Confused by daughters boyrfriend choice?

[worriedabit]

Hello Everyone,

I am all very new at this and i am desperately in need of some wisdom. My 18YDD recently got her first boyfriend. He seems like a nice kid but a bit overly needy and honestly a total lack of ambition (hes barely passing college/plays video games till 3AM on school nights). DD on the other hand has big ambitions, straight A student and going to Oxbridge. However she suffers from low confidence and panics a bit in exams. And if i am honest she hasnt had much exposure to boys having attended all girls schools and maybe has a low self esteem.

This forum has been incredibly valuable, and i have used all the advice i have found on here. I have been open to him/listened to her and never judged. Acting more as a sounding bored than any form of judgement. After all she is 18 and free to make her own decisions.

My big concern is his neediness will take over her life, and she will lose focus away from her exams, at this cruical stage. And with his lack of ambition i dont want him to drag her down, and make her life miserable long term.

So my Question is this...

As a man i have always been told, that neediness is one of the most unattractive qualities in a man. So why is she not put off by this?

As mentioned she is free to make her own discussions. I just naturally worry. And i am curious as to why a brilliant young woman, full of promise, is attracted to an overly needy and unambitious young guy.

I just dont get it!

Thanks so much for reading this.

I agree with this !
I have a 24 year old daughter and 26 year old son it works that fleeting comment does actually get in their heads and they will think about it !
It's like they have a bit of advise and work it out themselves even thou u planted that bit advise !
Worst thing is having serious conversations unless they instigate them because they need help !
Goodluck I'm sure it will probably fizzle out as she meets more people and gains more confidence

She needs to know how to check in with herself and acknowledge that anything that leaves her unsettled or confused is an amber light - she doesn’t even need to over think it - just that she’s uncomfortable and this emotional discomfort is her personal boundary. She then needs to know that she has agency - that it’s perfectly acceptable and healthy to express a preference - it’s not conflict or confrontational - ie I don’t need / want you to hang around after prom.

So she needs to be able to identify her own internal emotions thru awareness and attend to them with her behaviours / actions knowing she has agency.

If he is problematic with her expressed preferences then he is problematic.

Loads of us had shitty ‘starter’ boyfriends for one reason or another. I remember my dad similarly worrying about mine. Dad wasn’t wrong as he was a waste of space and luckily, I dumped him after a couple of years.

Hopefully, your daughter will keep up her studies and get to uni where her world will grow larger with infinite possibilities and she’ll leave the loser boyfriend behind.

I wonder if you could print off or find in a newspaper/magazine an article about red flags for coercive/controlling behaviour and leave it around for her to read. Only basing this on the fact that as a teen I’d read anything that was left around where I was having breakfast etc. Don’t make out it’s for her - you or her mum could say they were worried about a colleague/friend or just don’t say anything.

MANY young people don’t know the red flags, I didn’t until I discovered MN in my twenties but luckily my own teenage loser boyfriend wasn’t that kind of person. I dated him because he was absolutely gorgeous by the way! No mystery there 😂 But the idea of these red flags needs to be implanted in her head somehow.

There is a difference between shitty and abusive

The worry in situations like this though is that she might not end up 'leaving' for uni/she will end up coming home to him every weekend/he will end up staying with her constantly in her halls if this boy gets his claws in too tightly.

I got into a relationship with a bit of a waster when I was 17, it dictated my choices of uni - all chosen so I could stay at home - and meant that I didn't really engage in any of the usual social life students enjoy - no nights out, no hobbies/societies or whatever, no shared living. He also gradually separated me from a lot of my friends at college as he didn't really like them.

Luckily I did still go to uni and got my degree, went on to a good job, but I was with him for 5 years and it definitely impacted my experience of uni and the amount of friends I made there, since I was effectively only there for lectures and then I went home.

@PinkNailPolish2026 I just saw your later post. I’m so very sorry, your daughter sounds like she’s in a cult. I guess just keep reaching out? I’m so furious on your behalf, I would like to punch him in the throat too. How dare he diminish your daughter. Where is karma when you need it?

She’s 18 and in her relationship, she wants safe.

First relationship I mean

She maybe just wants a boyfriend and it seems to me that boys of that age who are good boyfriend material are few and far between! If she is nerdy (as you said) it’s even harder as she probably would’t feel like the “cool” boys are in
her league (which obv won’t be true) and the nerdy ambitious boys are generally a bit intimidated by girls. Massive generalisation there obviously but from talking to my son (20) and daughter (18), I think it’s fair one!

If he treats her nicely, just go with it. If it’s a recent thing, it will
most likly fizzle out. Assume she is year 12, I think the timing is good actually. She has the summer and then a few months for the novelty to wear off before exam pressure really kicks in.

In the Venn diagram of sixth form, girls who are straight A oxbridge students and girls who get male attention don’t overlap that much….maybe she likes him because he very much wants to date her?

What an absolute crock of misogynistic shit.

Personal experience, actually - though it does get better at uni!

Huge difference between being needed and being needy.

You check any post on MN about being ghosted by a man or a women liking a man and him not making a move and literally every post will say dont text him, you dont want to come across as "needy". It's universally known that neediness is unattractive. Healthy confidence is far more attractive than someone constantly checking you still like them or texting you multiple times an hour to check you are still replying etc

Also not limited to girls - the more academic boys weren’t the most popular or sexually active either.

Honestly OP you need to stop worrying so much . DD is very young, this is her first relationship as far as you know, and she's off to university soon. Most likely this will finish when she leaves.
Remember too that this young man may have qualities that you can't see including sexual compatibility with DD.

She wont feel judged or pressured by expectations. She will be able to relax with him and at 18 she will probably both get confidence from his 'neediness' and view it as love..at a guess. What plans do her female friends have?.. may just overide any pressure from the boyfriend not to pursue her plans at this point?

Also my personal experience I’m afraid. A lot of men were intimidated by me and/ or would get their egos hurt if I was more successful than them. At college and at a prestigious university

My DH is successful in his own way but not academically or financially he’s creative, artistic, musical and calm and caring but he has close to zero ambition. I think some people did judge when first got together but It’s been a good fit as we complement one another. (Had it been the other way around it I think it would have been unremarkable. Successful men choose less successful but attractive women all the time)

OP this probably won’t work out when she goes to uni and she’ll figure it out herself so don’t worry too much. The only thing I’d worry about is if she eg decided not to go to uni because of him or to go to the same place. I’d push back on that but in reality might not be much you can do. Just be there and let her know you love her unconditionally even if/ when she makes some mistakes or fails.

OP

@worriedabit
Maybe I can offer a perspective. One of my DDs had a similar BF she met at school at a similar age, he was besotted with her, very needy and I couldn't see what she saw in him. She was bookish, a bit nerdy, off to a great Uni (he was completely opposite!) and she had this guy writing her soppy love notes and following her round like a lapdog.

For a while I think she enjoyed it, it was flattering after all. He wasn't going to Uni (his parents 'didn't believe in it', despite him wanting to go to her Uni, for that I was grateful!)
Off she went, and he would go and see her at Uni all the time and I honestly think he stuck out like a sore thumb because he was nothing like the circle of Uni friends she had made (she is mid thirties now and still in touch with the Uni friends all the time!)
She outgrew him. And it finished. I will maintain he was a great first boyfriend for her but it was never going to work.
I think Uni will offer a different perspective to your DD and it will most likely fizzle out.

I LOVED your post until you called a concerned parent judgemental. He is here asking for help and laying out his concerns. Not all unambitious people (men and women) find their soulmates like you did.

A parent is right to be concerned about their child's bf choice if they seem like it could derail her ambitions.

Other than that, I love your story. Well done you for not binning a good man just because he wasn't earning ££££££s.

Honestly if she’s due to go to Oxford later this year I’d just let the relationship run it course! She obviously likes him and is enjoying his company so I’d just let it be a summer romance and enjoy this time. There’s no point getting involved YET! If things carry on into the new year you can reassess the relationship.