Advice needed re daughters relationship

[Stressedmotherof4]

First of all I’ll preface this with i know, this is her relationship and life and there’s an argument to say it’s up to her to deal with but I really feel like she needs some guidance on this one.

DD is 19 as is her ex.

Backstory is she’s always had a thing for him during school and when they were 17 they got together and had about an 18 month relationship. He was a nice enough kid and her first real relationship. However, when they’d go out and have a drink they’d fall out and there would be tears and then it would all be ok again until they were out again. Unfortunately at that age, so much of social life revolves around weekend culture and going out with friends and drinking. They split up around a year ago. It became clear that DD wasn’t moving on and they had a number of conversations where it boiled down to ‘it shouldn’t be this hard work so even though there are feelings still, this isn’t a relationship that should be pursued right now’.

The ex moved on very quickly and within a couple of months had a new girlfriend. However, throughout that entire relationship he continued to message DD who remained very much still in love with him. Over last summer she was an absolute wreck, crying, very upset, living for the messages and scraps he would give her. One occasion he slept with her and then basically said it was a mistake and he shouldn’t have done it. Throughout I’m giving her support, encouraging her to block him and move on and forget about him. She would do for a bit then the messaging would start back up again and so on. I don’t think he was the one instigating it every time I think she was as bad as him, trying to keep the contact going and ‘beat’ the other girl (who I think was oblivious) to his affections. He would often profess his love for DD (and she him) but it was confined to messaging for the most part as she was away at uni.

I’ve tried many times to get her to give it up and move on. I’ve been straight with her, I’ve made her cry, I’ve told her home truths (if he wanted to be with you he would), I’ve hugged her, I’ve encouraged her to put distance between them and absence makes the heart grow fonder, give him the opportunity to miss her, everything.

Earlier this year he split with this other girl and very quickly he was back physically on the scene with DD. She was overjoyed. Within a month he’d gone cold on her and said that he didn’t want to be in a relationship, it wasn’t her it was him, he loved her but he wanted to be single.

All she heard was that he loved her.

He still messages her. She is still infatuated. But when she has a drink on a night out that turns into (what I can gather from what she tells me - so likely to be infinitely worse) into harassment, she will call and message him none stop, he tells her to leave him alone, she won’t, she gets angry and upset etc. This has culminated in this weekend where the same cycle has happened, they were out in the same place, she ended up in tears, he left and went home and she convinced him into letting her come round and stay although he was clearly saying that he didn’t want her to (but she was on her way and he wasn’t going to turn her away as she was drunk and alone).

He dropped her home yesterday and has blocked her on all forms of social media. Which is great. But I know in a few weeks he will unblock her and start messaging again, just as she is starting to put herself back together.

The drunk harassment is so so wrong and I’ve made this very clear to her. But I just don’t know how to help her out of this awful cycle she is in.

Counselling to help her with her self worth to see she is worth more than hanging on for any crumb of affection from him? I just don’t know. I’m at a loss because I can see the cycle unfolding constantly and it’s so toxic. She’s so young. Barely an adult. But she is an adult so I don’t have any control over it other than despair at how she is both letting herself be treated, but how also how she is reacting in the situation. Is this just normal at that age? Things have moved on since I was that age. She’s our eldest daughter so this is new territory.

I don’t think this is normal at all (common? Maybe, but doesn’t mean it’s normal or okay). Yes to therapy. Her self worth is very low. She needs to stop drinking and she needs a new routine or purpose (hobby, gym, class, etc) to focus her mind on something else.

Does she work? Drive? Have hobbies?

Yes she has hobbies, she works, goes to uni, has siblings, goes to the gym, has a big friendship circle. But the messaging is all pervasive and can be done at any time of day or night.

I couldn’t agree more about the drinking but at 19 it is ingrained in her social life and very difficult to move away from. In my late 40’s I would just give it up as I have the experience to recognise I’m not a great person with it in me. At 19 I’m not sure I would have had that insight and if my mother told me to do it I’d almost certainly ignore her.

How do I broach the subject of therapy.

I really feel for your daughter - I went through much the same thing, unfortunately I was 20 years older than your daughter, I was 38! I'd been controlled by my mother during my teenage years and after a disastrous first marriage to my first 'proper' boyfriend, didn't start dating again until I was 25 (and jumped straight into another decade long ill-thought out marriage).

Looking back nearly 20 years later, I can see that the main thing driving me at the time was a bruised ego - I honestly couldn't understand why he'd suddenly (to me) 'stopped' loving me - but now I realise he'd never actually loved me, it had been lust/infatuation and he'd realised that it wasn't going to go anywhere, that he didn't want to carry on - which of course was his right to do so. Where he went wrong was he kept coming back - for sex, but to me it sent the message that he still 'loved' me, which of course he didn't. Like your daughter, I didn't have the strength to tell him to piss off, and accepted every single crumb he threw at me.

This went on for nearly 3 years. We'd have periods of no contact, and then I'd usually end up messaging him and the whole sorry business would start up again. Sadly the only thing that made me stop it was when one night we met up after a period of 6 months no contact, and he gleefully told me about sleeping with a friend of his - and when I must have looked disgusted, he said to me 'but we weren't talking, if we had been it would have been you' - I finally realised that that was all I meant to him, someone he could use as a 'booty call'. We had a massive argument that night and I went no contact with him again - however this time I stuck to it. Six months later I met my current partner, who I have now been with for 15 years.

I think all you can hope for is that the ex boyfriend does keep up with the no contact this time. Not wanting to sound harsh, if your daughter does drunkenly harass him again, he might be doing her a favour if he reports it to the police and they give her a warning to leave him alone - it might scare her enough to stop. It also sounds harsh, but I would just keep reminding her that he is using her just for sex...not something you really want to be saying to your daughter, I know, but I think it's something that she really needs to hear on a regular basis.

Oh I’m sorry OP it is a really hard situation, very common now sadly! I’m 26 and my sister is 23, both of us as well as most of our friends have also had situations exactly like this! In my experience they do run their course but the more you push her away from him the more she will run towards him. Be there for her however she needs you to be at the time and be patient. When you’re in a situation like that especially at that age you’re completely blinded by it and can’t see past it but it doesn’t last forever x

It’s great that she’s in uni etc., and has other things going on. And great that you are supporting her. I know if I was going through all of this turmoil at 19 my mum wouldn’t even have known a thing so it’s amazing (but I’m sure stressful!) that you are there for her.

I think that you can broach therapy alongside the issue of her drunken harassment. You need to talk with her about how alcohol causes a lack of control and poor decision making, and how there could be consequences for her if she goes too far one night. She needs to think about if it was her being drunkenly harassed by an ex all of the time - it would be embarrassing, annoying, and possibly even frightening. She doesnt know who he’s forwarding the messages too, if he’s recording calls. She needs to find another way to let out her pain and maybe therapy could help with those tools.

In my early to mid twenties I had a friend who was kind of obsessed with her ex bf. It was excruciating to witness how she pursued him. He was also a knob. She just could not accept that he had had enough of her.
She benefited a lot from spending more time with our friendship group as previously she’d not had good female friendships (though this didn’t solve the problem).

I didn’t consider her as having particularly low esteem, she was very attractive and self confident but she had been bullied through her school years and probably did.

Counselling ASAP sounds like a good shout for your DD. The ex does not want to be in a relationship and she seems to need help to come to terms with that as well as help in developing self reliance and focusing on other things. What a shame to be spending her youth in this tormented way.
Boys/men that can’t just choose to either stick or let go are absolute poison for young women’s self confidence. Hers needs developing so she can tell him to F off and mean it.

No it is not normal, but she needs to make the decision herself to stop it no one including him can make her think or do anything

There isn't much you can do. I can see this veering into legal territory if she continues to harass him but he could simply block her.

He's as much to blame keeping her on a string but like others say, she seems to have very poor self esteem. She has agency in this but is choosing to remain in a powerless state. Because of her behaviour, he has no respect for her yet she goes back for more.

You're going to have to let it run its course. When you pick up the pieces, perhaps counselling, some books on boundaries and relationships, information on red flags and an open conversation about love and how people treat you when they love you.

It's a crucial time because she could go on to have a series of similar relationships or she could learn from it and refuse to be treated like this again.

“You need to talk with her about how alcohol causes a lack of control and poor decision making, and how there could be consequences for her if she goes too far one night. She needs to think about if it was her being drunkenly harassed by an ex all of the time - it would be embarrassing, annoying, and possibly even frightening”

This. She could end up in a lot of legal trouble so could do with a holiday from drinking. It sounds like she has a void she’s trying to fill. Therapy asap.

I think you approach this by saying that you recognise she’s feeling terrible and that therapy/counselling could help her by giving time and space to talk everything out with an unbiased, objective third party as well as finding a way to feel better and not hooked on this guy. She (and you) might find it useful to read or listen to Dolly Alderton’s book everything I know about love. It might resonate with her.

I have had many conversations about alcohol and drinking wisely and not behaving like an arsehole when drinking. She doesn’t disagree and has definitely cut down on nights out over the last year. This doesn’t happen every single time she goes out, but in periods of High contact or high emotion it escalates.

Her dad and I have modelled what a good relationship looks like I think, we’re still together and have a calm and respectful relationship, no high drama, fighting, arguments, gaslighting etc. So she hasn’t learned this type of response from us.

We talk about red flags all the time (I’m a mumsnet devotee after all) and we talk about what a good relationship looks like, She has talked to me about friends who are in or who have been in similarily poor relationships and how frustrating it is when they go back to their toxic other half. But she just can not seem to extricate herself from it which is why I’m wondering if counselling will help.

Im going to have to get the right time to talk about it because she isn’t always receptive to me asking questions and if I don’t get it right then she shuts down and hides it from me to avoid my disapproval or interfering.

It’s a constant cycle of high highs when they’re in touch and being lovey dovey via messages and low lows when he withdraws contact and affection and puts boundaries in place that one or the other tramples over in any event. It’s exhausting for me on the sidelines so it can’t be enjoyable for her. Well it isn’t. She says it isn’t.

Thank you for being nice about it though, this is my baby girl and I just want to put her heart in a box and stop any horrible boys from breaking it but I recognise she’s an adult and she is also behaving very badly at times.

To be honest this sounds like a typical “will ruin your life but you’ll learn a lot” kind of relationship a lot of people have at 19. I don’t think a lot will change until hormones settle down and the highs of sex become less attractive so the lows of the toxicity no longer seem worth it.

Unless she meets someone else and moves on, you’re going to have to let her just ride this one out. I would withdraw and leave her to it. She is the only one who can end this mess, but that’s a decision she needs to make for herself.

I also had an ex like this in my 20s who couldn’t decide (serious attachment issues) and it would have been way easier if I had recognised then that he really just wanted/needed a female friend/sister type of relationship, not a romantic one.

She has just announced that she has deleted his number which is a positive step. She’s has never done this before. She has cleared all of his messages and there is no trace of his number on her phone anymore. They are blocked on all social media so I’m hopeful that this might be a bit of a mindset change. She is going away with her friends next week for a girls holiday and the last two she has been on, drama around him and messaging has seen her spend much of it in tears so she says she is determined for this not to happen again.

When she gets back I think I will broach the subject of therapy.

That's great, hope she stays away from the phone and just enjoys being with the girls. Fellas are rubbish lol

I hope so. I think even if she does manage to break the cycle this time. I think she still needs to work on why she acts like this. Because as a pp says, this might just be the first in a long line of dysfunctional relationships which I really don’t want for her.

I just want her to be happy. And for that happiness to not be dependent on a man.