Help with DD - I need perspective

[Sylvana]

My 17 year old DD has been seeing a boy of 19 for 9 months. He's a student, and is a nice young man, a bit dorky but they seem well suited. He doesn't appear to have any money, not unusual for a student but I have discovered my DD is paying for everything from cinema outings, fast food meals, even paying for his train fare home. My DD doesn't have much money either - she gets the odd babysitting job and gets money for her birthday/Christmas etc but I've discovered her savings are severly depleted.

He stays with us every second weekend and we drive him down to the train to go home. He always says "I just need my train fare" as we prepare to leave the house. I have given it to him on several occasions, so has my DH. This has started to peeve me a little so I pretended not to hear him last time. My DD ran up the stairs and came down with the money for him.

I questioned her about it when we got home. I asked her why he doesn't have his train fare home. She said because he has no money. I asked her why his parents don't give him the train fare and she said perhaps they don't have it either

I told her I wasn't happy about it and explained that it wasn't right she was paying for everything and it amounted to her being used. I told her that if he didn't have the money for his train fare home then he shouldn't be visiting in the first place!

Roll on to this weekend. He was getting ready to leave and I heard him whisper to her. DD ran up the stairs and came down and slipped him the money for his train fare. She thinks I didn't notice.

The fact that he thinks its o.k. to continually look for money from her and not see anything wrong with it sits very uncomfortably with me. I explained this to her 2 weeks ago and I thought she understood. But now she is just doing it in secret.

Am I overreacting here or am I right to be concerned ?? What do I do ??

I'd be going bloody mad - if it was a girlfriend or a boyfriend doing this. What a cheek "I just need my trainfare" how very dare he?! Chancing little b* If I ever found out my DS had done this I would die of shame.

This could well set her own template for future relationships so this issue needs to be addressed and sharpish. He is not that stupid if he can take such a person for a ride; he seems very calculating actually.

I still stand by my assertion that she is being financially abused by this cocklodger.

I guess it depends what she is getting out of the relationship and what the medium term outlook is, is he waiting for a student loan to come through, will he repay the favour then ?

Cocklodger definitely. What kind of a shameless prat would take money from his girlfriend's parents. Ugh. I think a good talk with your daughter is necessary.

Just an aside really but why on earth is he getting the train fare for the trip home when he should have bought a return with his student rail card and made it cheaper anyway? Has he GOT a student rail card I wonder?

I agree with Megapixels and others - a good talk with you daughter is necessary.

Of course the boy has money. Actually at 19 he's a man. How does he travel to college, buy food, pay bills when he's not with your daughter? He just chooses to have no money because he knows you or your daughter will sub him.

I assume he's eating your food, having baths, enjoying, heat, internet access, etc when he's staying at your comfy B & B? Is he grateful for that? Does he offer to do the dishes or odd jobs as a way of saying thank you? Somehow I doubt it.

Maybe I sound angry because we had to put up with one of these. DD gave us hell when we started to say 'No' (and he still owes us money and didn't return stuff he 'borrowed') - but it all came out in the wash

"I just need my train fare"
Fookin cheek! I'm telling you if any guy dared to say this to dh and I after we found out he had been sponging off dd