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

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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?

I feel I must defend the OPs parents, they were in a very difficult situation with a DD who has serious issues that they probably were struggling to know how to deal with.

Also, grooming wasnt as well known or understood then as it is now, they probably thought that she would get this relationship out of her system and come home. Sadly for them and the OP, it didnt happen like that.

And OP I owe you an apology. I dont think that the first paragraph I wrote above was right. Yes you did make those decisions but the more I read the more I think that you were under the influence of a much older man who was manipulating you.

If you want to blame anyone I dont think it is your parents you should be blaming.

I know how stubborn 16 yr olds could be.
As a mom i'd kick and scream and follow her and knock on doors and show up at his place of work simply put I would go crazy. As would my husband and my parents (her grandparents). Lots and lots of crying :(
Even though I know that none of this may matter.

But if the 16 yr old had been exhausting me and worn me down if she refused to come home I might concede better to know where she is than her go missing.

I am not sure that physically picking up a 16 year old and carrying them kicking and screaming into a car is legal. I think people are massively naive about what options are available to control a 16 year old, especially one who has been in a psychiatric unit and may harm themselves, run away again, get more embedded in the relationship if you try to break them up.

I have known two families in this situation, both times attempted persuasion but it didn't work, the 16 year old just carried on, one married at 17 with her parents reluctant permission (otherwise she said she would cut them off and never speak to them again).

It is easy to imagine you can control your 16 year old, or even persuade them of things, but the truth is you can't, I don't think- making life uncomfortable for them or threatening their partner may simply entrench the relationship further and lead to them disappearing entirely. The parents I know in the end had to go along with it for fear of driving their child away completely- rational parental behaviour doesn't work on 'in love' 16 year olds who are convinced they are doing the right thing.

OP, I don't know what the answer is for you, but I am not sure your parents are 'to blame' so much as clueless and powerless in the face of you asserting your independence. The question is can you assert that independence now yourself again to consider what is right for you long-term.

I'm sorry for not responding for a bit - I tried to go to sleep but it's not happening tonight. I'm going to come back tomorrow and read everyone's posts when I'm properly awake.

And yes, headstrong does tend to mean that "I will do this purely BECAUSE you've said I can't" in extreme cases.

An e.g. - my sister met someone when she was 17 and wanted to get engaged within a few weeks. He wasn't what you might call a "good catch" (although I'll give my parents the credit that it wouldn't have mattered if he was!) but she was adamant he was The One. Parents said - give it 6m, if you still feel the same way then they'd approve the engagement. Sister was furious. Determined that she was right, they were wrong. 6m came - they got officially engaged. (She had to buy her own ring, mind). And so she was stuck. Because there was NO WAY she was backing down from this - she'd been so determined, fought so hard, not a chance in hell she was going to turn round and say "Ah, actually, yes you were right, he is a hopeless layabout and I really should have listened to you".

Luckily for her, he cheated on her with someone else so she had a legit excuse to break the engagement - she confided in me that, although it hurt to be betrayed, she was SO RELIEVED to be out of the engagement that she didn't mind that much!

Shocked me that she was prepared to continue down that path to her own detriment, just to prove that she had been "right" and my parents "wrong".

kateinkorea, I think a lot of the time, the parents do not deserve it. You are dealing with a head-strong, vulnerable, often emotional, immature bagful of rage.

When my dd ran away (to friends` houses, but still counted as running away, as she was 14), even though the police would always bring her back, she would go out & do it again. Then she started skipping school ( for which they wanted to fine me), then the drinking, then the drugs, which resulted in underlying MH issues, exacerbating.

She had SS, school welfare, CAMHs, Drug Counsellor; you name it, the help and support was there. But most of all, she had me and it was not an option to give up on her. Ever.

A few years on, she is stable, works, has a lovely partner and most of all is happy. She is always apologising for how she behaved ( it went on for years). And talks to teenagers in schools about the dangers of drugs.

She has other siblings, who have left school, and have not so much as smoked & think alcohol/drugs are for losers.

I know people judged me (not the agencies, but friends) but I also knew that, one day, it would right itself, as I believed I had brought her up the right way. And it has. Sometimes, there are so many other issues at play, rather than inadequate parenting.

Right. Sleep is not happening tonight.

I wasn't going to get into relationship stuff about my partner (it's more a need to find a way of incorporating my parents into my understanding of what happened, as recently I've begun to feel so angry at myself for all the wrong choices I've made and am trying to see the whole situation - I want to understand their position more and how it might have been different, but without blaming them. I love them and i don't want to think that anything they did was wrong, but at the same time I'm thinking I could have had a kid nearly that age by now, and I can't imagine how I would cope or what I would do. I know everything they've ever done they've done because it was the best thing for me, and I'm trying to explain to myself what happened and why they took the actions they did. Also to forgive myself for my shitty decision-making and try to find a way to deal with the current consequences of it).

Bogey - I don't think he was lying to me when he told me he thought the event was on. Our relationship - it's hard to tell, really. A lot of it is all mixed up with the fact that he's my carer. Until I moved down to lower rate care for DLA, from middle rate (mobility stayed the same, lower rate), he got Carer's Allowance for me, and I still need help with quite a lot of everyday living things, e.g. he cooks as I tend to get confused and burn things, he drives me places as I struggle to use public transport (I think that's partly an ASD thing) and don't drive due to anxiety, he deals with all my money, etc. We do make decisions together, though. I think the only way the relationship has really changed recently is that I'm starting to feel confined by it - but I don't know how I'd cope alone. DLA money only gets you so far; money can't buy me day-to-day support with the things I find difficult. So that makes it more awkward.

I got to know him in an online depression forum. I didn't really have friends in real life - I'd had to leave my school due to a long hospital admission and didn't know anyone, and was glad to find people online who wanted to talk to me. I don't really remember a lot of it. I was on some quite heavy medications at the time and quite stressed. I think I liked having someone who was interested in what I had to say, thought I was attractive, liked me - something I hadn't really had before from people (other than my family). He was really nice to me.

Thumb - He was more or less my first sexual partner (I had a bad experience before that that I don't really want to go into). Being alone… I don't really know what that feels like.

Canyou - that piece of paper idea is really good. I've a feeling it might be upsetting but that's maybe not really a bad thing. BTW we're not married (though we did get engaged very early on and have never really called it off).

Sandy - I wouldn't call myself rebellious. When I say headstrong, I guess what I mean is not that I wouldn't do what I was told. It's more that I would have been embarrassed to admit that I was wrong to have moved in with him. I wouldn't admit my mistakes. I think maybe headstrong was the wrong word to have used; people are maybe imagining a teen who stays out all night, doesn't do their homework, argues about everything. My headstrongness (headstrength?) was more along the lines of believing I had to do my homework even when the doctors told me not to, trying to kill myself, thinking that once I'd chosen a course of action (like this one) it would be shameful to say I didn't want to do it any more, that kind of thing. I was never really rebellious as such. I did get in trouble at school when I was younger (until I was 10ish, maybe) for being violent; I couldn't cope and had a hairtrigger temper when provoked, and used to hit the other children. I hate myself for that now. Certainly I had trouble with asking for help and feeling I should be able to cope with things by myself.

Kate - I'm not sure we're using the same definition of headstrong, though I recognise some of it. I did used to find it far harder to admit to others that I was wrong than I do now (still tricky, but I try ). I was more - desperate for some way to make life better and thought I'd found a way, so I did it. If they'd told me I had to come back I think I probably would (though I don't really know), at least, early on, as that would've taken the choice out of my hands IYSWIM? My headstrongness was the dread at having to call and say "I was wrong, I want you to come and get me". It's hard to think about that time in my life and remember the truthof what I felt and how I acted without warping it one way or another or blaming myself (or anyone else). I think the "facing crappy choices" bit is definitely a part of it. I don't want to blame my parents - I want to understand what happened and maybe try and forgive the 16-year-old me a bit for fucking up a decade and a half of my life, by working out what really happened and why my mum and made the choices they did (because I genuinely believe they did the very best they could, but it seems to clash so much with a lot of what I hear here and elsewhere- I want to know what kind of things go through parents minds and the kind of things they're dealing with. I don't have children of my own and haven't been in this situation as a parent myself, so there must've been aspects to it I can't imagine). That's tricky without talking to them, but I hate to drag up that time as it was a very dark time for all of us.

Thumb - my parents never told me I shouldn't be with him. The fear of the embarrassment of having to call and say "I made a bad decision" - yes. And at first it did seem easier without the social stress of college and the feeling that I'd let everybody down by failing so badly at school and making them all worry so much through my mental illness.

Phew. That's a lot more than I really wanted to say about my relationship with my partner... I didn't even NC from my usual general posting name…

I did run away from hospital a few times - it was horrible!

That was really, really, really long.

I want to forgive my teenage self, while accepting that she made shitty choices (and that I kept doing and still do), and that I need to find a way of fixing the shitty choices I've continued to make. My family talked about how I seemed better mentally after I'd been away a while, that he was good for me, but ten or so years on, I don't think I'm benefitting mentally any more. He tells me he doesn't know what he'd do if I ever left him and that he wouldn't be able to cope, so i feel guilty even thinking about it. I can't get my head round the idea that my parents undoubtedly did their best but that I hear people say that what they did was the wrong thing to do. I want to sort out in my head what happened and why. Part of me thinks "if only I'd done this or they'd done that". That doesn't really get me anywhere WRT my current situation, but I feel it might help me if I could understand what happened better, and especially from their point of view. Is that what parents would normally do in that situation? Judging by this thread, some people are saying that they would do things differently but lots of you are backing up my parents in saying that they had little choice, which makes me feel better. I don't want to believe they did the wrong thing. But in the other hand I can only wonder how things would have been different and if they could have been better. Even though wondering didn't help much.

Thank you all for your perspectives - it really helps. I'll almost certainly be coming back and reading them again when I'm struggling with this question again.

I can't get my head round the idea that my parents undoubtedly did their best but that I hear people say that what they did was the wrong thing to do.

I don't want to believe they did the wrong thing.

I am in the same situation. My parents made the best decisions that they could with the tools that they had. It turns out that the choices that they made are truly terrible in the eyes of some people, including me, sometimes. It is possible to get one's head around it, but it is taking me a long time and a lot of therapy and tears. All I can do is hope to God that when I am faced with the choices my parents faced, I have more tools available to me than they did and that I can make different choices to the ones they made, for the sake of my future daughters who can then find something different about me to bitch about when they are adults themselves.

I have had conversations with my parents about this, which is massively painful for all concerned, and am working to find a sort of peace with where things are. It got to the point where I had to do something, because all of my anxiety started to harm my relationship with my husband as well as my relationship with myself.

Whatever you decide to do, be gentle on yourself, and also on your sixteen year old self who was just doing the best that she could at the time.

I think this is a very complex situation and you are probably very vulnerable. Therefore I don't think I'm expert enough to advise you. It does sound as though you were very unwell when you left home.

My dd is 18. She became unwell at 16. Not terribly unwell but she destabilised and there was an underlying physical condition that took a while to diagnose. She is well now. It was the hardest year of my entire life to see my daughter in mental anguish, to bang my head against a brick wall to get her the MH interventions she needed, for the illness to be diagnosed and confirmed. I thought at some points that I was very close to the edge too. All of that happened in a loving family with good support networks and the capacity to ensure she received optimum care.

I think it's pointless to blame your parents, yourself or your partner. It was a difficult and complex time for all of you. You can't change the past and there's no point looking back - you can learn lessons from the past and you can use them to change the future.

I hope you resolve your uncertainties and work this out.

My sister left home at 16 to begin a relationship with a 33yr old man. My parents did try to stop her which resulted in the permanent destroying of their relationship. She left a great school, the works really. They felt she was throwing her future away.

After 10 yrs she called time on the relationship, he was devastated and didn't have the kids he really wanted - think that may have been the trigger for her.

Twenty five years later she is hugely successful in her career and financially independent and is still single!. She didn't need that degree to get a career, she still managed it. The downside for her was the loss of her parental relationships and a huge fracture in the family.

I think you do what you want to do as an individual, things always get figured out. If it was my daughter I would be very upset but I wouldn't try and dictate her life choices, just ensure she has information, a good understanding of human nature as far as possible and is protected from pregnancy at such a young age.

I just saw your thread and wanted to reply, I think I was like you at 16 I made some really terrible choices until I was 31 (about your age now ?) when I went back to education - no shit Sherlock ! I was very mentally unstable ricochet from one terrible relationship to the next, eating disorders, modelled for a time got involved with Max Clifford, it was not my finest hour. My parents couldn't have stopped me I was wild, headstrong, determined and very very lost. Having said that if my son behaved as I did I would knock him into one week and back again - not on my watch but through what I've been through I think I have more emotional intelligence than they did - not their fault. So what it sounds like to me is that you've learnt a lot and now you're coming to terms with the choices you've made and some regret is natural - be easy on yourself you are where you are today because of what you did then regret doesn't help and forgiveness towards yourself will pm me if you want to chat X

Perhaps your parents should have tried harder but if you were unhappy at home I can see they might go with your choices. Parents are to blame for a lot of DCs bad decisions but they usually mean well and can only work within their own knowledge and life experiences.
I feel you should be applying yourself to plans for the future rather than the past.

If she were mine, I would be going straight to get her, dh and I both would, we would be telling the 37yo what we thought of him (he's old enough to be her father, ugh) and if she wouldn't come with us we would be asking the police to intervene on the basis that she is a minor until 18. Once I had her home there would be lots of support and loving care, listening to her and finding out why she did what she did and what I needed to do to help her feel cared for enough to make better decisions.

I have two sons and a daughter, none of them of this age yet, but if this happened to any of them I would do exactly the same.

I consciously responded without RTFT, so you got my first reaction. Now I've read it and see you are still with him.

I think you could do with some decent therapy/counselling to unpick all this and decide where to go next.

Should be parents can be to blame

I have a 16 year old. You can try to persuade them, but you can't control them as such. And trying to persuade too heavily can lead to them doing the opposite anyway.

I'd take the focus off your parents; I'm not sure they could have changed anything and had they managed to do so you may well be sitting here now bemoaning they caused you to lose the love of your life. It's done and you can't go back - time to focus on you.

Your life sounds as though you haven't moved on much from the dependent 16 year old you were and that's what I'd be changing. Leave your relationship with your DH be for now - that may feel fine once you are more fulfilled in yourself. If it doesn't, tackle that as a separate issue.

College is good, improving your job prospects is good. Start there. Once you have the education and job you want, look at independence, driving, travelling. With a better job and more money you can think do you want a nicer house, to see the world, to do things in the evenings.

I know a couple - the lady is my age (late 40s) and her DH is mid 60s. She did very similar to you. They have no children and an enviable lifestyle - lots of hobbies, gorgeous house, great holidays and adore each other. But both of them have worked hard and she also reconciled the children issue. She has gained many things by being with him in terms of stability, undoubtedly, but probably lost too (they have an "older" lifestyle than most of my peers). But any lifestyle does that, you gain some, you lose some.

Small steps - don't rush into anything you will regret. But change and broaden your life bit by bit and see where it leads you. If you think you may be depressed (and I wonder from your posts) then see the GP and try to tackle that too. The happier you are in yourself, the more impetus you'll have to change things.

This is one of those situations where, unless you can talk to your parents you will never know.

Their response could be 'to be honest we were glad to see the back of you'

Or 'we got some advice, found out legal we couldn't do anything and was advised to accept it. Turning up on the doorstep and dragging you home would probably push you further from us and risk your mental health. Accepting your decision was more likely to keep you in touch with us.'

All these people saying 'I would get the national guard and sit on the door step' , don't realise that in reality, that's not going to achieve anything other than a teenager digging their heels in.

You feel it was a mistake. Forgive yourself. I recognise some of your feelings. I am mid thirties, married at 20 and with dh since I was 18. He was 25. He is great. I am glad I married him. But, in my late twenties we struggled because I changed quite a lot. Wanted to peruse different things. New hobbies, more education wanted to socialise more. I was finding out who I was as an adult. Which isn't easy in a relationship.

Luckily DH was supportive and although he isn't keen on some of the stuff I do, he supports me doing them. He isn't sociable, but gets that I am slightly more sociable and gets that people come round and is friendly and sociable when thy do. He could happily never have anyone round.

I also made some crappy decisions around the age of 16. I accept I made them, I forgive myself. And it's something I teach my kids. We aren't perfect, we fuck up, but we can always come back from it.

Aha. You've dropped a bit of a bomb into the middle of this now, with mentioning the ASD and disability. I'm going to guess that you have Asperger's syndrome (I know, all under ASD now).

You've also mentioned hating the violence you perpetrated before you were 10. My niece has Asperger's, and one of the biggest aspects of it, and the reasons it was diagnosed for her, is the frustration, the rage, the anxiety, the stress and the anger she suffers. She has hit out at her sisters, I don't know about schoold friends, but possibly. It's hard to say whether the emotions come about as a result of the effects of Asperger's, or whether they're part of the biochemistry of Asperger's itself (if you can see the difference I'm trying to point out) - but it's not uncommon.

So first off, forgive yourself for having ASD - and forgive your violence, which almost certainly stems from you having ASD. Depression is also quite common in older children and teens with ASD so it's possibly linked too.

Your drive to succeed, your unwillingness to expose yourself to embarrassment and feelings of "being wrong" could also be linked, although just as easily not, to be fair.

I'm assuming you have a clinical diagnosis, rather than self-diagnosis? In which case, it might be a good plan to find someone who understands the condition, or join a FB group or similar with people who also have the condition, to get some better support.

And moving back from that, is there any chance that either or both of your parents also have ASD? As that would also affect their reactions, depending on severity etc.

Gosh, this just got a whole lot more complicated!

Oh and also, in regards to your parents, even if they thought they were doing what was best with hindsight they may feel they made the wrong decision.

But that's the benefit of hindsight.

I am laughing at all the parents here with there "I'd forcibly remove you" bullshit.
I understand their emotions, but it's just words.

At 16, I got a flat 150 miles away with my 23 year old boyfriend. Not such an age gap, but still the "16yo leaves home" scenario.

Did they try to stop me? Yes - I was under house arrest for the first week. I remember getting to our house phone at 02:00 and scaring his landlady on the third night when I rang my boyfriend to tell him why I'd disappeared, and to sit tight.

Then I was escorted to a GCSE exam, outside which my father was going to wait to escort me home. Except I gave him a lot of very controlled and very sarcastic questions about which one of the 6 exits from the exam hall was he planning to guard? Which ended in a massive row and him stopping the car on the way to school and telling me to just get out. Tensions ran high.

Before telling my parents, my boyfriend and I researched the legal position as best we could - how at 16 there was basically fuck all they could do.

And after the house arrest experience? When I started college in my new town, there was a note in my file that no personal detail (including admitting I was a student there) should be given to callers. All my friends were given my boyfriend's parents address to write to me 'care of'.

My best friend didn't know what town I lived in. My parents thought I was in my boyfriend's old town 30 miles from where we really were.

As a direct result of the house arrest and losing their shit, I didn't see my parents for 10 years. During the rows before I left, my then 13yo sister was more sensible than them, I still remember her interrupting my mother shouting at me and calling my boyfriend scum, that it wouldn't last, to say "but surely it's better to leave on good terms if she's going anyway?"

OK, with a 37yo as a parent I'd be far more concerned than a 23yo. But there is every chance they thought a couple of months of playing grown up and you'd miss your home, and come home.

I think that the soul searching and counselling is worthwhile but...

I also think you should focus on your relationship as it is.

If you had posted without your ages and backstory, people would be saying "it sounds like it's just run its course love - it's OK to go. You don't have to stay out of guilt"

Forget the 16/37 dynamic for now, explore the 30/52 one. Is he controlling? Is this a good relationship for you? On the details so far I think not.

You don't need to know your parents' motivations 15 years ago, or forgive your own mistakes (just choices, really) to get on with a decision about leaving him now.

FWIW, I stayed with my boyfriend for 7 years. A decade and a half after leaving him (guess what? Like you, I grew up and I grew differently!) I barely remember him.

My parents would have done the same as yours, OP. In fact they did very similar stuff. They claimed that you can't stop your teens from doing what they want to do.

However, I wouldn't make the same choices with my own DD.

Canyouforgiveher your last sentence made me feel like crying. I wish that my parents were like that... Although I would've hated it at the time.

OP I hope that you manage to come to peace with your decisions, and also that you find happiness without looking back too much.

Cabhinra your poor parents have you apologised since.
Nowadays and then tbh if you are classed as vulnerable SS can remove you and place you in care at 16.