To ask for help with helping my daughter - first heartbreak :(

[tiredmama23]

My 17 year old daughter has had her heart well and truly broken by a guy she's been dating for only a few months. She was totally head over heels (we've all been there at that age I guess), and genuinely feels that her world has ended. It's been made so much worse by the fact he's the guy she lost her virginity to, so really she trusted him. Added to that, he dumped her over text 😫

She only found out yesterday and spent all evening crying, she refused anything to eat. She has come home early from college today still in tears, after calling my partner (her stepdad) from college to collect her while I was work because she "can't face being here". Since they got home a few hours ago she hasn't moved from her bed. I've been in to talk to her and she won't engage, just one word answers.

Things I've tried:

• hugs and general empathy
• telling her she will find someone lots better and he's just paved the way for that
• telling her she's beautiful and was too good for him anyway (I'm obviously biased as she's my daughter but she's a stunning young lady)
• telling her it hurts like hell now but it won't always and I promise it gets better
• telling her we can go for some food and the cinema this weekend just the two of us as a distraction and some TLC for her

However she continues to sob (and sob).

I don't know what else to do, I hate seeing my beautiful and usually bright and happy girl like this. What else can I do? 🙁

Oh gosh that must have been awful for both you and her.

You're a lovely mum, op.

I too lost my mum at a young age and didn't have her at all my teen stages/triumphs/heartbreaks. I grew up with an emotionally distant dad and couldn't rely on him for emotional help.

I find it hard to navigate difficult situations with my own teen dd as I don't have a path to follow. My default reaction is to say 'Phone your friends' because at her age I only had my friends in these situations, but I really try to be supportive and probably over compensate and try too hard but I'd rather do that than not be there enough for her.

I hope your dd is feeling better soon and I'm sure with your support she will be.

@tiredmama23

You've been given a really hard time here and it's been unfair at times.

You want what's best for your daughter and of course you don't like people treating her badly. That's natural and don't apologise for it.

I still remember my first bad breakup. My mum drove to my college accommodation with a fortnight's worth of home cooking, a lot of chocolate and give me money to go bowling/cinema with my girlfriends. She didn't want me sitting around wallowing.

I'm a very independent adult, certainly no snowflake and have no residual sarces for being taken care of by a thoughtful mother.

@ThirtyThrillionThreeTrees

Your mum sounds so lovely. Thank you for sharing and thank you for being supportive x

Look OP, if you'd accept some honestly well meant advice, maybe avoid posting on AIBU in future? The sub boards on here, e.g. teenagers, are much quieter but also much nicer and kinder for want of a better word. The whole point of AIBU is that you get a pile-on of a whole range of different opinions but it's in the name, it's a thread for debates about whether or not you are being unreasonable so of course it gets personal. It's known as the place on MN for bunfights and flamings and outrageous/combative ideas and comments being thrown around. It attracts trolls and troll hunters. It's really not the place to post if you're feeling fragile in any way or if you just want to shoot the breeze with like minded/gentle posters. Not trying to drive you away or anything but seems like maybe a slightly slower paced and gentler board would be better (which is totally understandable, I never ever start AIBU threads cos I don't really want to get piled on and torn to shreads!)

It must be difficult to observe her like this, but she really does just have to feel her feelings.

Learning to sit with negative feelings is an important life skill, and far healthier than looking for ways to distract from or avoid them.

You can still be loving and supportive and treat her with TLC during this break up, but you can’t and shouldn’t look for ways to make it go away for her.

@TastyLikeARaindrop

I'm sorry you too know the pain of losing your mum as a child

It's a gaping hole like no other, isn't it.

I feel similarly to you at times - I struggle to navigate what might seem like obvious parenting situations to others at times because I second guess myself due to feeling I had no template to follow myself. My dad was fantastic and loving and he did his best raising me and my siblings as a widowed father, but he wasn't my mum and it's not the same.

Posters on here enjoying sticking the boot in might want to reflect on how it might feel to a motherless mother, to hear how shit she is, how "over involved", "attention seeking", and "manipulative" (direct quotes from others before anyone accuses me of twisting words), she is, for simply struggling to know how to support my teen girl and to know what's best for her in this situation. If you had a mum yourself to model healthy parenting to you as a teen, you're incredibly fortunate in my eyes. Please don't attack a woman who didn't have that. It's harder than you could ever imagine and the most deepest, profound loss that impacts every aspect of your being.

Noted for future thank you.

Although I'd question why MN allow personal attacks on any of their boards, but that's their gig not mine.

I’d roll my eyes at the heading back to bed but give her this one day and then, this evening, I’d be getting gently stern and telling her she has to go back tomorrow. Kindly cruel to be … um… kind…

Agree with this

"You're too good for him anyway" is implied criticism of her choice of partner

"You're beautiful and deserve better" isn't helpful. Unless you think that only beautiful people are allowed relationships ?

Better to say they had some good times together, but sadly it didn't work. And that's OK. He's under no obligation to continue this relationship if he doesn't want to. Ending by text wasn't the best, but perhaps he felt awkward and didn't know how to do it. "You're all young and learning how to navigate relationships" would be my advice, rather than slagging him off

Really useful advice thank you x

When my mother was dumped by her first fiance (1950s) she made a bonfire of his letters (he worked away and there were lots) in the garden. My grandmother was going out to comfort her because she was so upset and my grandfather said "No, leave her be". She found out about this later and said that her father's approach was right, she needed to be left alone at that point. It doesn't make my grandmother wrong at all in her instinct, which came from a loving place.

It's very, very tricky to judge what even someone close to you needs, but 48 hours into this she isn't going to be happy or have a "spark". It's going to take some time and all you can really do is stay calm, make sure she knows you're there whenever she wants to talk and keep a good eye on. I think she's more likely to get out of bed/her room/the house of her own free will if she has some time to process/cry in private.

I currently have a teenager totally in love with their first love, and i know your experience will likely be mine in time, I expect i will do exactly what youve been doing OP.

I think experiences where we really can't help are quite triggering if we have any underlying anxieties, and a very difficult part of children growing up, when they were small we got used to being able to make everything better relatively easily, a kiss or a hug or a freddo and everything is ok, but when they have big emotional difficulties its so much harder.

I hope she improves with time and he stops keeping her dangling, thats really cruel.

Leave her to cry it out for a day or two, there’s nothing you can do to ease her grief - first broken heart and abandonment is a rite of passage. Get her back to college ASAP. After that chivvy her along to get out and face the world, suggest a new hairdo and a few nights out with friends to boost confidence and fe good about herself. Please don't talk to her about meeting someone else/better etc. stress she doesn't need a boyfriend for validation.

Thing is there's only been one thing that could remotely be seen as a personal attack and that was deleted. Yet you still insist anyone who has posted anything other than telling you you are amazing and doing everything just right is being horrible to you and targeting. Even the thing about your mum which you are now hyper focusing on- accusing people of sticking the boot in? wtf?
This is a board where you ask quote willingly if you are being unreasonable and some people have said yes, they think you are. Now you are crying about people being mean sticking the boot in etc and acting victimised. Its ridiculous and you are taking zero responsibility for it

2 months is no time at all for a teenage relationship! my daughter is 16 had a boyfriend since 14...i will wave at him occasionally when i see him at school but definitely not meals out to meet the family. They are just kids. she sees him at college and cinema dates. You have made it more serious that it needed to be.

Im sure hes not intentionally being cruel, hes only a kid himself and probably doesnt know what hes doing. Being dragged out to meet the whole family has probably scared him because of the seriousness of it.

And now making the breakup even more serious by taking days off work yourself...fgs

Yes, actually that's true too, what is cruel to us won't necessarily be to a teenage boy who probably actually thinks he's being nice and honest. Good point.

The dinner was the kids idea not the mums though so i think she is getting a bit of unfair flak for that- although perhaps it was a lightbulb "I'm not ready for this" moment for him, that doesn't make it anyone's "fault".

@feedbackhq
Yes I've got the morning off, is that ok??
Christ anything i say now is just going to be jumped on isn't it.

I currently have a teenager totally in love with their first love, and i know your experience will likely be mine in time, I expect i will do exactly what youve been doing OP.

Thanks. Don't post about it on here for gods sake 😂😂😂

Am I? I'm at home on a morning which is totally part of the norm for this family given I have a split of working from home and working at the office days. My daughter has no clue whether I'm home because I'm WFH or just home. I've also barely seen her as she's not engaging with me much.

I really, really don't think I've made it "even more serious".

I saw that comment.

You can say that again - so very far away, and in devastated tears on the phone!

But the sun did eventually come out again for her.
Plus, since I’d met the bloke’s mother, I’d told dd that she’d be an utter nightmare of a MiL - one of those, ‘Nobody will ever be good enough for my precious son,’ types - I’m sure you know what I mean!
So good riddance, was my (private) feeling at the time.