I'm terrified DD is going under

[DDinpain]

My beautiful, fiery, generous, wonderful, funny, quirky, saviour-of-the-world 18yr old DD has got herself mixed up with a very disturbed man and it is killing me.

Over the course of the last 18 months she has struggled at school and messed up her ASs, dropped to about 6.5 stone, caught an STD and had a termination. The latest seems to be that her friends have now walked away saying that she is no longer someone that they want to be around. She has just told me and I am sitting here sobbing.

He is controlling, jealous and abusive and she just can't see it. He has cheated on her more times than I can count (and that's just the times she's told me about!). He hates all of her male friends and regularly treats her like shit in public. She assures me that he is loving and funny etc the rest of the time, but doesn't seem to get that doesn't balance out the way he behaves for the rest of the time.

She told me last night that he went to see someone about his anxiety and has been referred to a psychoanalyst as they believe he has underlying issues - no shit!

She knows very well how I feel about him and whenever she tells me yet another horror story about him I don't start screaming and shouting (learned that lesson early on when she just clammed up completely!). I try to explain how his behaviour is SO wrong and how he is manipulating everything about her life, but so far to no effect. She understands that he is wrong, but just doesn't seem able to leave him.

I just want to ban her from seeing/communicating with him ever again, but know that it wouldn't work. How the hell do I get her away from this soul destroying relationship?

Does he had a hold over her? I don't know, blackmail? Risque photos? Something like that? Is she frightened of him, or does she genuinely believe she loves him?

She may read this if I sent it to her (although I can already hear the excuse that she cannot open a link on her phone!), but I think she is in some kind of denial. I do think she'd be shocked by how I feel though, and by the summary of what she has gone through in the last 18 months that was in my original post. Pulled me up short when I wrote it down tbh!

You poor thing. When I was 15 I met a lad who was 18. I got involved with drugs and he was emotionally abusive and physically. I was with him for about three years. I had a termination, which he forced me in to. He got prosecuted when he put my head through a wall. He cheated on me and turned me in to a shadow of myself. I know my Mom felt the same way you do.
I feel terrible about what I put her through. My Dad left when I was 14 and it was just the two of us. All I can say is I think you are treating this the right way and allowing her to come to you which is much better than her not being able to tell you these things.
As a Mom to my DD now I think I would probably kill any man who treated my baby this way and I admire your restraint
10 years on I am married to a lovely, kind, intelligent, successful man and we have three wonderful DC.
I really hope that your DD comes out the other end of this intact. I would try to gently introduce her to the idea that there are other men out there who would treat her very differently.

I'm never sure about showing people threads.

I think you should find out as much as you can about abusive relationships, perhaps talk to Women's Aid yourself to know how best to help her?

Yes, one good thing that will come of all of this will be when she leaves him (and eventually she will realise he won't change, they never ever do and she is clearly not stupid) she will be stronger and know/be aware of the danger signs for the rest of her life. She is young and this experience will hopefully enable her to pick wisely next time to avoid the same troubles :)
Gotta look at some positives.

Could you talk to her friends, the ones who've walked away, and find out why they've abandoned her? Even as a teenager I saw my friends through some really dreadful boyfriends. Strange that they've abandoned her if they're school friends as they probably wouldn't come much into contact with him.

Where does she see him then? Presumably she is at school all day (and he's too old for school) and you say he never comes to your house? Where does this relationship take place?

Rather than blaming him for everything that's gone wrong, might it be helpful to look to her to take responsibility?
Messing up AS exams can't be blamed on him entirely, he's not even at school.
Getting an STD? Why is she having unprotected sex?
Having a termination? Why is she having unprotected sex?
Why is her self esteem so low that she's doing all of the above and having a relationship with someone who cheats on her and is controlling and abusive>

I am playing devil's advocate a bit, but you do seem to be excusing her a lot.

Again, thank you for your kindness and advice, it means a huge amount. This feels like an intensely private thing to share with RL friends.

Convert, don't feel terrible about it, none of it was your fault and your Mum just wanted to help you through and have her daughter back. Good to hear you came out the other side with your self esteem.

I too am not sure about showing her this, I just have trouble getting her to stay in the same room to listen to what I want/need to say. She gets very uncomfortable when I try to talk to her, sometimes a text can get my point across better.

From the 18 year old who was in the same situation (even down to the age difference ) the best thing you can do is be there for her and trust her to come through it, she is young, it is likely she will see at some point over the next few years that he makes her feel more unhappy than happy, and she will gain the strength to get over that "can't" feeling she has about leaving. It took me three years and I had mumsnet - hang on in there.

Keep reassuring her that there is always a place for her at your house if it ever gets too much, whatever happens (even if you do end up having a big argument, I hope that doesn't happen :() and that you will always be there for her and help her with anything she needs. Don't offer her any coping strategies/solutions like trying to talk to him or ways of trying to manipulate him into a response as it just gives you false hope - it's best not to go on about him being an arse etc (however tempting) but reiterate that you can't change a person and people are who they are.

I would probably not give her the Lundy book. Keep it at your house, she might spot it, don't mention that you bought it for her. If she brings up in conversation things that he's done that she doesn't understand or things that he's done that have hurt her then you can say things like "That was really thoughtless of him, he hasn't thought about how you'd feel at all" etc, highlighting the actual way that he's let her down. Maybe when she gets into the questioning stage, is it me, or starts to recognise that he has an anger/control problem, then you could suggest the book, say you read it years ago or a friend gave it to you but you hadn't got around to reading it (since you don't have an angry or controlling man to read about any more!) but I think you have to wait until she brings up the topic of him being angry/controlling before he will accept either of those labels for him.

Being in an abusive relationship you go through such a complex amount of mind-states and if she says she "can't" stop seeing him, and she misses him when away etc then she's probably in the stage where she's infatuated bordering on obsessed, because he's convinced her that they are oh-so-special for each other, the rest of the world don't understand their love, he can't live without her, and any relationship she could have wouldn't compare with this one. At this stage it will be very hard for her to hear bad things about him, because any flaws in his character she will be almost proud of, because she's loving and understanding and helping somebody so damaged and that makes her a very special and rare person, because most people wouldn't understand, wouldn't care, or would label him a "bad person" without looking further to the person below all of that who she believes is the "real him". Also, she's at that prime age for seeing and multiplying flaws in herself to massive proportions, while putting others (especially boyfriends) on a pedestal and thinking that their bad points aren't so bad. In her mind, she probably thinks she has bad points which are equal to his and that they deserve each other. Every time she shows insecurity about anything you can believe he'll pick at this too in order to strengthen these beliefs of hers

Once she gets to the point of realising that she's expending all of her emotional energy trying to calm the monster on the surface in order to reach the ~special and damaged soul~ beneath, and she realises that, actually, her life is pretty boring because it revolves around him while other people her age are going out, doing their own thing, following their own hopes and dreams, etc, then you'll be more able to get through to her, but at the moment she's got more than enough energy to keep on giving and she's all consumed with him and hasn't noticed that he is taking away all of her. She will get there, she is still the same person inside that she always was. She'll just have to find herself again, it's just that you have to get pretty lost to realise that IME. Also, although it's going to be very hard for you to watch, you might find it reassuring to know that it's quite rare for women in her situation to commit suicide especially if they know that there are options (whether they feel able to take those options or not) because she's not suffering from depression, although she might be displaying several of the same symptoms.

Good luck, I hope it does not take too long for her to see the light. xx

Why don't you try writing her a letter. You can say what you mean and she has time to think about it, without leaping to the defence.

Can you help her to get a good contraceptive method, something like the depo or implant? I would be worried that should she get pregnant again by him, they'll decide not to terminate and then she'll be tied to him through dc.

And while it's a hell of a way to realise this, the recovery process, if you're lucky enough to have the right kind of support, tends to make you pretty kick-ass in terms of relationships and confidence too I would not take a hint of a red flag now, I would run and run and I am of the opinion that I'd much rather be alone forever than be with someone that I'm not happy with and who doesn't appreciate me for being who I am, ie, my own person.

If it helps I wAs your DD at that age, pretty similar circumstances

At 20 and in the world of work I just figured it out for myself, not before buying a house with the boyfriend, to the despair of my parents!!!

She'll come good

I can't offer advice as I know anyone trying to help me made it worse and I pushed them away, I threatened to cut off my parents.

Now I'm 34 and very boring (!!) with 2 children of my own. I still feel sick at the scares I put my parents through but love her, be there and she'll come out the other side in her own time. It's the only way

Bertie high five to your last comment - same here, happily single for now, independant and happiest I have been in a while

Sorry, can't help excusing her, she's my baby.

I know, she's been stupid! And she isn't!! She is always the first one to tell her friends when someone is treating them badly and has also been an incredibly robust and loud defender of the underdog. This relationship seems to have turned her into some kind of idiot, however!

AS exams - she didn't do enough work as she wanted to be out with him (and lied/was evasive about where she was a lot). Her head was/is also all over the place and she doesn't sleep well, all of which have an impact on school.

She sees him out and at his house - she is 18 years old. Her friends see him a lot too as he seems to turn up wherever she is, even if she goes out with them.

Re unprotected sex - I know - she is a bloody idiot. She will not talk to me about it, I have told her how ridiculous she has/is being. Especially as he seems unable to keep himself away from other girls.

I don't think her self-esteem was low to start with. He is a very good looking and charming character with a lovely family and she was only 16 and fell hard. It is only as the relationship has progressed that she has changed and become so depressed.

I hope that you might find this comes to a natural end op when your dd goes travelling. You might just have to hang on until then. I second doing as much as you can with her that she enjoys to get her away from him and show there is life apart from him.

Does she say she's happy? She must feel awful/in doubt after her friends have said they no longer want to be around her? If you can get her to 'think aloud' to you (without passing any judgement at all ) it might help her to clarify her own thoughts. I suspect counselling will have thrown her into a lot of confusion and that's why she didn't like it.

Also I wouldn't show her this thread, she may feel betrayed by you that you have publicly disclosed very private events in her life. But you could encourage her to ask for some relationship advice on here. (get this thread removed first by asking mnhq to delete it).

Keep going OP you might be all that's keeping her together at the mo.

She sees HIM as the underdog unfortunately, which is why she is 'protecting' him so hard. Showing her that this is his game-plan will be the only way she realises it is something she can't change. I think not showing her this thread would be wise as you can come back for more support, and she might think we are ganging up on someone we haven't met (her b.f).

Bertie - your comment re her feeling she is special is so her. We were saying exactly the same thing the other day. She does it with friends too, always finding the injured and trying to put them back together. I am going to copy the last two paragraphs of your post and keep them to give to at a time when she is ready to hear it.

It is very hard to walk the thin line between what I want to say to her and what she is able to deal with before she shuts down and walks away. The last thing I want to do is alienate her and make her feel she cannot talk to me about things.

Sheep - 'Does she says she is happy?' NO! Over the last few weeks she has been very open about the fact that she is depressed. She has seen the counsellor at school, which she hated and has had two Gp's appointments, one of which was a 'sit and wait' and she gave up after an hour and a half, and the other she 'forgot'. I am going to go with her next time and make sure she tells the GP how she is feeling.

My eldest son is 20. I would be vociferously critical if he was jeopardising his future. I'm not sure I really understand why you can't be a critical friend: isn't that what being a parent is all about? It sounds as though you want to be her friend, more than you want to be her parent.

Ah, then she sounds like I was - she will not be able to hear anything against him right now. Anything anyone says (even someone she loves and trusts, like you!) is further proof to her that he is so alienated and nobody understands him the way that she does. He will feed into this unfortunately :( It's very hard and confusing for her to work out this clash in her mind of advice/information from those she loves and trusts and what she thinks he's showing her. His abuse probably does come from a place of insecurity, he probably doesn't see that his actions are harmful to her - but that doesn't make it okay, at the moment, she thinks that's enough of an excuse. There will come a day where she realises that it isn't, that if he really loved and cared he would be making efforts to change, that other people show love by trusting their loved ones and allowing them the freedom to be who they are, not clutching them tightly out of fear that they will fly away.

Hmm... she doesn't sound depressed to me. She sounds like she's in a shitty relationship, there's a difference

Be careful the GP doesn't jump to medication as a solution - counselling, CBT etc is more likely to help for situational depression, medication might allow her to cope with her situation better but is less likely to motivate her to change it.

Frieda - I am incredibly loud about school, believe me! Initially, I was fairly loud about my criticism of him too, but it got me nowhere and drove her away, which is probably why I missed some of the early indicators of his controlling behaviour. I am sure that I need to be here for her and to give her a safe place and someone to talk to, not shouting the odds about a man she seems to think is the be all and end all.

Can I ask if image and appearances are important to you too?
And if you would say she has been a little bit spoilt over the years?
And is her dad on the scene at all?

tbh, not sure if any of these questions are very relevant or not.

Bertie, you have incredible insight into this type of situation. I am sorry that that it comes from bad experiences of your own, but am incredibly grateful that that you are here to share it. Thank you.