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?

Well a little bit of a dripfeed, yes, but I do think it has more relevance to how things panned out than you might have previously considered. Does your counsellor know about your ASD? I realise that it might make no difference to your current situation in any practical way, but I think it might help in some way to understand why some things went the way they did back then, and possibly since.

But if you prefer not to go that route, then of course that's entirely your choice. I'm in no way pushing you to divulge more than you want to

Unfortunately every parent is different. I know my parents did things I find odd. Like made me rent a room in a house with the creepiest man ever, he became obsessed with me and i'm sure he had a secret camera in the room i stayed in. Yet my mum didn't worry at all and just shipped me off to live there, until i eventually told her how creepy he was and after about 6 months they helped me leave.

I do get there isn't much legally they could do at 16, and also they probably didn't want to make things worse. However, if it was my children, especially a daughter, I would be over there trying to bring her back home as quickly as I could, even if she wasn't in a mentally stable place. In fact I would worry more that she would be with a stranger and not mentally stable.

There's still time to change your life if you aren't happy though xx

Oh heck sorry - baby brain ...

What's done is done. You can't change the past but you can learn from it

What would you tell your 16 year old self if you could meet her?

I think you're at a crossroads here. You're putting feelers out to see if there's a better life out there. There probably is. Maybe think about the things he does for you that keep you feeling infantilised. Is that really a loving action?

I was two years older (18) when I met my DP who was 25 at the time. It caused my parents no amount of stress and worry, especially as I dropped out of uni too. Nothing to do with him, I just hated my degree course. My parents tried everything to keep us apart, even my mom screaming at me that I'd better not cross her door pregnant and unmarried (thanks mom!).

In the end I went LC and made a life for myself and DP, and I didn't really have much to do with them for five years. Looking back, my parents must have been freaking out at the age gap, but my DP is a very respectful and hardworking man.

Fast forward 18 years and my parents love him like their own son.

However, as you state your daughter has extra needs my advice would be not to ban her from seeing this person as she would rebel. Tell her if she insists on seeing this person, she must stay under your roof for say six months. Hopefully it will fizzle out. Does she have a social worker who can help? She sounds very vulnerable and you sound like you also need support. Hope that helps.

The 16yo in the opening post is the OP herself. She's talking about herself, 15 years ago.

Hard to see how they could have stopped you, really.

OP, I have a teenage son, who has also had mental health problems, including hurting himself. I love him dearly, I worry about him and have spent a great deal of time agonising over whether his illness is my fault.

He left home at 17, not to do anything so controversial as moving in with someone much older, but I have watched and watched as things have gone wrong for him, often as a result of the decisions he has taken.

I honestly feel paralysed a lot of the time. I don't know what to do for the best and I know that if I try to prevent things from going wrong, not only will he resent me and push me away, he will also likely be driven to more extreme behaviour.

If you genuinely feel, as you say you do, that you had a good home life, then it seems to me that there is every possibility that they just did not know what to do for the best. Sometimes I desperately wish I could just bring my son home and make everything right for him, but it wasn't right when he was here, so insisting he comes home doesn't feel a good option. All I am doing for the moment is trying to ensure he knows he has a safety net if everything really falls apart and hoping that the relationship never breaks down so far that he feels he wants to cut me off forever.

For what it's worth, your DP wasn't some fly-by-night older man who was only interested in grabbing a teenager. You have had a long-term relationship with him, which now, perhaps you are growing out of, but it sounds like it hasn't been all negative.

Best of luck with the future, whatever you decide.

I thought maybe I would, then realised I'd never let my 16 year old son do it (ASD), and nor would I if I had a DD.

I also have ASD. I left home as a teen and it really brought my MH problems that I now know areasd to the fore. I ended up returning home and losing what had to then been.my dream career.

However......would I let ds1 do it? Not unadvised. Could I stop him? Probably not. I'd rather he went and kept the lines of communication open than cut himself off. Sometimes your older kids do things you hate, all you can do is position yourself to catch them if they fall.

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.

Do you love him as a sexual partner or do you view him as a father/carer?

Is it an equal relationship? Is he fully supportive of your ambitions and future plans?

Do you have equal access to finances? Is the house in joint names? What will happen if he dies?

I think you need to stop focusing on your parents and remember that you yourself was a very vulnerable and ill girl who might have been groomed, manipulated and taken advantage of by a much older man seeking someone he can easily control and that could be why you are questioning what happened now that you are at this stage of life.

erinaceous - thank you. I'm sorry you weren't through this too.

Beau - I think this: there's no point looking back - you can learn lessons from the past and you can use them to change the future is a very good point, and I guess in trying to understand what happened and why, to try and learn those lessons. It's pretty hard work.

Sparkle - I think it's interesting to think about how it could have been, and recognise that that might not have been all chocolate sprinkles and flowers either. Thank you.

Parsley, I think it experience sounds very similar. Thanks for offering to PM. I'm very glad you managed to make good moves and it heartens me!
Margie - I guess that's what I'm trying to do, in a way - think about the future. It might not be super-obvious from my thread, but I really do spend most of my life thinking about the future, working for my qualifications so I can move on to the next step, doing what i can to work on the problems I still have, with therapy and mood-stabilisers and (attempts at) healthy lifestyle changes. I think looking at the past is a part of that; I hadn't really thought much about my past, or my future, for years, except to berate myself and regret what I've done with my life up until recently. I'm now mostly looking towards the future, not dwelling on the past, but I did want to get others' input on this particular thing.

Haybale - you sounds like a great, caring patent! I hope nothing like this ever happened for your family but i think you will make whatever choices you do based on wanting the best for your children (as I believe mine did). I'm doing some counselling (planning to finish soon, partly due financial reasons, as although all my NHS team believe I need psychological input, it's not available for me) at the moment, which has really helped, and is probably partly what has provoked this reflection.
music - I promise you, I really don't focus on my parents as the locus of blame! I agree it's not good to dwell on it too much. I thought the relationships board was probably the best place to discuss this particular small part of what I'm trying to make sense of currently, and have had lots of useful feedback from you all to help me contextualise this part of my story. I'm under the GP and get checked by the CMHT to help me manage my mood disorder at the moment, so you're right, treatment for the mental health problems is a vital part of all this kind of stuff.

bran I know, I really should talk to them, I agree I just really don't want to upset them, or make them think I blame them for what happened. I really don't. I don't know whether they feel they might have made the wrong choice. I tried to talk with them the other day about things that happened at school, but my dad was keen to say it was water under the bridge, though we did talk about what happened with school to a certain extent.

Thumb - lots of ASD traits in my immediate family (two of whom I believe would almost certainly get a diagnosis were they to request assessment - they're way Aspie compared to me!). You're right, it's so hard to unweave what's ASD, what's mental health, what's environmental, and what's just bad fucking luck I don't think it's necessarily more complex - judging by how many people say they have something similar in their past and that people on the Teenagers board have similar issues, it seems like a common enough thing, ASD or not. That's why I didn't mention it or think it might be relevant in my OP - I guess consensus here is that it is relevant? My counsellor is a psychologist who specialises in ASD and I am part of several supportive and social groups online. I agree, it helps to know these things about yourself and find people who get it.

Cab - that sounds like a horrible experience, but I'm guessing you feel like it's part of what's made you who you are now? Apologies if I've got that totally wrong. I don't really want to leave him... I don't feel he's controlling.

cant - thank you so much for your good wishes for the future.

MrsJayy - I guess what in working through at the moment is whether I do want to leave him - I can't imagine how i could, at the moment, but I suppose I'll cross that bridge when I come to it Thanks

Granny, I was kept in hospital under threat of section when I was a teen - you're right, it's a bit drastic

irregular - thanks for the view of confidence! :)

Roomba that's sounds awful for her :( and for you, too. These things triple through families - it's part of why I feel so guilty about it all, I guess. I'm lucky in that my parents aren't toxic at all - they've always let me know that they love me and I have absolutely no doubt they'd take me in any time I needed it.

category - ASD and a mood disorder.

Tinkly - DP has been my biggest cheerleader and supporter in my efforts to get the qualifications I need and to help me in getting to university. Admittedly he wasn't keen on my living away, and still talks about moving house, but I think he's coming round to the idea that I want to try living on my own and to concentrate on my studies for a few years.
Giddy - I think you're right - it's only now I'm far advanced in years and decrepitude that I've realised ALL the adults are just pretending to be grown-ups…

Sandy - I do wonder. I think this thread has been good because I've been able to get a wider set of opinions on why they might have acted the way they did. I've never doubted their intentions, just had trouble trying to work out all the whys and wherefores in my head. My parents knew his age - he'd been to my house once before, and picked me up from home in his car to take me to his place, about four hours away.

Zaurak - I really am genuinely awful at cooking! I'm not too sad at, say, baking, where there's an explicit set of instructions I can work through one at a time, no points at which I have to calculate and manage several factors simultaneously, and no variables that can go wrong. But give me stew and baked potatoes to do and my brain becomes a tangled mess of confusion and panic I'd have to live on freezer pizza… DP isn't the one who says I'm no good at things. He encourages me to try, but easy things like chicken breasts and sauce so I can practice with the easy things, etc. And he believes I'm capable of far more than I do. I think I lack confidence a lot, and - well, he already has the skills so it's easier all round if he just keeps doing those things He did teach me how to use the washer-dryer, and it now has a sticky label with each step in the sequence clearly laid out for me

memyself - I have lots of joy! Have you ever experienced hypomania? But I do want to change things, and u think they are changing, gradually.

whambam, that sounds awful :(

coco, that sounds really tough

Trilit - I really hope things turn around for son soon. You must be so worried and sad. Thank you for the good luck wishes.

Peachy - ASD + MH problems is a right bugger of a combination isn't it? I'm so sorry you missed out on your career. Is it something you could go back to (or maybe something related)?

mamia - I don't think I really see him as either a sexual partner (not any more) or as a parent - he's now like a really really good flatmate if you know what I mean. The house is in his name. I assume if he died it would go to his parents. He deals with all my money because I have savings (which he doesn't). I don't feel groomed - I feel I was groomed by another man before him (and grooming was known about and covered in the media when I was sixteen - I remember thinking at the time about grooming and deciding I definitely wasn't being, by either of them )

I'm sorry I haven't been able to fully answer everyone, and how I haven't missed anything - this is really long as it is

Also sorry for all the typos! and thanks to all of you.

Why does he deal with all your money? Is he spending your savings?

You say you weren't groomed but as a 38 year old I just cannot see how any man or woman could be interested in a 16 year old for anything other than sex. No matter how mature they claim to be. Things in common, topics of interest, life experience etc.

He already had the fun 20 years before you to do as he pleased while you have in effect lost your youth. You may love him but from how you have described your relationship and how he is now old, boring and jobless I would leave and have fun and do things you want otherwise you will find yourself old, boring and jobless taking care of a pensioner!
I also think you are capable of more than you do but are too used to being looked after almost like a child still.

I really hope you do live away at uni and get to experience all up have been missing.

AYD2, you sound like you are thinking things through and I think you should be kind to yourself and your parents. It does sound like they were good parents and even if they did get it wrong I think they were trying to do their best. You sound like you have had a really tough time and deserve a bit of TLC and a pat on the back for getting through it all. A whole new set of possibilities might be opening up for you and maybe your DP will be part of that or maybe he won't but that won't take away all that has been positive about your relationship.

I hope you work it all out and have a fantastic future. I have my fingers crossed for you.

*you not up!

He is 37 old enough to be her father, that certainly rings alarm bells, she shouldn't be having any contact with him.

ijust - he doesn't spend my money, just puts into bonds/savings for me. He shows me the statements (well, I open them and pass them to him). I have problems with anxiety when I try to deal with money which means I can't understand or plan properly, and also have a mood disorder that means I might go batshit insane and blow it all on expensive crap if I have everything easily-accessible (it hasn't happened yet, but it's always possible, apparently…)

I'm looking forward to university but I'm not there yet - if all goes well, in a year and a half I'll be starting somewhere-or-other, so have plenty of time to prepare and try and learn some ways of looking after myself (organisation, cooking, money...)

Thank you granny - that pat on the back feels good :) And good to have some fingers crossed for me too.

Last time I tried to do something with my savings I put them all in Icelandic banks…

Hell no.

What interest does a 37 year old guy have in a 16 year old girl, anyhow? I find it hard to think that it's true lurve.

Your parents couldn't really do anything to bring you home, not if you didn't want to. It sounds as though you're not in love with this man, even if he is kind and has his own home and car, but you're still a young woman, and you still have choices. Is this what you want to be doing in 20 years? Don't let your life pass you by. You're at college and there are opportunities opening up for you. Embrace them.

I haven't read all the responses as I have to go in a minute, but I have similar stuff I wonder about.

My folks pretty much ignored me going off the rails at 14/15 until it became embarrassing to them. I ran away, cam home to visit with my violent boyfriend of the time when I was 17. Found out I was pregnant. They helped me get an abortion, then let me go back to the foreign country we'd been living in in v. Dodgy circs, even though my dad had caught him being violent towards me.

My mum likes to believe she had a conversation with me where she told me I didn't have to go, and they would back me up- it didn't happen.

Occasionally I retell her a story from my past in which I was nearly raped by a stranger who broke into the hut where I was sleeping. It is always met with shock, surprise and the same statement: 'It's just as well we don't know the half of what our children get up to, isn't it?'

It's what she's like. I have stopped expecting anything else. I don't feel it's something she can help.

That sounds horrible, Blithering, both what happened and how your family has been since

Do you not think you are too young to settle for the life you have?

I think you are around 10yrs younger than me, and I can't imagine accepting a sexless relationship with a man in his 50's.

University sounds like it could be the start of a wonderful new life for you, but I think you need to work on your confidence before you go, believe that you can do anything you want and stop focussing on the things you think you can't do.

I'm not sure how much of what I struggle with is easily fixable - the DWP assessors don't seem to have any problem with agreeing that my difficulties aren't a matter of not trying (and I was the one who asked them to move me to the lower-rate care band as I felt I was becoming more capable - they didn't initiate that). But I do feel I'm gradually learning techniques to work round some of those difficulties.

I would really prefer to be in a sexually-satisfying relationship with someone who can be socially independent of me and it's less likely to leave me alone and 55 (though a younger partner is no guarantee of that). The problem is that physically I'm unprepossessing, I'm not a particularly likeable person, and I have several health problems myself, so I'm not a deeply attractive prospect really - and I don't want to lose what I've got only to find out I can't ever be in another relationship because nobody else will be interested (I have a good few friends, but nobody else has ever been particularly interested in me sexually, as far as I know).

I will see what happens when I go to university.

By "see what happens", I don't mean I'd cheat! I would never want to do that (and probably couldn't! I have problems lying). But the other option is leaving DP (who I do love!), messing him up emotionally, and ending up alone and regretting it.

Back again. Sorry for being a bit 'mememe'. Just meant to say you're not alone! Thank you for your kind words though.

Sounds like you've been with this guy for all of your adult life. With the best will in the world, how would you know how attractive anyone else might find you? It sounds to me like you have very low self esteem (does he have a role on this..?) despite which you sound intelligent and empathic. Do you know how valuable those things are in a mate?

I wanted other people's perspectives, Blithering! And I'm really grateful to you for sharing yours - that kind of experience must be so painful to write about.

I would've thought someone would have shown an interest at some point, before knowing I was in a relationship… but I won't entirely rule it out. I'm just not very optimistic. Thank you for saying kind things about me I don't come across very well in person - I feel empathy and try to communicate it, but it doesn't always make its way across to the other person IYSWIM.