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?

You sound vulnerable still you canleave him you know itsok to do that you dont have to be dependent on him because you feel you have to I just wanted to put that in your thread . As for your parents I suspect they couldnt stop you but i bet they wanted too.

I'm not sure what they could have done. Legally they couldn't have forced you home, social services wouldn't have made you go home. If they had tried to physically force you home and locked you in you would probably hate them. Basically parenting teenagers is a thankless task and all they could do was make sure you had a home to go back to. I do think they should have probably tried to convince you but you say you were headstrong so maybe they were playing the long game?

I suppose the other alternative if you had MH problems would be to try and get you sectioned but I think that would be a bit drastic unless it was really necessary.

Realistically though, could they actually have stopped you? When I was 17 I started a relationship with a 42 year old. It lasted until I was 21. My parents clearly weren't happy but they took the view (probably rightly) that they more they tried to stop me, the more I would dig my heels in, and they more likely they were to lose me altogether. As it was, it certainly put a lot of distance between me and my parents as I felt I couldn't really discuss a big chunk of my life with them. I think they expected it to blow over far more quickly than it did. Fortunately, unlike you, I did still go to university, never properly moved in with him, and obviously didn't stay with him. I don't know what they would have done if I'd "run off" with him, but I don't think they could have stopped me.

As the others have said, regardless of the rights and wrongs of the past, you need to start your life from now. It sounds like you are entering a very exciting time and have lots of chances, with or without him as you choose.

Andnowitsseven
My poor parents?!!!!
I didn't post my life story because it's not relevant to the OP. My point is, that at 16 there's not a lot a parent can do.
Yeah, they could have called SS. Who would have chatted to a grade A student enrolled already at college in her new town doing A levels and with a part time job lined up to support that. And done nothing.

Not quite sure why my "poor parents" deserve an apology when me calmly announcing my plans to move out age 16, during the summer, result in a beating (not the first) house arrest for a week and then my father nearly crashing the car trying to beat me again before pulling over an hour before my first GCSE and telling me to just get out, go if I was going.

I sent postcard olive branches for 3 years without hearing anything. After 10 years it was me who engineered a meeting. Hosted them in my home. Since then, they have stormed out and cut me off again twice and now I don't bother with them at all.

I have 3 siblings who are all very close to my parents, all 3 of whom I am also close to and all 3 are "we love them but we don't know why you are the black sheep and this is unfair".

So no, I fucking well will not be apologising to them!

I am generous of spirit - I never once asked them for an apology when I let them back into my life.

Including my wedding, at which my mother got drunk and complained to anyone who would listen that she didn't have a "role" as MOTB and no-one knew who she was. It was an informal wedding with no top table or speeches and she was given a front row seat in the ceremony room that had limited numbers.

So no - I have not apologised to my "poor parents"

Would you brothers and big scary friends be OK when the Police intervened? Because if they were being big and scary they would be the ones the Police were dealing with not the 16 year old and the older guy.

My sister moved in with her 38 year old boyfriend when she was 16. My parents were utterly distraught - they tried to physically stop her from leaving, resulting in her DP threatening my parents with a baseball bat and police involvement. They tried police, social services, her friends, his parents (who basically said well we want her to live here with us, we need her wages for the household and she cleans up for us, so bugger off) - all of whom said well she is 16 so not really anything we can do here. Her DP was unemployed, long criminal record, still lived with his parents, god knows what she saw in him.

In the end they had to settle for keeping in contact regularly by phone and my mum used to meet her once a fortnight for lunch in town. It broke my mum's heart but she just stopped shouting and trying to persuade my sister to come home, and just said well we are here for you if you need anything, any time, and if you need help don't ever think we'll say I told you so. One day a couple of years later, my sister met her for lunch and asked to come back home. She was being made redundant and instantly she was treated by everyone in his house as a goldigging drain on their finances (having handed over all of her wages for two years). They'd told her she had to move out if she hadn't got a new job when the old one finished. As it happened she did get a new job, but it showed her their true natures. Sadly my parents didn't really stick to their promise not to say I told you so and it gets mentioned at every opportunity nearly 20 years later, they are toxic in their own way sadly.

I think that you might want to think about co-dependence with your partner and whether the things you struggle with everyday, are things that you could put other structures in place to cope with, rather than relying on him. I'm not too clear on what your disabilities are, so maybe I am way off, but there may be work-arounds that you could use. It sounds like he guilts you to stay sometimes. Maybe the relationship between you is perfectly healthy, but it doesn't sound quite right from what little you have said.

I don't know what I would do if dd did what you did, in a surrounding fog of the mental health issues and everything. Maybe your parents were just exhausted. Maybe they failed you. You say you might have gone back if they had fought for you, but they weren't mindreaders and didn't know. Or maybe they were out of resources and let you go.

I don't think dwelling on the past is useful - what matters now, is what you want for yourself and what the relationships you have with them and your dp are like now.

I'm with 8fencingwire.

If a 37-year-old was interested in my 16-year-old he'd get flattened.

There is lots of ways you can get help if you ever felt you needed to leave independent living organisations could help you with day to day tasks and managing your money without it being intrusive it is something to think about if you ever wanted to leave.

My daughter had mental health issues at 15: anxiety, self harming, depression. I was so worried sick about her, I wonder if maybe I would have let her go not to rock the boat and make things worse. When your kid is ill like that you do anything just to keep them on an even keel. Who would drag their child home if they are going to slash their wrists?

I haven't been in your parents position so I wouldn't judge. But if they were otherwise good loving parents, I would imagine they made the choices they did out of love.

Your partner though, what the fuck was he thinking of? Groomed a vulnerable 16 year old, took her away from her parents, denied her the chance of a normal youth. And even now he is controlling you.

You are waking up to this now, maybe because you are older, maybe because your health is better. You are looking around and thinking, "This isn't right, I never wanted this". I think you are blaming the wrong people though.

You are sad to have wasted 15 years of your life. Well don't waste any more. Make a plan, get out. He entangled you when you were 16 by telling you he loved you, if he really loved you he wouldn't have groomed you. Don't let him use the same lines to guilt you into staying now.

I don't think you really love him or you wouldn't be questioning this; you would be glad your parents let you go. I think you are with him out of guilt and fear of being alone. He is never going to let you broaden your horizons or go to Uni or learn to drive because then he might lose you. Don't let him trap you any longer.

Like you say, you could have a nearly 16 year old now and that's a scary thought. Your parents sound like they generally were ok (not toxic horrors like pp's) so I suspect they were muddling through a situation that was alien and scary to them too. When we're young we think parents know what they're doing but getting older teaches us that grownups are winging it too. Becoming a parent reinforces that. Let's face it, if we knew what we were doing, MN would be a quieter place :)
In short, yes maybe they did make the wrong choice. But probably not because of not loving you. Maybe they had experience of their parents being suffocating and decided playing it cool was best? Maybe they didn't know what to do and panicked.
Could you ask them how they felt when you called? If you let them talk you may hear a very different story.

I think the OP is really wondering why her parents didn't even try to get her back home. Whether she would have gone is another issue - but the not trying seems irresponsible to me.

If a 37-year-old was interested in my 16-year-old he'd get flattened.

yes amazing response. Because who did the 'flattening' would end up with a criminal record. The teenage Dd would likely become more convinced the boyfriend is the one for her and the family are evil.

Plus which it wouldn't be good for her mental health.

I would want to flatten him. But I wouldn't put myself in the situation where I end up losing my Dd either.

Cabrinha that's a classic drip feed, your first post described an obnoxious manipulative teen as a father anxious his dd would take her GSCE exams.
In your situation as you weren't vulnerable then SS would not have been interested in the op's case they would.

• and a father

That's a bit of a reach isn't it AndNow, "obnoxious manipulative teen"?

The first post by Cabrinha contained enough clues that her story wasn't just poor parents vs obnoxious teen and on reading the follow up I wasn't surprised by additional details.

Come on AndNowItsSeven you decided to have a pop and now your nose is out of joint for not stopping to think.

No not at all nauticant that's how it read.

A 16 year old isn't a fully developed adult and still really needs parental guidance. I can't imagine that happening to my daughter and especially so if she had mental health issues.

That your parents thought this was a good thing for you, is more a reflection of their lack of knowledge and awareness.

Regardless of grooming being a modern issue, a 16 year old who can't vote or buy alcohol living with a 37 year old (that I don't believe her parents even knew as a person across the country) isn't right.

Just because something isn't illegal doesn't make it right.

Parents make bad decisions every day. I don't know what your parents were like before this happened, or what other issues were going on in their lives, but them doing absolutely nothing to try and get you to return home astounds me.

Did your parents know about him before you moved in with him? His age? Because I wouldn't allow my 16 year old to travel across the country on her own in the first place, much less with a 37 year old.

Ah. I've dripfed, haven't I? Sorry I didn't think the ASD thing was relevant, Thumb, except in things like driving, so in relation to the disability and carer aspect of things. Yes, diagnosed - might have been diagnosed as Asperger's in the past, but my file says ASD, equating to ICD Childhood Autism (rather than ICD Asperger's). Don't think it makes a difference, as an adult.

I don't have enough time right now to properly read through everyone's responses - thanks everyone. I'll come back this evening and properly read through/respond.

Is pines like both of you are at pivotal points here. You see dd repeating what you now feel has been a mistake. You are at a point in your life where you could either stay or leave and whatever you do your life will be different. Perhaps a lot better?

As for your partner, well he doesn't come out of it well. There's a lot of "he does X but only because I'm useless at it" stuff yet your posts are quite eloquent. Are you rubbish at cooking? Really? Or is he just telling you that? Do you think he's set himself up as this carer role so you don't leave.

So as to what you can do... Well you can sit down with dd and tell her your experiences and regrets. You can tell her you can't physically stop her but you can beg her not to go and tell her why. You can keep in contact and let her know that one call is all it takes.
And you ... Well, perhaps try doing those things he says you're not good at. Maybe you're just averagely ok at them after practice, like most of them are. Maybe think about leaving.

Just before I go off to my counselling appointment I should just clarify I don't have any children.

It seems like you are still that 16yr old and he's behaving like your father.

It doesn't sound like you don't have any joy in your life and only you can change that.