My daughter has had the same boyfriend since the age of 14, she is now 17. It all started well and they spent an awful lot of time together, we accepted him into our family and made lots of effort to make him feel welcome. He comes from a fairly unsettled family and he is definitely the child they have had most trouble with. Everything went smoothly for the first 2 years, but for the last year things have been very on and off, she found out that he had been seeing other girls which broke her heart, however she keeps forgiving him and going back to him. We have also found out that he occasionally smokes weed and has also stolen money from his parents in the past. He can be very aggressive, controlling and possessive.
They are currently 'trying again' and he is going out of his way to be the 'perfect boyfriend', however recently on a couple of days and evenings out with her friends (who do not like him and will not have anything to do with him) she has told him its not what she wants and that she wants to be single and that it is never going to work. He then gets very upset and begs her to keep trying and wont leave her alone, so she then apologizes says she didn't mean what she said, and agrees to carry on as things are. Whether this is out of guilt or not I'm not sure.
I have always been extremely close to my daughter and have always been able to discuss anything, she avoids talking to me about this relationship presumably because she knows how i feel about him, I have told her in the past I don't think he's right for her. My husband can barely bring himself to speak to him and i find it very hard to watch this emotional roller coaster, but we do still let him come round because we don't her seeing him behind our backs or spending all her time at his. We have talked occasionally about their relationship and she just says she loves him and wants to be with him. Although, she has said to me 'its not like I will end up marrying him', however i worry she's just saying that to keep me quiet! Because this has been going on for so long i worry that she will never be able to walk away from him and that he will always have this hold over her. My one hope at the moment is that she is looking into going to university next year, although he has said he will visit as much as he can!
Any suggestions on how i should handle this? Do you think it will eventually fizzle out or am i destined to end up with him as a son-in-law? Any suggestions would be gratefully received :)