Sorry, but this is a very long post.
A little background: My daughter has, been 'dating' since she was about 14. First it was one of the lads in her friendship group but that only lasted a few days and they never actually went out anywhere. Then she 'dated' one of her male friends from primary school who is a year or so younger than her but that "felt weird" so was ended after a week or so and I don't think they went out on an actual date. She then, after "coming out as bisexual" to her fellow pupils, started 'dating' a girl in school who was on the edge of their friendship group. This girl was on the autistic spectrum we later found out and very very quickly became obsessed with my daughter. We are talking over 1000 texts in one night between them, starting from the moment the school bell went until the early hours of the morning. Then they would start again at 6am if not before, until the bell went for school to start, break times and lunch time if they weren't together for some reason. This 'relationship' we noticed (pretty hard not to see it to be honest), explained how it wasn't healthy, helped our daughter with how to end the relationship (Our daughter wanted it over but the other girl wouldn't get the message) and we had to get the school involved to try and resolve problems/fall out which arose from it. Eventually the girl moved schools, and my daughter (and friends) were left in relative peace.
Fast forward a few months and another of her male friends shows an obvious interest in her (she's 15 at this point). This time she came to us and said "Can I date * as he's liked me since we first met on the first day of school 4 years ago?", I said I'd rather she didn't until she'd finished her exams as it could be a distraction and in my honest opinion she was too young to be dating. Her dad (my ex, no longer living with us but happily married to someone else) said "yes" despite me voicing my reservations, so she went with his answer. About a month later she started acting strange. She was almost obsessed with being on facebook messenger to this lad and constantly asking to go around to his but never answering any questions, very reserved about everything, there was just something not quite right. So I breached her privacy and checked her diary. Yes I know it was wrong, but my gut told me something serious was going on and after the trouble with her ex-girlfriend I was very concerned. In her diary she said she'd had sex with her boyfriend, and they were both just 15. I told her dad and we both sat down with her and explained how she was too young (legally as well as in terms of maturity), her dad told her she had let him down especially as she'd kept it hidden from us, and that we couldn't condone that behaviour at all. She was grounded for the rest of the summer holidays, which included very limited internet access which was supervised, and no phone except when she was away staying with family. We also told her that if it was to happen again before they were both 16 then the sht would really hit the fan.
September comes, school is back and the two of them are inseparable. They both work hard towards their exams, the boyfriend gets a job which he only does during the school holidays but my daughter seems to be obsessed with talking to him via messenger when they're not in school. He however has hobbies which keeps him away from the computer and he doesn't use his mobile phone really. She's constantly asking to go around to his, and I try to discourage it as much as possible. However they want to celebrate every month anniversary that they're together and afterwards he walks her to the door even in the pouring down rain (but doesn't come in, our dog doesn't like visitors). He seems to be a proper gentleman, and I'm delighted that she's found a decent bloke.
Prom comes around (after final exams) and they need to be collected afterwards from school. Due to both his parents working and him living in the opposite direction to us, I offer to collect them both, take him home then bring my daughter home. So I pick them up from school, and immediately my daughter latches onto his arm, holding his hand tight like she's afraid he's going to leave her. We catch the bus as I don't drive, and she's got her arm around him with her head resting on his shoulder. He however is looking very uncomfortable (I don't blame him given I was there) and as I watch I realise my daughter's body language is 'dominating' him. Everything I'd expect a possessive boyfriend to do, she's doing to him. When I look at picture she's shared of them together, again she's in a dominate position or clutched onto him so tightly I'm surprised his arm hasn't fallen off.
They then had nearly 3 months off school due to exam leave etc. She was constantly asking to go around so I let her as I was trying to work (I work from home), and she just kept pestering me or has got the dog racing around the livingroom, the TV blaring, asking if she can go on the laptop (hers was broken) and I'm trying to focus on getting things done. Looking back I should have seen what was happening, but I was so stressed out with work/taxes for the first 6 weeks or so it didn't register as anything more than her being bored and wanting to spend time with him as her other friends were all busy or still in school.
At first, each time she came back from his I put her good mood down to having been able to spend time with him. But just before she went away with her dads family she told me that almost every time she's gone round they've had sex. I have no idea if his parents know what is happening under their roof, but I'm not happy even if they are both 16. I asked if they were using protection and she said yes. When she got back from her holiday, and got her exam results her mood shifted again. They're now both back at school so in theory see each other every day, but he seems to be more busy that usual and she just seems to get into this funk when he's not online. Some days you can't even talk to her without her biting your head off and it's because he hasn't replied to her messages.
Since something hasn't been right I looked in her diary again today (she left it out on her desk which is our agreed "mum I need to talk but I don't know how to tell you" thing). In it she's saying all she wants to do is be with him intimately, that she's asked him if they could get married and he's said yes so they are "unofficially engaged", and that she is starting to see herself having a real future with him, with kids and everything. This has come as a shock as she's been saying it was him who had them married and with kids before they're 20, but her diary is saying its her idea. More so of a shock as she's been insisting she's transgender but that's a whole other thread on another board which I don't have time to write about now.
I just don't know what to do. She seems to be having the same intense feelings for this lad that I had for her dad (my first proper boyfriend) when I was only just 20. We got engaged just months after we started going out, and she came along not long after my 22nd birthday. By the time I turned 29 we'd split up and he was living with someone else (who he is now married to) not long after. I really don't want her to make the same 'mistakes' I made (not that I'd change having her, but I'd have dealt with the relationship with her dad very differently). She's so intelligent she's talking about going to university and becoming a doctor, but at the same time she's writing about settling down and having kids with this lad.
From my perspective she is way too intense and serious about this relationship. Its only 14 months old. They have their whole lives ahead of them, but all she sees is he's not there on messenger, or he had to leave school after his last lesson of the day to do XYZ that his parents asked him to do on his way home so she couldn't walk to the bus stop with him. Meanwhile, the dog and I are left having our heads bitten off if we so much as look at her when he's not online. If I ask her to come off her phone and do her chores she moans, makes excuses of going to the toilet, "not feeling well" so laying down on her bed, then eventually she'll do the chores and storm off to bed biting our heads off as she goes. But if he's online and chatting to her (which seems mostly to consist of him sending her hearts instead of words) then she'll be much more harmonious about doing stuff, but still procrastinate in the same way.
Can anyone advise on the best way to give her some perspective? My gut tells me he wants to split up with her as she's so clingy and dominating, but she won't let him end it and he doesn't want to at the same time due to the guaranteed sex (I'm basing that on him being a 16 year old boy, sorry for the generalisation!).