Is my teen son being coercively controlled?

[Anonymousforthisone2025]

My son is 15 and so is his girlfriend of around 3 months. She's been to our home for dinner but they spend most of the time in his room. So far in the relationship she has made him wear a bobble on his wrist to indicate he's taken, changed her Snapchat name on his phone to My Girl, insists he spends all his break times at school with her and yesterday he came back from her house with some handprint artwork featuring bother their hand prints overlapping each other that he has to display in his room. I may be over reacting, mainly because I was in a coercive relationship which I didn't even realise until years later so please talk me down if I am.
Is this just normal tern behaviour nowadays? I don't remember that far back and I didn't have a boyfriend until 17 and he was the coercive one 🙄

Does he laugh it off or is this troubling him? Does he seem concerned?

It does seem a bit strong if she 'makes him'. But if he is just going along with it and it doesn't stress him out I would just keep an eye on the behaviour.

I was a bit concerned (or maybe a little put out) when my eldest got his first 'serious' girlfriend. She was quite full on, ,that's eased off no they are a bit older and have been together for so long. She used to answer for him, try and talk over me, I've come to know it was a confidence thing with her - and she generally is right, she has an old head on young shoulders. I put a limit to how often they could stay in our house together - max 3 nights a week. They now have their own nights out, own friends and a healthy relationship.

Me and her get on very well together and what was once maybe slight resentment on my part (new woman in his life) i actually see as a godsend - she keeps him grounded, is sensible and they have a good life together.

I’d just keep a watchful eye for now but I’d remind him not to lose touch with his friends because of her.
Friends are important and if they are all off doing things without him they’ll soon not bother including him in the group.
She sounds intense and needy to me and as he’s told you that she made him do certain things I’d take from that that he’s not particularly happy about it.
The playground thing is ridiculous, and he really shouldn’t be afraid of telling her that he wants to spend some of his breaks with his friends

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Yep, but this is mumsnet so there’s always a skew that lets women off the same behaviour compared to a man.

id definitely keep an eye on this op.

I'm surprised so many posters think this is OK. The key worry for me is that she "made him" do those things. Does that mean she suggested them to him strongly and he went along with them? (Not really OK but within the range of normal teenage intensity.) Or does it mean she threatened him with consequences if he didn't do them? What would happen if he said no? That's where it becomes quite unambiguous coercion.

The bad news is you probably can't do anything about it at this point - you just need to keep lines of communication open, be there for him if/when he feels like talking, and just quietly observe developments.

The good news is that this is the kind of relationship where he'll learn about his own boundaries and what is/is not OK, in preparation for more serious adult ones, with relatively low stakes.

At this age it's quite hard to delineate between what you want and what you don't want, and where what your partner wants fits into those things. Where's the line between compromising and doing something you don't want to do because it makes your partner happy, and being controlled? So far, wearing a bracelet and changing his screen name are not things that will have major consequences on his life. But as this relationship progresses he'll hopefully learn where and when he should stand up for himself when it comes to things that will affect him more.

Oh God, I was like this with my first boyfriend. He was 17, I was 15.

I even made him drop out of college becuase I was jealous of who he was speaking to and wanted him to spend all his time with me. There is so many other awful, cringe things.

The good news is that I got bored after a year or so.

It was awful, looking back 30 years.

This is the flipside, at that age you're also learning what is and is not OK to request of your partner. I'm sure you didn't think you were being coercively controlling and maybe neither does the OP's son's girlfriend. But these starter relationships are how we learn to navigate our own boundaries vs. our partner's boundaries and hopefully learn from them.

Well, I certainly have never behaved like that with anyone else I had a relationship with after him. I was just very young and very lonely I think, not many friends, no family connections, and no real idea how to behave in any relationship at that point.

His room is downstairs and the door is open. That won't stop that though, plenty of open farmland around us 😂

just read this to my 15 year old daughter. Pretty normal she says! Her old BF wore her hairband in his wrist willingly 🤣 and she says the other stuff is pretty normal. She thinks the artwork is a bit meh but hey ho! Hopefully all normal OP

These are all ‘fashionable’ TikTok type things to show they are in a relationship. It’s intense and over the top but they are teenagers!

I have a teenage daughter. A hair bobble on your boyfriend’s wrist is definitely a thing in teenage “dating”. She also wears her boyfriend’s hoodie-make sure the girlfriend doesn’t march off with your son’s favourite or most expensive one!
I think this relationship is probably ok if a bit intense at the moment but he has to be able to see his friends and not spend every waking minute with her on her say so.
It also depends on how he feels about it all. If it’s too much, he needs to understand he can talk about this or end things with her.

Yeah dh went and bit nuts when discoverd teen dc had given his gf a rather special hoodie that he had given ds!

I'm also discovering as parent with boys that imo their gf are way more intense than the boys (perhaps more mature). Mine couldn't understand the whole bobble thing when hsi gf kept going on

Yes! A friend had a 15 year old dd and she was always with her bf. 2 months after her 16th birthday she had a dd.

She's very young and maybe still trying to work out how to 'do' relationships, and perhaps just thinks this is normal/has been picking up some unhealthy role models on social media who have weird views on what a 'good girlfriend' should do to 'keep her man'. As others have said, just keep an eye. It's unlikely she'll ruin his life with this sort of nonsense and he'll probably get bored of it.

All very normal. My sixteen year old son has had a girlfriend for a year , it's still all very intense but sweet and they're besotted. This is exactly how it started. This is obviously how they do things now.

When we were at this stage 9 months ago and they were starting to spend all their time in his room I bought a big box of condoms and left them on his bed and they did get used.

So long as they are both happy I don't think you have anything to worry about.

She sounds bonkers

She doesn't. This is just what teenagers do nowadays.

Ive read this to My dd aged 15. She said word for word. Is this his first relationship first proper gf. Many bfs wear their gfs bobble it isnt that deep. It might make them feel happy that each other has something of one another's. Spending alot of time is most likely as they care for each other however make sure they don't spend to much time together as it might not last and he needs his friends. Your making it sound that this gf is having him on a lead. When perhaps he wants to do this. Let him grow up and experience this just ensure appropriate contraception is being used. Your making it sound like he's the unwilling party and she is forcing this. Kids do grow up and you can't stop that you can advise not control.

Honestly that's just normal teenage relationship stuff!

She shouldn’t be making him do anything. If the genders were reversed (ie if the boy was making the girl do stuff) I think everyone would see immediate red flags. A relationship is about mutual respect, not controlling the other person. Your son is allowed to spend his break times where he wants and with whom he wants. Your son is allowed to wear a bobble if he wishes to, but he’s also allowed to not wear one or take it off if he wants to. Under no circumstances should he be doing those things because she makes him do that. Such unhealthy behaviour from her.
sorry op, I’m not sure how you could beat broach this, but definitely let him know that a relationship is about mutual respect and he should only do something because HE wants to do it, and let him know he can always tell you anything without any judgement.

Please please talk to him about what is reasonable and controlling behaviour characteristics. I know someone who’s 17 year old son was controlled to the point she had all his social media passwords and used them as blackmail for all sorts of awful things. Threatening to kill herself etc. he almost failed his a levels!!!

There is something very odd with teenage relationships these days. My DS broke up with his first girlfriend because she got upset with him for not doing things such as you mentioned in the OP. He said she was annoying because she wanted all these things for show and she bossed him around. He said that’s not unusual. I think a lot of teenage girls are seeing relationships play out on social media and they feel that’s how they should be. There is no sense that they are being controlling, but really they are.

Sounds like it’s around the normal for first few intense teen relationships. The rings/bobble. Spending time together. Art work if that’s what they like.

My Ds walks his gf home from school every day, catches the bus over both weekend days even though it’s an hour trip.

Perhaps coercion is a personality trait applicable to men and women but how it's wielded and responded to is more defined by sex and is where the fault lines play out that make it worse if women are the victims rather than the perpetrators?