AIBU To be losing patience with daughters BF?

[Moonshine23]

DD has just turned 18 and she has been seeing her BF for just under 2 years.

She is a motivated, polite, kind girl but me and DH have some serious worries about her boyfriend and we are at a loss at to what to do!

DD is off to uni in a few weeks to pursue a career she had wanted to do since primary school however she has been talking about coming home “probably every weekend” to see BF.

DH and I have serious reservations over BF for the following reasons but have tried to stay quiet…do we say something to DD?

He dropped out of college & didn’t achieve any GCSE’s (he was studying a course and a resit but didn’t achieve either)
He cannot keep a job, has not lasted longer than a month at anything we’ve heard he’s doing.
He doesn’t leave his house or do anything with her but sit in his house! We have seen him 4 times since they got together without exaggeration! She always goes there and was spending most of her money on Ubers before she passed her driving test.

The straw that has broken the camels back for us is we invited him to a big family meal for her birthday & he hardly acknowledged us and sat on his phone the whole time, leaving at various point to make calls. He did speak briefly to my DH who tried to strike up convo but he was met with answers like “could be better could be on a beach” and when he asked about what he was up to he loudly announced he’d quit his warehouse job to “work on his crypto”!! My husband nearly choked on his drink.

Do we challenge our daughter about this behaviour or keep riding it out?? I’m worried sick that we’ll never say anything and she’ll end up with this guy! Aib

I second the PPs. Uni is a different universe. She will meet plenty of interesting people, find a new circle of friends to have fun with.
This loser will fade away into oblivion when she meets people with actual personalities (hopefully) 🥰

No! It's so she actually goes out with her course mates and flat/halls mates. If you're only there during the week everyone is in lectures. I used to love weekends at uni - we'd do standard teenage stuff. Meet for coffee, go into the nearest city shopping, go to see a film at the uni film society. There were fancy dress events in the College bar nearly every weekend.

I'd encourage her to stay the first weekend at least. Explain she needs to establish friendships and meet people that first weekend and if she comes home she will miss out. Suggest he goes and stays there too (will speed up the end as she'll compare him to her new shiny friends).

It won't last. I bet you any money he'll be history by first half term break.

They have little in common now, never mind when she's at uni with a whole new life.

By all means tell the truth that you think he seems a bit lacking in motivation and that unless he's depressed or ND it's a pretty lame way to choose to live your life. But I don't think you'll need to.

They'll have less and less in common and she'll have her head turned by the hundreds of other lads who presumably have a bit more going on in terms of doing something meaningful with their lives.

I actually allowed my emotionally abusive boyfriend of the time to talk me out of going to uni because he was scared I would meet someone else 🙈

I’m sure your dd will have a brilliant time once she’s there and will soon drop the boyfriend.

If she's not much of a partier, gently encourage her in the direction of the outdoorsy societies such as orienteering / hill-walking / rock-climbing / harriers etc.

They tend to be made up of the more clean-living types and conveniently hold most of their outings and events at the weekend...

I would ask her to do one thing. Don’t come home for the first month. Give it a proper chance. Then of course see how she feels 🤞🤞🤞

This is exactly what you need to be doing 👏
I don't think you'll achieve anything by actually telling her her bf is a waste of space and you don't want to cause a rift between you and her before she heads off to uni. Just keep reiterating that she should fully throw herself into uni life and the opportunities that moving away brings. I'd maybe say in a subtle way that it would be completely natural for her and bf's relationship to fizzle out when she moves away and meets other people and she shouldn't feel guilty about that

I would suggest to your daughter that she leaves it a month before coming home to give herself time to settle in. With my oldest when she went and with my youngest who is about to go we made plans to visit at about the five week mark.

It was something suggested to help them get over the first bump of homesickness. If they keep making weekly visits they don’t have a chance to get past that first stage. You could possibly explain it that way so it doesn’t sound like you are focusing on the boyfriend.

Just be there for when it inevitably goes tits up. Don’t get involved. She is a smart, sensible girl and the space that uni gives her will split them up. I think it will inevitably get worse before it gets better once your DD starts to recognise the issue because he is the issue and he won’t like that.

It baffle me how these fellas manage to pull these smart, attractive girls.

Make sure he's not putting her down and making her feel insecure about uni.

I hope she has the best time and dumps him very soon.

Another one seconding that she should t even think about coming home for the first month - or even 1st term- she’s is going to be so busy and meet so many great people, boys included, that she’s soon going to move on from this loser.

I’m afraid that’s probably exactly what he’s doing - it’s a shame phones exists! He’ll be messaging the poor girl night and day since he’s got time on his hands. She’s needs to be strong.

I don’t know, my first serious boyfriend was awful and my parents said nothing for a while hoping I would see it for myself but eventually my mum couldn’t hold it in anymore and it was the push I needed to end things!

With any luck, she’ll see the people who did succeed in education having fun at uni, and figure out for herself what a loser the BF is. If she’s not into a wild social life, perhaps sports, a book group, philosophy society or club associated with her area of study might expose her to more interesting people.

My Uni experience was pretty much the same as a few have mentioned upthread. Most home bfs/gfs either ended or became a lot less serious But that was pre internet and mobiles. Some of my friends’ children who have had possessive partners were pretty much stalked through uni!

I do think you can have a careful conversation. Keep it factual and ask open questions without prejudging the answers. Such as ‘where do you see it going’, ‘How will coming home at weekends affect making uni friends/studies etc’.

People are right that being judgmental will make her all the more determined to stay with him. But if she is struggling to answer reasonable questions, she may come to the ‘correct’ answer herself.

I agree with @ExtraOnions and other posters; when I went to college, many fellow students came with a previous attachment from home. Hardly surprising for a group of lively young teenagers. The first term tended to be "make or break". In a couple of very rare cases, absence did make the heart grow fonder, and they came back after the Christmas break engaged! One of them I kept in touch with is still happily married more than thirty years later, but this is vanishingly rare. Frankly, it requires a sort of persistence which I doubt he possesses.
I would not do anything oppositional and run the risk of them becoming "star-crossed lovers" but but sit tight, relying on his indolence to widen the gap; he's hardly putting himself out now when she is within a short travelling distance, and she will be meeting and mixing with all kinds of new acquaintances.

I used to work in student welfare. Round about week 5 is when most first year students go home to break up with their BF/GF that they had before they started uni.

Will she be in halls? She will soon realise that she'll miss out on too much socially by not being there at weekends.

Your DD will be back weekly, for a month maybe. Then a fortnight. Then she’ll meet new friends, join societies, meet some nice chap and the current BF will be history by Christmas. Or at least, that’s been my experience with friends and relatives.
I was the same. I ditched my BF within days of meeting others at University. I could see the sort of person he was, once I was around people with educational ambitions.
Worry not x

Your daughter may well have good intentions of coming home every weekend to see her boyfriend. My guess is, she'll meet lots of new people, who she'll want to spend time with, and gradually those weekends coming home will decrease.

For now, I'd be tempted to leave it be. I think eventually the desire to spend time with the new friends she makes, will become far stronger than her will to see her boyfriend. She will meet lots of young men at university, and by doing so it may make her realise that he's not for her.

My only concern if coming home every weekend, didn't wain, is that she feels guilty or obliged to continue with the relationship, simply because he's been her first serious boyfriend.

I’d worry if she was just like him but she sounds ambitious and is off to make a new life at Uni so I’m sure she’ll see sense and dump him by the 2nd semester.

Thank you everyone! I’m going to take all the advice on board 🤞🏼. As a bit of an update, unbeknownst to me DH had a bit of a chat with her yesterday as she popped into his office to see him as he really wasn’t impressed with his behaviour at the birthday meal 😬. Apparently the chat went ok and she is planning to end it before she goes to uni, but we will wait and see!!

It'll be over before Christmas

@Moonshine23 Yay! That is the best news, especially for your DD. I hope she stays strong and follows through, even if he tries to convince her otherwise.

Honestly every young woman I know (including myself) has dated a bum. It’s just a formative experience I guess - the only time it’s actually a long term issue is if you get impregnated by a loser.

Check she’s on top of her birth control (register with a GP at uni, has her prescription sorted ahead of time) and after first term she will realise he’s a bum and get the ick. I speak from first hand experience.