18 year old with worrisome boyfriend.

[undergroundandoverground]

My friend's daughter is 18 and has a boyfriend of about a year who is slowly but surely isolating her from her friends and family, chipping away at her self esteem, drinks too much, isn't supporting her studies, is very negative about everything, upsets her, etc.

My friend is finding it so hard to balance keeping her daughter from cutting her out of her life in defence of her boyfriend if friend was too critical, and being very concerned and wanting to help gently guide her towards realising this isn't a good relationship.

Has anyone else had this situation and has any advice?

I really feel for her!

Honestly I’d recommend just keeping lines open and don’t give him anything to criticise you for.

A friend of mine has lost her daughter in similar circumstances where her daughter’s boyfriend has completely isolated and moved her daughter away from her entire family and friends. Her mum made the mistake of trying to open her daughter’s eyes to what was happening - even going as far as asking for a Claire’s law application on the boyfriend. Despite the evidence presented to her daughter she still willingly upped and moved away.

So my advice would be to keep modelling good relationships. Keep lines of communication open and reiterated to her that no matter what your there for her. Subtly give her the tools she may need to move away from him.

Tell your friend to keep off the subject of the boyfriend. Spending time with her daughter and keeping communication open is the key - he would love to isolate her from her family so your friend has to be clever and play the long game. If daughter brings up boyfriend's behaviour, your friend needs to listen without judgement and ask open ended questions like 'how did that make you feel' and 'what do you think you could do if that situation happened again? Friend should reassure daughter that she will always have a home to come to if she needs to. Your friend could gently encourage her daughter to spend time with her friends too.

Agree with the advice given above, the daughter will only close down at attempts to show her it's bad for her. She'd be making it worse.

Your friend needs to back off, keep in touch with her without ever bringing up the topic and hope that the relationship will run its course.

It's risky and overbearing but if your friend knows one of hers who is reliable and worried then your friend might want to ask them to do the same. Ofc the daughter cannot find out about this because she would deem it a betrayal.

All excellent advice here. I work in DV and keeping the lines of communication open and being careful about how you talk about the partner are important. You want her to feel like she can always come to you.

It is however, OK to ask questions about how she is doing. Rather than framing it as an accusation against the partner you can say something like “I’ve noticed you seem to be withdrawing a bit lately, is everything ok?” Or “I notice you’re not spending as much time with your old friends anymore, has something happened?” Then just listen without judgement and don’t push it if she brushes it off or tells you things are fine. You just want to open up the door so if she ever does feel like talking she knows you’ll be receptive and non-judgemental.