Daughter isolated in new city with new boyfriend who won’t go home

[Feelingabitconfused]

Hi fellow Mumsnetters.

I’m not sure whether to voice my concerns, and if so, what I can say without alienating her.

My daughter started at University last October, 5 hours drive from where we live. She has been working in a bar to part fund herself and has met someone who also works there, now her boyfriend. This all started in January, all fine. He is her first serious boyfriend. My main concern is that he’s not been home AT ALL since they got together around 10 weeks ago. He is a local lad, lives with his parents and is nearly 24. They sleep in her very small single bed, they sit and eat their meals on her floor (I know!). Whenever we face time she’s absolutely knackered, yawning throughout the call, he speaks, but refuses to be seen by me on face time, and she’s recently saying she’s completely out of money. We give her £50 per week to buy food etc, we pay all her accommodation, and she works to have more £ for spends. She has at least £100 per week to live on including work money.

Recently she’s been skipping lectures and hasn’t been attending her seminars either. She spends whole days in her room, presumably with this chap. They appear to do nothing together, other than stay in her room.

I know they’re not having sex yet as we’ve discussed this, and she’s very open with me, seeking advice about contraception etc. She has a gp appointment on 20 March for this (she’s not had sex yet) but says she feels like he doesn’t want to have sex as he’s in pain all the time; apparently he’s been run over twice, which might account for his pain levels. Also of concern is that he’s telling her he was beaten up by his parents, held down by his mum so he could take the beating. I don’t know when the last time this happened/ what age he was when this happened to him, but could well account for his reluctance to go home.

I know she’s classed as an adult, being 18, but my feeling is that her boyfriend is almost 24, she’s isolated, somehow broke despite having £100 bare minimum per week, and sharing her very small space with someone who it appears to me, doesn’t want to go home.

I’ve booked a place to stay to go to see her at the start of April - she sent me a screenshot list of her lectures for March so we could plan the trip and there was absolutely no time for me to visit and see her as all lectures were 9-5. I can see on life 360 app she hasn’t moved out of her room for 2 days! She wants the life 360 btw, she said it keeps her safe and she likes to see what we’re doing too.

AIBU? She’s an adult, she has to make her choices and feel the consequences?
AINBU? Have a real discussion with her and voice my concerns?

Of course they are.

Who gets run over twice?!

I'm sorry OP but your post to me is screaming drug use.
No money, nowhere to stay, abusive parents and constant pain: hard drugs, possibly opiates.
Go and check.
Good luck, I know it's tough 💐

This screams of control to me. And abused people are great at that
I do not believe they are not having sex, you do not share a bed and just lie there, not at that age, unless heavy drugs, heroin, fentanol, are involved. They would make people tired and unkempt, and not want to leave their room. It also causes impotence. Is that why DD says, no sex?? And takes up all your money!
If this was my child, I would not be writing to Mumsnet I would be on my way to see that girl, like NOW!!!!!

Good luck today OP, very worrying situation

Just get in the car and go see her OP she definitely needs you. Sounds like the boy has a lot of problems and she's his rescuer. She absolutely can't be as she's young and needs to be doing her think, being carefree, getting her degree. I think you need to lay down some laws such as if you're paying rent it's for her alone to live there, and so on.

How is she op

Any updates OP? I hope your daughter is ok

I wonder if the op bothered to go this weekend

I’d be SO pissed off if I was one of her housemates or I was the parent of one of the housemates

Please see her as soon as you can! This happened to my daughter and it just got worse and worse over an 18 month period. She was 16/17 and still at home but he took over her life. Would walk her to her college and wait outside her classes eventually she was too embarrassed to attend. He stopped her seeing her friends and tried to isolate her from her family. Told his friends and family she was treating him badly, spending his money, keeping him away from friends, trashing his family. It all ended on her 18th when he tried to stop her speaking to anyone and was literally dragging her away from the party! Family and friends sent him packing and we all talked to her about what he was doing. Found out he'd also been telling his parents he was giving me money and supporting her!! I so regret not getting involved sooner but it happens so slowly and insidiously it's hard to believe it's happening. Please don't believe anything he says. He's using her and some sob stories to keep her under his control. She needs to find another bar to work in and also find out if she can move into a hall of residence where other people can support her. Good luck.

Did you go and see her OP?

Hope you managed to sort something out OP, best wishes with all of it.

I had a boyfriend like this as a teen. Always something wrong with him, according to him he had been through it all. You name it. He was just always the victim of something. He told me he had been run over, beaten up, chased by a group of girls who wanted him because they all fancied him and it was so distressing for him, framed for robbery, injured his back falling off a cliff, he had cancer, lung disease, rare conditions. Honestly it was constant and ridiculous. He was in and out of jobs that he always messed up after a few weeks. Eventually he was too poorly to work and had to move in with me. Strangely he wasn’t too poorly to take drugs and come up with all these hobbies he wanted to do but never stick to.
He isolated me from everyone, got me a phone contract he couldn’t afford but used to keep track of my calls, waited for me outside college etc etc it was suffocating but I was young and although I didn’t like it, felt powerless and also he made me feel guilty because of his sad life and trauma. I wish I could have had adult guidance and someone to tell me it’s ok you can leave him. I was scared to as he would threaten to end his life or cry and throw himself on the floor and refuse to leave. I had no one to rescue me until eventually I got a job and my boss sat me down and gave me confidence to leave. A male boss in his 50s. I just wish it would have happened sooner as I suffered an awful incident at his hands that has impacted me to this day.

Please be the adult who tells your dd it’s ok to get away from him and she is not responsible for him and his trauma.

I have to say, he must be exceptionally unlucky to have been run over twice. Once is believable, but twice and as an adult…no. Unless of course it was deliberate as he owed money to dealers.

Watching for updates. Please go up there now!

How did you get on OP?

Any update OP?

I've wondered about this too.
Really hope things are okay OP

Not to pressure for an update, genuinely, but people find threads themselves often years later due to searching for their own issue, and they can really help (not to mention we are all rooting for you and your DD of course)

They're having sex. That's why she's so tired.

As he doesn't want his face on camera I'd be concerned he's older than 24, maybe even early 30s and knows you'll realise it.

The sob story about getting beaten up, that's to make her let him stay with her. He's 24 and working, if his parents are so awful he can move out into a flatshare or HMO.

Her having no money left when all she needs to spend £150/wk on is toiletries and food, she's either funding all their socialising or he's drinking/smoking it away. He could even be stealing from her if he's there alone when she's in lectures.

"In constant pain" sounds like an excuse for either giving up his job and sponging off her or an excuse to drink to excess/smoke cannabis all day and night.

No way is this a normal relationship, she's being exploited. It sounds like the early days of an abusive relationship. She's gone along with what he wants so far, as soon as she starts standing upto him or trying to assert her right to do something she wants, his true colours will show up even more.

If he's there all the time she'll end up alienating her flatmates and having nobody to share with next year because she's made no other friends or if she's staying in halls she's going to be breaking her terms to have someone else living there with her.

He's isolating her from everyone else, she's not out making friends and socialising which she should be in these early days and it'll set her behind that she's not. Everyone will find their tribe and she'll be left without one.

He's also directly or indirectly isolating her by keeping her from attending her course. Probably by his behaviour and actions rather than directly forbidding her to attend. Things like causing her to be too tired to get up for morning lectures, hassling her until she agrees to go out instead of finishing an assignment etc.

As she's in the thick of it she won't see any of this and may be thinking everything is her choice, unable to see the manipulation or the overall pattern of how he's taking over her life.

Did op come back under a different name? Why are people replying like this didn’t happen a month ago?

Claudia in my case because I don't check the date on things. If it's in active threads then I assume it's, well, active. I read all 3 of OPs posts, there's no update. I didn't read the rest so I've no idea if she came back with another name, but I think that ability has been stopped now.

This.

Not showing his face is weird. He's probably older and foreign.

Where's the father in all this? My husband would have been flown or driven at any hour to go up and feel his collar and chuck him out.

Exactly my thoughts. OP needs to look up the phenomenon called ‘cuckooing’. The daughter has likely been introduced to drugs, too. This would explain the change of character, missing lectures etc. OP needs to visit and if she can’t, she needs to send a message to the uni halls housing officer, or to the mental health team so they can check in on her.

Or he’s known to the authorities for being a wrongun’ and doesn’t want OP to take a screenshot to the police proving his whereabouts.