone right away. He was coming up to his big exams but she didnt’ care. His work suffered. His friends suffered.

I should have stepped in sooner. I will next time. Good luck OP.

@Acs07 literally stop going on and making this thread all about you, it's so embarrassing.

@thefishthatcouldwish. Wow just wow. This women clearly is on glue. We are all spithead and idiots. It's all about Acs07. I'm not enjoying this thread. It's peppered with quick slipped in comments about her. Op has been forgotten about.

@LouKelly for goodness sake read the thread and see how it has escalated. No need for the sanctimonious capitals!

Acs07 and LouKelly ... really?

Acs07 - you are derailing this thread. This has triggered something from your past but it is NOT about you. Step away. You are being the opposite of helpful and I have reported your posts.

LouKelly - RTFT - how hard is it to look at all the OP's posts? The girlfriend wants the son to kill his mum. This is WAY more serious than "be the parent"

Add 5ish years on to the girlfriends age and I’d have sworn that you were describing a family members girlfriend!

The result in our case is that the son felt he couldn’t break up with the girlfriend even after her awful behaviour and threats because he was worried what she’d do, lots of treading lightly and still wanting to be with her. He had lots of support from his parents, but after his last attempt to cut contact she asked for one more chance to talk; so they met up did more than just talk (lots of crocodile tears and ‘needing comfort’) and now they’ve got a baby together (yes he should have insisted on a condom but she’d always been adamant that she was on the pill) and the girlfriend has not changed at all is actually worse and uses the lovely baby as a weapon. All happened in less than 2 years.

I know your son is very young but this girl is more than just a nightmare, you’re making the right steps to protect your son and your family and I really feel for you all!

@LouKelly READ THE THREEEEAAAADDD

Knob

Rural agri autist

@LouKelly

OK , hes 16 ,thats just great ,is she 16 ? Yes ? Oh fab ,you will be a Granny before you know it and he and she will have ruined their lives before you can say 'maybe we should have interviened sooner '

@LouKelly if you took a moment to read through the thread (or even just the OP's posts) you would see that pregnancy would be one of the least bad outcomes from this given that the girl in question has been inciting murder.

Just totally fucked up joining. Created a strange autist statement at stage one.
But have actually been in this situation as a Mother with a son equally high functioning autistic who was being 'hived' by a teen queen who wanted all of his time and energy.
I went scorched earth and just layed it down as it was, no sensitivity, no gentleness, just bottom line 'Your life has been utterly annexed, show me where your old life and friends exist and prove it isn't collapsed and swamped and I will agree.'
I also never 'pretended' everything was all OK when it clearly wasn't.
I layed the truth on him again and again and again and I accepted the blow back and accepted the very minimal and short amount of Mom hate and in less than four months my son was accepting the reality of his very shit and controlling and needy partner.
Don't pander to the lie. Lay the truth on hard and honest and trust your son or daughter already has a little voice in the back of their mind that says 'This is feeling shit.'
My son's mates were also hating him being separated and gone, so they were the other voice.
I don't agree with going in gentle, I think it is best to go in full blown adult honest and let them make their mind up based on that.
Our kids are not people we work with or are friends with, they deserve a more forceful and honest and risky approach re honesty.
At the end of the day would I want my son saying to me 'Why didn't you make your position clear Mom?'
I did and he is now not with the needy teen girl control freak that annexed his life at the start of Uni.

I wish Mumsnet had a User Block Button

How are things this morning WWWugh? I have read your posts and support your decision to involve the police at this stage.

I also support the idea of keeping DS from the shared school (is it school holidays in Aussie this week)? and find him a new one some distance away to start afresh. I would be surprised if his grades suffer, if anything I would assume he might have the ability to be more dedicated to school if he doesn’t have to deal with her.

Can you talk to his best friend’s parents? Enlist them to help? Can they or any of his friends parents, take him away with friend for a few days to clear his head? Hopefully somewhere with limited to zero internet signal!

I think you have handled things brilliantly so far and much more restrained than I would have been.

Take care x

@FarmerFran I really should ignore the derailing comments but I have to ask, what????

What, what? Not sure what you are asking or why you mentioned de-railing?

Apologise @FarmerFran I totally misread your post. Was a bit hard to understand but that's my bad not yours x

Omg I've just read this whole thread and I really feel for you. I can feel those emotions you are going through.
We went through similar with my DS a few years back. He was 17 and gf was 15
She was sweet and lovely to start with but I used to hear snippets of them talking and her whining about his sport (which he did 5 days a week at the time)
We invited her on days out with us, she came on holiday with us,alongside our older DC and we had a lovely holiday. But she was only happy if she had him to herself.
I started to notice a change in DS when she was around. He didn't laugh, he constantly asked if she was OK. And stopped seeing friends.
To cut a long story short, she dumped him, then took him back, then dumped him a 2nd time and took him back again!
The 3rd time she did it I put my foot down.(incidentally she dumped him the day after his grandads funeral as he was boring!) I think by then he'd realised it wasn't healthy.
Oh the nights I spent sitting on his bed while he cried his eyes out! 😢
It took him a long time to get over it and he's only had 1 brief relationship since.
He's 23 now and I honestly think she's ruined how he views relationships. I just hope he finds someone one day that loves him for who he is.
And I hope your son can forget this toxic girl and enjoy his life with his sport and true friends again.

Sounds so terrible for you and your son, I was in an abusive relationship when young (although a bit older than your son) I didn’t see it at the time. In the end my parents moved me two hours away, at the time i hated them for it. Now I can see it was the best thing they could do for me, and I am so thankful they did. He may not appreciate it now, but he will do.

@NCforthisconvo bloody hell! That is a scary tale and the boy now a father... eek. At least,hopefully with the OP her DS can completely cut ties in a way that you can’t if you have a child... scary.

So sorry to hear your latest updates OP.

I think you are right in going to the Police and speaking to the school.

It's gone way beyond talking it through and hoping your DS will break with her.

I'd be looking into the possibility of a restraining order against her.

Even if he hates you it's reached a point where you absolutely have to take action.

Are you planning to speak to her parents and show them the screen shots?

Perhaps being straight forward and autist level logic honest does not fit into a certain 'cultural' norm for some people.
But it works for me and my family, so I'm sharing it here, because this situation is one that I mastered as a Mother and my son is no longer in the shitty coersive relationship that he was three years ago.
And I am making an assumption that OP would very much prefer her son to be out of that as well.

All good, unusual for that not to be me...ha ha and thank you. x

Oh OP, I’ve just RTFT and Christ she sounds like a holy nightmare!!! Fingers crossed your DS gets over her soon because she sounds like a typical narcissist!!!!

At least the OP contacted the police. I think a lot of us are really rooting for her here! And her DS. How frightening how it can escalate so quickly.

@FarmerFran I read your post with interest as I have a similar DS who I think is very vulnerable to others ‘owning’ him, I’ve seen it already and he’s still young. That is one of my worst fears, him being swamped and taken over by someone.

You said:
Our kids are not people we work with or are friends with, they deserve a more forceful and honest and risky approach re honesty.
At the end of the day would I want my son saying to me 'Why didn't you make your position clear Mom?'

Not wanting to derail the updates and thread. But I wonder how we can best prepare / preempt this kind of abusive relationship particular in our boys? (As they aren’t usually the ones we think of) @FarmerFran was a good suggestion. Directness and getting stuck in. I wonder what else.