To want to tell friend how her son has treated my daughter…

[Watermelon212]

Currently fighting the urge to tell friend the above. I won’t because friend is lovely and her son is an adult (18). Instead when I meet up with her I plaster a smile on while listening to how happy her son is and how well he’s doing, while knowing my daughter is struggling and isolated, caused in part by her son.

Her son has treated my daughter very badly, he has trampled over her feelings, left her in a very vulnerable situation on a night out and betrayed her trust by secretly pursuing her best friend.

They have just started uni, it’s already an emotional time, when you want to make new connections but rely on home friends for support. My daughter is about to have that support pulled out from under her when she finds out that her “boyfriend “ who she thought was into her is now actually with her best friend and she has no idea yet. They have both kept it from her.

I found out through my other child and have no idea if I tell her or not. She is already struggling to settle into uni.

thanks

Probably still him!

No they don't! His Dad ended up picking him up so all was fine in the end, I just understand the OP feeling the way she does because it might not have been by the time someone got there (the night started elsewhere). Even though you know their age they often (as I did) put themselves in positions where something could go wrong. He knows he can call me any time in the morning but I can't drive and his Dad and I are separated, so it was a worry at the time just because his Dad didn't hear the phone when I called the first few times because he was in a deep sleep. Sorry - not meaning to derail!!

I do think a lot of young people do struggle with the early weeks of university. My son struggled to adjust and he is very outgoing, confident and independent usually. He also had a quiet flat and I think it makes things much harder.

He was lucky because he had other friends at the same uni from school and he ended up hanging out with them plus people he'd met through his course.

I did go up there for a weekend early on just to hang out with him and help with the homesickness - we didn't spend the whole time together, just a couple of meals and an afternoon but it did help. He also went and visited a friend at another university for the weekend. Are either/both of these things possible? As they really seemed to help my son.

I also think a conversation about how difficult it is when people are interested in you but you don't reciprocate it might be helpful.

Incidentally I do think it's normal for people to walk back with their friends after a night out and my son has often walked female friends back.

Depends how close you are and how much the other person has invested in the relationship, yes. Someone my best friend has dated in the past is out of bounds in my world. That’s my girl code.

She went out with the society she’d joined and the societies all ended up in the same place. She would have walked back with them but asked him and the other home friends if she could stay and walk with him

Someone my best friend has dated in the past is out of bounds in my world. That’s my girl code.

But they weren't dating....

PPs blaming your daughter for asking a favour from a friend are stretching a bit. It was fine for her to ask. It would have been fine for him to say he couldn't, in which case she would have made different plans. It's the fact that he said yes - leading her to think there was a firm plan - and then left without her that's the issue. Nobody here knows why he left (drunk, forgot, had an emergency?) so I'd let her deal with it and not try to micromanage from a distance.

It's a good lesson for her to learn that people aren't always reliable. Ideally she'll begin to see on her own if he's not a good friend (and wouldn't have been a good partner for her) and they'll grow apart. In any case, there's no romantic relationship and never would have been as he's not interested. His encouraging her interest in him to feed his ego or as a back-up plan is unfortunate, but not uncommon and may not even be intentional or conscious on his part.

If he and the other friend are actually involved and are lying about it to your daughter specifically (rather than just not mentioning it to anyonekeeping it quiet until they see if it's something serious), they're both at fault. But there's awful lot of hearsay going on. If Other Child is hearing directly from Non-Boyfriend or Other Friend that they're secretly seeing each other, perhaps she can encourage them to tell her sister directly. Otherwise all she can do is pass on a rumour, with the appropriate context, and let her sister decide whether and how to react.

I would say nothing to your friend, but if you don't like hearing how great her son is you can tactfully change the subject when she brings it up. I'd also avoid talking to her about what's going on with your daughter, even in general terms, as she deserves some privacy and you don't know what your friend might pass on to her son.

Had they already made plans before they got there? If not, while not ideal, I’m not sure you can put too much stock in an agreement made under the influence of alcohol, at a (presumably) noisy venue. It’s got misunderstanding written all over it.

He's not done anything wrong by pursuing a relationship with the friend.

It is shitty of him to not walk her home after he said he would.. But then as an 18 year old woman she should've also had the good sense to get a cab rather than walk on her own, after it was obvious she'd been ditched. She needs to learn to rely, first and foremost, on herself

So she had plans of how to get back but changed the plans to be with him, who then changed his plans...

Where did the other 'home friends' go? She only asked to walk with him, not the others?
So it was about being alone with him, not getting home safe?

Seems like she dumped them on the chance of being near this boy. It's not going to help her to make friends if she's seen as unreliable
Let's hope it's a lesson learned, stick with the people you've been with all night if you want to make friends
More importantly don't trust this boy, or change your plans for him, to quote MN if he tells you who he is, listen

I've voted YABU because I cannot believe you are planning on 'plastering on a smile' to spare your friend's feelings but here you are covering up something you know from your own daughter!!

WTF, OP?!

Stop trying to protect your DD from life's lessons. We are all treated like shit by a dickhead at some point. We lose friends, too. That's life.

The sooner she knows, the sooner she can move on, find new friends and enjoy a full uni experience without being tied to either a boy or a friend from home.

OP still hasnt explained in what way the daughter was stranded.

No wonder he scarpered.

I bet there wasnt even a party and he just went home.

From the update it seems she did have another option to get home accompanied, but wanted to be alone with him? Is it possible that the not walking her home is part of him gently distancing himself from her, reinforcing that there is no interest?
The fact that your friend (his mother) doesn't seem fazed (or to think that they are in any way romantically entangled) speaks volumes.
Also how on earth does her sibling know that her best friend is dating him?
She needs to spread her wings as others have said.

She needs to spread her wings as others have said.

And not tell her mother every little thing that happens. One of the big advantages of going to university away from home is that your parents don't have to know everything you get up to. (It was much easier when contact with home was a weekly letter and occasional phone call.)

Stop trying to blame anyone. They are teenagers. She has been making eyes at him for two years with nothing in return. He fancies somebody else. Your daughter has to learn to get herself home from a night out. There will be nights when whoever she is out with cops off with somebody else leaving her. She may do the same herself.

From the update it seems she did have another option to get home accompanied, but wanted to be alone with him?

It's what it sounds like, yes. In which case OP, your anger is misplaced, your daughter is responsible, she had a planned and safe way of getting home, but she wanted to be alone with her friend to see if it would lead anywhere so effectively put herself in potentially dangerous situation.

Personally OP, I think I would be encouraging my other daughter to tell her sister what she's heard, as sisters, from my own experience would do, and I'm surprised you counselled her to hold back. I can understand you don't want your DD to be upset while she's a long way from home, but better to be put on alert by a sister who cares, than to go out one night, only to see this lad that she thinks is into her, snogging the face off her best friend. If your DD suggests that she checks out what's going on between the lad and her best friend, because she's heard things that she's not happy about, then I think that's probably the best way, as like another poster said, she certainly won't be happy, if she later finds out that you and her sis, knew what was going on, and didn't even warn her. If she doesn't want to listen to what her sis tells her, then that's up to her, and she'll doubtless learn the hard way, which is of course all a part of growing up, but at least try and give her the heads up.

Personally OP, I think I would be encouraging my other daughter to tell her sister what she's heard, as sisters, from my own experience would do,
Does other dd think her sister was in a relationship with this guy?

So it seems your DD and the boy were both out in separate groups. The groups ended up at the same place. Your DD was supposed to walk home with her group but wanted to walk home with him. He wanted to carry on partying.
I think it's very unfair to accuse him of abandoning her in this situation. He was with his friends, in the middle of a night out. Even if she asked him to walk with her and he'd agreed, it's OK for him to change his mind if he was having fun. All she needed to do was call an Uber. I don't call this abandonment.

Nothing smug about it - she would know that I was worried.

If someone told me my DS had promised to walk someone home and then dumped them, I’d speak to him about it. Mine haven’t been brought up to do that.

But can you really call it a ‘promise’ if it was agreed by 2 (presumably) drunk teenagers in the middle of a night out?
The op has said herself, they weren’t even out together. He was with his friends, she was with hers, they just happened to end up a the same place. She had plans to get home with the people that she was with, but decided she didn’t want to. The op has also said that it wasn’t just the boy but other ‘home friends’ who she stayed with / asked to walk her home. I’m not entirely sure why this boy is solely responsible anyway.

I honestly don’t think this is anything to do with how the boy was brought up, more that drunk plans tend to be unreliable.

Agree with @DontCallMeKidDontCallMeBaby it sounds like the dd is either quite immature or is used to getting what she wants.

Likes a boy? Well he'll be her boyfriend and if he's with some one else? The girls a bitch and he's an arse.
Goes to a party with a group of friends, it's all OK that she ditches them and changes plans, but if her new plans don't pan out, the other persons an arse?