Sons boyfriend ruining our holiday

[SummerHolidayys]

DS is 21, his bf is 19 (turning 20 during this trip). They've been dating for about a year and to be honest I don't know much about him. He's not very talkative and while I have tried it doesn't really go anywhere

His BF is has MH issues. We're currently away in Spain. We got here Sunday. Since then there's been nothing but problems with bf, complaining about the food even food I've seen him eat, pizza etc he doesn't want or like apparently.

He's been overly touchy and kissing with DS in front of us (me, DD, my sister & her children) and DS hasn't said anything but I can tell he looks uncomfortable.

He's taken a dislike to DD for some reason and told DS she threatened him, she's 14 and didn't witness this but I doubt she did. He just seems generally in a mood, doesn't want to go anywhere. DS kindly asked if he'd taken his meds and he started shouting at him and took it as an insult.

There's more but I don't want to make this too long. I wish I hadn't let him come now, I want to go home early.

He sounds a nightmare and an embarrassment. But as your DS is defending him offers to send him home won’t work and DS will take his side.

just ignore, when the histrionics start up just remove yourselves and go out or give one responses to direct digs.

don’t offer alternatives to food or outing complaints leave it to DS to manage unless he ask your help directly.

when you return have a conversation and voice your disappointment in him and how he allowed his bf to treat you all on holiday don’t say anything about BFs character just DS.

I’d just ignore his dramatics. Mildly say such stuff as “get a room” or “if you don’t like it then buy yourself something else”. “Oh just ignore dd, she’s teasing you and treating you as she would her brother”
Try not to show irritation. Mildly comment or acknowledge his feelings “sorry you don’t like.,,” and immediately carry on with your own conversation or change the subject. Don’t give him oxygen.

Don’t bother criticising him to ds. That will force him to defend him. Let it all wash over your head and hopefully ds will then see for himself how unreasonable his bf is.

Yep, there's always some arse clown desperate to play hunt the phobia.

OP, nobody, particularly your vulnerable daughter, sould be left alone with him, he's a liar, a trouble maker and might accuse anyone of ANYTHING. Do not allow anyone to be alone with him so whoever is there always has back up, if any of you are left alone with him go to the loo, go for a walk, whatever you need to do to ensure there are always witnesses. If you absolutely cannot avoid being stuck alone with him, record the conversations. Obviously you can't stop your son from doing so unfortunately.

Keep contemporaneous notes as he may try something when you get home, notes of what he said, did, times, dates. Never invite him around your family again, you must protect them.

Later, you can gently make sure your son knows he can come straight home to you at any time and discuss anything with you.

The main thing now is to get your whole family home safe and away from him. Don't confront him don't discuss his behaviour at all, just try to act as though everything is normal. Manipulative, malicious people like this can cause a LOT of trouble.

The more replies I see from you OP the more I would honestly agree with everyone saying send the boyfriend home. He's a selfish little wanker and it seems he is clearly emotionally abusing your son. Smothering him in hickeys, won't stay out of his face and is actively trying to prove a point that everyone is against him. It very much sounds like he guilt tripped your son into inviting him on the holiday.
Stuff his feelings about his birthday and get the little freeloader gone- you may find your son will be relieved to be rid of him.

Be prepared that if you tell him to go home, DS is likely to go too.

Bloody hell, how are you standing for this behaviour from an ADULT in YOUR accommodation IN FRONT OF your dd??

You really need to speak out for BOTH your children’s sake, this is like a DV situation- he is controlling ALL of you successfully!

Regardless of who he is to DS you and the others should not have to tiptoe around his moods- you are teaching both your DS and DD to put up and shut up.

Holidays abroad are not cheap- you have a choice now. Do you DO SOMETHING and then you enjoy the rest of your holiday or do you sit moaning and watching his moods spoil your dd’s and possibly ds’s time away?

So what if it’s his birthday soon? Are you really using that to justify why you won’t approach this?
You are letting him be sexual toward your ds in front of you/ dd and you’re not happy but you haven’t said anything?? Can you see he is doing that and it’s his way of saying f-@( you!

Please gather your anger, emotions, confidence and every other feeling you have and sort this out. Maybe ask your sis to be with you when you tell him?
DS may be relieved or he may say he will go home with him. You must let Ds choose, Ds knows what he is like and they won’t be together much longer.

please give yourself the holiday you deserve.

I had a similar situation many years ago- I was your ds away with family and my bf was allowed to come along funded mostly by my family and me. Well it was a nightmare. Bf had refused to pay the only thing we asked him to pay for which was his ticket prices for the booked activities.
Well when we were away and he couldn’t come on some of them he was like a spoiled child and expected me to sit in the BASIC hotel room with him day after day, no chance I was loving time with my family doing fun things. Halfway through the holiday he said I was unfair going out without him and should stay in the room with him and we could chill and watch tv. I refused so he said he would go home early and I should go home too! I said I’m not going home but if he would rather go then that’s ok, he went very mardy for the rest of that day and the next day which was when my mum told him off (yes my mum telling a man in his late 20’s off) but it did the trick as he stopped the moods and took the pressure off me to stay in the room and the holiday was actually better!

I genuinely hope your holiday improves.

If the BF struggles to socialise with people he barely knows, why on earth is he on this holiday, at your expense, requiring you "strangers" to share his mental health crisis? Frankly, your son now sounds like a brat - although I still think he is in an abusive relationship. If your son is fine with it/defensive about it/happy that this wanker is off his meds to the detriment of all around him, then I suggest you leave him and the bf to it, they are adults after all; and go and do nice things with your daughter to salvage her enjoyment of this holiday, including leaving them to sort out their own food, so you can eat without being on tenterhooks around the bf's mealtime behaviour. Your holiday is of course fucked, because you are going to be desperately worrying about your son. And you should tell him this, he's old enough to hear the truth.

Everything else aside, you can’t have an adult male on holiday with you who actively dislikes your dd.

So he’s going to have to go home.

Not a nice position for you to be in when your trying to have a nice family holiday.

In no way am I defending the boyfriends behaviour but he definitely sounds like he has issues beyond his control.

Aswell as his anxiety and mental health, he is definitely Autistic id put money on it.
Hes probably massively struggling being around you all as he doesn’t know you well or feel comfortable enough, so he’s gone into a shutdown survival mode(not wanting to do anything, freezing) .

The pizza although he sounds like he’s being fussy - the pizza he normally likes will have a difference and in ASD sense of smell/taste is heightened.
My daughter is autistic and her food struggles are atrocious. She will only eat one pizza from a certain restaurant, will not entertain any others even though to me they seem the same, yet to her the sauce is different/cheese is different etc.
My daughter also acts like this around people she doesn’t know well.
She will become moody, shutdown or start to try and take control being mean.

Your daughter possibly rolled her eyes at him, because of all his sensitivities that would have felt threatening to him.

Im not defending him in the slightest and can imagine it must be making u all uncomfortable but I see definite traits of ASD and possible PDA/social anxiety and it doesn’t sound like he’s just being ‘moody’ there’s more going on.

The reasons don't actually matter at all, as she is not his counsellor, mother, carer, doctor, or support human. The only thing that matters is that she keeps her daughter and her family safe.

100% agree.

Any diagnosis may explain his appalling behaviour - but it never excuses it.

Everyone needs to be protected from it - especially a young teenage girl being picked on my a highly disruptive and manipulative man. I will throw in EUPD if the armchair psycology is being aired in this thread. V concerning and familiar traits (splitting, su**idal ideation/threats, etc). Agree it is not for OP or her DS to absorb to take on his treatment/managment - that would be very irresponsible.

He sounds immature, controlling, ill-mannered and quite frankly, very entitled. I think you need to let DS know that his BF is ruining your enjoyment of your own vacation and let him know that you have found him to be rude, ungrateful and controlling and you’ve had enough. Let DS know that you have one week left of the vacation and intend to enjoy it. Tell him you won’t be entertaining this nonsense from BF for the remainder of the trip.
As for BF, I would ignore him, let him sort out his own meals - “Don’t like the meal we’ve planned? Fine… Sort yourself out.”, “Don’t want to do what we’ve planned? Fine. Do what you want.” (When he says that he has no money for this, “Why do you think this is my problem? You have been ungrateful and rude almost since you arrived. My generosity has limits.”)

@Francestein nailed the situation.

And that's a bad thing because?

The DS is actively enabling him to ruin the holiday rather than telling him to belt up and respect his family.

He perhaps needs to learn the hard way unfortunately.

All this being totally wet because it might ruin the man's birthday, walking on egg shells because of his 'mental health problems and worrying that it might alienate the son are pathetic really.

These are two adults men who don't give a shit how their behaviour is affecting the OP, her husband and their FOURTEEN YEAR OLD daughter.

Fuck em. Actions have consequences.

Genuinely way do people trip over themselves trying to be nice to people who don't think they are worthy of the same level of respect.

It might well be an abusive relationship, but honestly the son isn't going to see that until he hits rock bottom with it anyway.

If you want to be a doormat, let them continue. Otherwise just send him home.

A big bust up isn't going to make the holiday worse at this point.

Your DS is probably part defending his own decision when he’s defending his BF as it will sound like you’re criticising his judgement. He’ll need a bit of time to get to grips with that and it won’t happen over night, I expect he’ll ditch BF when he gets home… depending on how you handle it.

You need to be super calm and super firm. Tell your DS you’re going to buy his BF a ticket home and ask if he’d like to stay or go together, make sure he knows he’s very welcome to stay with you and you’re not banishing him but you respect his need to make his own choice. Tell BF that you’re sorry he hasn’t enjoyed the trip, it’s best for him that he goes home to somewhere he feels more comfortable.

Remember never complain never explain!! No reasons, no complaining about events, no examples - just a ticket and a “we don’t want you to stay when you’re having a bad time. It’s affecting everyone and we are happy for you to go home. Here’s your ticket. Fck off”

No im not saying they do matter to the OP and you’re correct its absolutely not her responsibility to take on any role towards him, im just trying to point out the traits he’s displaying may be out of his control and he may not know how to fully act around them.

I’ve also said it doesn’t excuse his behaviour. I’ve spent many years working with people with neurodivergence and have my own child with ASD and pda so I know first hand how challenging this must be for the op and feel sorry for her family being in this position.

He said the love bites are none of my business and the pda is just how his bf is and he isn't bothered or uncomfortable by it

but the pda is your business, this is a family holiday and your ds & his obnoxious bf should behave accordingly. It is not a lovers shag fest trip. What does your sister make of all this? At the very least they can find their own accommodation for the rest of the trip.

i fear you have all learned a difficult lesson here. Not least, don't invite people you don't know on a family holiday.

Deffo don't let DD anywhere near him without a chaperone. (difficult, as that amounts to you only)

Offer DS and BF tickets home today.

As for the "homophobia" of complaining about the PDAs. Get in the sea with that. It is revolting to sit there doing love bites in front of your family. Or anyone, tbh. It would be disgusting whatever combination of sexes the people doing it are.

Don't have a scene or buy tickets. Just kill him! Any kind of holiday accident would do the trick. Easily explained.

Remind your son that it is a family holiday and that you are so pleased that he has come and that he feels comfortable to bring his boyfriend.

Also say that you notice his boyfriend is uncomfortable and rude and is ruining the happy vibe.

Ask DS if he would agree that it's best that the boyfriend is driven to the airport and leaves early.

tbh I am with DD here. She is clearly not comfortable with the situation and this shows in her behaviour and not excusing theirs. DS is probably trying to protect his decision to invite obnoxious bf but might be secretly relieved if he was kicked out.

Neither of them have contributed financially to the holiday so asking them to start treating everyone with a bit more respect and consideration is a reasonable ask.

I would issue an ultimatum - they grow up and improve their behaviour (no pda in front of you, keep the whining to a minimum and start showing some manners) or they leave. They can find somewhere else to stay or go home. But don't do this as a row - a cool, calm collected choice.

Any toys get thrown out the pram in a tantrum they go. The choice is theirs.

How is it going today @SummerHolidayys ? How is your DD?

You said that your DS has now graduated - does this mean he will move home - will the BF be around your family and DD more then? Or is the BF rejoining uni this year?

I do think that you have to walk a tight rope here .... we all know BF behaviour is abusive, disruptive and manipulative - including your DS - although he is choosing to defend him currently which is your cue to understand that anything confrontational by you will drive you DS closer to him at this time.

So its a game of strategy and timing. Keep calm and carry on. Dont fall into BF traps - dont get drawn in and dont get in the way of letting your DS see and experience his vile behaviour. I also worry that your DS is being emotionally held hostage by the sui**de talk - this is a highly controlling and manipulative tactic of abusive people. Your DS needs to know that at some point - and to know that is when he calls in the professionals to either smoke him out or deal with him.

Focus on the end of this relationship being the goal - it may take some time for your DS to get there ..... but it will last longer if you fall for the 'conflict' role that is being set up.

It's going to make OP 's relationship with her son vastly worse, though.

You make it sound like that's NOT going to happen if she allows herself to be a doormat!

It's pretty likely in either scenario tbh.