Would you let your 16 year old DD drop out of college to live with a 37 year old?

[AYD2MITalkTalk]

She has mental health problems and has recently had a stay in a psychiatric hospital, her second admission. She's been meeting up with guys she's met online and it's one of those she's moved out to be with.

Okay, DD was me, a decade and a half ago. Would you have done the same? I know they probably couldn't have stopped me if I'd forced the matter, but should they have tried to keep me at home and in college?

How long ago did this happen? Are we taking months, years, decades?

I agree to an extent that it has become less acceptable for teenage girls to be with older men but when I was at school it seemed half the girls had boyfriends in their twenties/ thirties. Can't imagine it now but that was only 15 years ago.

Most importantly, what about the present? Are you happy now? Do you have any relationship with your parents?

It was about a decade and a half ago. Nobody else I knew at the time had older boyfriends. I have a really good relationship with my parents, which is why u don't want to feel resentful towards them... it just niggles me.

The relationship is mostly okay - some things about it that really, really bother me, but I don't so much want to get into that IYSWIM.

Unfortunately it's too late for you or your parents to go back in time and change the situation as it happened then.

However, if you're unhappy in the relationship it's not too late for you to change the situation now. If you're only 26/ 27 then it's definitely not too late for you to change the path your life is going in now or find a new partner who you'll feel happier with.

I'm a little bit older than that - I think what's triggering this is that I've gone back into education recently and feel like my life is changing and going somewhere new, whereas he's in his fifties, doesn't work, and seems to live a smaller and smaller life as time goes on. I love him but I don't love the life I have with him. So I don't want to leave, because I love him. But - ahhh, it's hard to work out in my head. I feel I could've gone a different path but now I'm stuck on this one because I love him.

When I was 19 I did something similar, I am not sure I was that much more worldly wise than I was at 16. I had finished school though and was doing my degree. I almost quit that but I decided against it at the last minute.

I was running away from a horrible home life, my parents at that time were back together, mother was drinking and being emotionally manipulative so actually living with the older guy and not my parents was probably what helped me in the end.

It fizzled out between us when I was about 24 ish. Basically I changed, I had grown up and matured and I think in some ways he was the one that suffered more. He got a lot of grief of lots of people for out relationship, and when it ended he was very cut up about it.

I think the type of person you end up with is the key here not necessarily the age. Its whether or not the older partner is controlling/abusive or you know just normal supportive partner.

I do credit my first love for helping me through a difficult time in my life and teaching me a lot about myself and also how to be a responsible adult and how to make sense of everything that was going on with my folks without losing the plot.

If my child ran off to be with a person old enough to be their parent I would be taking a hard look at why they felt the need to do that. I think it says more about the parents than the partner. I would like to hope I gave my children enough confidence in themselves to steer cleAr of emotional abusers and always made them feel welcome in my home. I don't think you can force anyone over the age of consent to stop being with a sexual partner of their choice so I would be wary of making a big deal over it, so as not to push my child even closer to an emotional bully. But that goes for any emotional abuser not just ones a lot older.

I was immature but thought I was mature, if you know what I mean? Helped him sort out his debts, but slept with a big cuddly toy, kind of thing.

The worst thing about what I did, when I think about how my parents would've felt, is that there was nothing wrong with my homelife, really - they were loving, caring parents and I was a mentally ill brat. I can't think how they could've changed my homelife for the better - any problems at home were because of me and my own behaviour.

And yet I sit here and wish they'd tried to persuade me to come home.

I'm sorry - I'm probably not making a lot of sense and somebody's going to wonder what exactly I was looking to get out of this thread. I think I just want to know whether what happened was normal. And I don't know why I want to know.

Sounds like you have finally grown up and realised you want a better life for yourself and that is fine.
Do you have children with him?

No children, and almost certainly none coming, for various reasons, not least his age and health. Can I have a better life, but without leaving him? I don't know. I love him but I can't make him young or healthy or sociable or employed. I know we can't always have every quality we want in our partners, though. I'm very dependent on him - he owns the house we live in, has most of the income, he drives me everywhere I need to go etc.

I need either to suck it up, or to do something about it, I guess is just the wishing things had been different getting to me, I think.

I think your parents would have realised that they probably couldn't have got you home without you kicking up a massive stink, or possibly further endangering your mental health. I suspect they would have thought that you would leave of your own accord when you realised you'd made a mistake - sadly for them (and, it seems, for you) that didn't happen.

I know someone here who had a DD who did much the same thing - actually married the bloke when she was 17, and he was 47, so even bigger age gap - her mother couldn't stop it. Couldn't talk her DD out of it, even though she tried, so she had to make the best of it or lose her DD entirely. In that case though, the DD did realise it was a mistake and left her much-older H after a couple of years.

I'm sad for you that you're now "reclaiming" your life as it perhaps should have been, and realising that you might not have made the best choices - but in all fairness, I think your parents probably did the only thing they could under the circumstances.

Have you talked to them about it? Are they still around for you to do so? I think you should talk to them, and also, if you're not already doing so, see a counsellor about this (and possibly the rest).

My instinct would be to get my daughter help and keep her away from the 37 year old. I would be highly suspicious of any 37 year old who wanted to be with a 16 year old, particularly a 16 year old with mental health problems. Maybe he is madly in love with her but I would think it's more likely that he thinks she would be easier to manipulate than an older woman.

Having said that, I have been blessed so far with very nice, biddable teenagers and have no experience of dealing with a very defiant, headstrong one and I honestly don't know what I would do in that situation. I would certainly tell her that she could always run home, in a year, two years, ten years, should she feel the need

I think there are two issues here.

Firstly you are finally coming to terms with the consequences of you leaving home so young. The loss of your education, the loss of years within your loving family, the loss of having children and you want to blame somebody. If your parents had fought to get you back home then perhaps your life wouldnt be like this.......except that it may well be. Would you have gone back? As you say, you thought you were mature so would you have gone home or would you have told them that they cant tell you what to do as you [are] 16 now and stayed anyway? The way you describe yourself then, I have to say I think that it would be the latter. You need to accept that ultimately your life is where it is because of decisions you made and not try to pin on your parents. Sorry to be harsh but there it is.

Secondly there is the fact that you are finding a life outside your DP (husband?) and realising that you havent really grown much in the intervening years. You went from living with your parents to living with a man who is in their generation. You are in your prime, he is looking to retirement (has he taken early retirement or is he jobless for another reason?). You are poles apart in terms of what you want from life and that is becoming more apparent the more you further yourself in education. You say that you love him, do you desire him sexually? Do you enjoy romantic times with him? Or is the love you feel more platonic?

Op are you the 16 year old?

All that said........it sounds like he groomed you. The event that wasnt on that year, did he tell you that it was?

I haven't talked to my parents about it, and don't think I can, really. I think you're right that they were probably worried about my mental health. I'm on good treatment for it now, which really helps!

I see a counsellor, but we haven't really touched on this.

The thread is moving very fast and I'm having trouble keeping up - apologies.

I was the 16yo a decade and a half ago, nuffink.

Bogey, it doesn't sound harsh at all - I do feel like it was my decision and my responsibility. Just - I'm thinking more, now our lives are diverging you said, that it might have been better for me not to have moved away, and that I made a very bad decision. As part of regretting that, there's been a niggling "what if" - one that I'm not sure how to forgive myself for, and I worry that I'm going to start to resent what my parents did (even though I know logically that there's no guarantee any other course of action on their part would've been better, and that they were doing what they thought was the best thing at the time).

Bogey, he said he thought it was on that year.

What was your relationship like with him until recently, when you started to find yourself? Did you feel like it was an equal relationship? Did you feel that you had an equal say in decisions? Do you think it likely (or not) that he could have lied to you about the event being on?

Sorry to bug you but....could you tell us more about how you got to know him? What he said about himself, how you got close to him etc.

AYD2MITalkTalk You could talk to your counsellor about this. If you find it difficult to bring up, you could print this thread and take it with you. I think you express your feelings clearly here - you want to know whether what happened was normal, and you don't know why you want to know. A good counsellor could help you with both of these things.

I think it may be time to touch on this with your counsellor. Sadly, I think it is going to be about taking responsibility for your actions, even though you were still only a child at the time, technically (and legally of course). And forgiving your 16 year old self for making those decisions.

You do need to talk to your parents when you're in a better place about it. You need to ask them what their thought process was, I think - then you can decide whether or not they should shoulder any responsibility for your life as it is now.

I agree with bogey though, that there is an element of grooming that probably happened here - he got you up there on false pretences and then got you to stay. And there you still are.

I know you say you love him, but do you really? Or is it just the familiarity of him, and the fear of being alone if you left him? Was he your first boyfriend/sexual partner as well?

I have a 16 year old daughter sitting inside doing her homework.

She has had mental health issues. We are a happy family, no trauma, no nothing, other sibs are fine, she just came out the way she did and then met some shit along the way in school.

If she went to live with a 37 year old I would call out the army, the national guard, the police and me. i would sit outside his house until I could see her. It would be months before I would admit defeat and leave her there with him.

OP there are 2 issues here:

1. why the hell did your parents essentially abandon a 16 year old to live with a nearly 40 year old man. God knows. I am older than you - way older - and when I was 16 if I had tried this, my parents would have moved heaven and earth to get me back home. So it really isn't a generational thing. I don't know why your parents were so lazy but they were. you can forgive them and get over it or ask them about it but essentially this was bad parenting in my book. did they even try?

1. what do you do now? you are a woman in her early thirties married to a man in his 50s who has nothing to offer you. You can't have had any other relationships with mature men. I think you are unhappy - which is why you are posting this. it isn't about your parents-although frankly they were shit- it is about what do you want now.

take a piece of paper and down the side of it write every year of your life up to the age of 50.

Then draw a line down the middle of the paper.

On one side write all the things you will be doing if you stay with this man, year after year, after year.

On the other side write all the things you might do on your own without him - for every year. Presume the best. lots of people only get started in their 30s. Lots of people only work in supermarkets and go to the pub once a week and have fab lives.

You can do more of course but even if that is your life-I work in a supermarket it could be " I have a laugh with my workmates, I have a lovely experience with a woman at the check out, I go home and my partner and I have a chat about what happened today and then we go out to soccer training together, then we come home and talk about maybe having a baby some day"

you don't need much to make it better than you have.

I think your parents let you down badly. At 16 I expect my children might make bad decisions - that is why I am there as their parent to help them.

As the mother of a 16 year old . ... no fu*ing way would I let this happen. I'd be down there to get her home and be questioning this 37 year old man about why he is taking a girl less than half his age into his home.

My entire family would be down there picking her up and I suspect the 37 year old man would very quickly realise it's not worth the hassle having everyone on his back.

My brothers and husband would physically put her in the car.

I say all the above , but I don't know what other stuff you did or how rebellious you were and what trouble you have your parents.

You say you love him - but for the life of me I can't agree that a decent 37 year old man would take up with a 16 year old.