DD (18) met online stranger “boyfriend” without telling me...advice please

[CluelessOfThree]

Sorry for long post.

DD (18) is @Uni FT, living @home with PT job (1eve washing dishes). She’s v quiet, & reserved, loves reading, & not v good socially or streetwise. Since starting Uni she’s made a few friends, & kept in contact with school friends (4 - all at different Unis). Not joined any clubs, or into drinking, smoking or drugs. What most ppl wld class as a “good girl”: hard working, studious, helps around the house, looks after her younger siblings (15 & 11) while I’m @ work (FT eves since before Christmas). Basically, she’s still behaving like she was @school ie rarely going out with friends unless I nag her to make the effort to contact & arrange things! The only real change is she’s on the Internet a lot more although she will have breaks & put away her phone during dinner & family time.

I have her phone password & have access to it, but rarely check (she’s not doing anything “suspicious”, we talk about internet safety & what she’s doing/ seeing/ playing online etc). She has her dad’s old laptop for Uni & he bought her an iPad Pro (again for Uni). I have been on the laptop (she logs in to show me Uni stuff & access her emails), but not her iPad, which she primarily uses for drawing. Her younger siblings occasionally go on her devices.

She is really a reserved person & not keen on taking public transport (I drop her off @ bus stop during the day & this term she makes her own way home). When we go out to eat, she hates ordering. She hates shopping & is not into fashion or makeup. I tried to get her to work waiting tables or serving in a shop to help her out of her shell, but she refused (left after an hour!)

Two weeks ago she said she’d meet with her school friends so we discussed where they were going & how she was going to get there/ home. In the end, I dropped her off in the city as DS had an event on & little DD & I went to watch him. She later texted to ask if we could meet her as one of the girls had given her a big soft toy which she didn’t want to carry round with her. Knowing where they were, I turned up @the restaurant. The girls were there with a guy, which I hadn’t expected, but assumed he was someone’s Uni friend, although they (including DD) were a little “cagey”. I was told his name & I asked which of the girls he was studying with, to which he said he wasn’t; he’s from England.

Anyway, after a brief conversation (mostly me asking the girls how Uni is) I left with younger DD to collect my son. I bumped into my younger sister & her son who said they were v surprised to see my DD with her boyfriend earlier “holding hands”.

To say I was surprised is an understatement. To learn that he’s someone she’s met online through one of the games she plays, & has gone and made plans to physically meet him is shocking. Frankly I’m disappointed with her behaviour: we’re very close & she tells me most things. Thankfully she’s taken precautions by asking her friends along & meeting him in a public place, and when I questioned her after work she said it was their first meeting & they’ve spoken on the phone & WhatsApp calls for the last fortnight. She admitted her friends left them after lunch, & I know she didn’t get home until nearly 8pm. She even made dinner for herself when she got in!

This is her first “boyfriend”, whom she’s been chatting online since Oct. I have heard her mention his name before (she refers to him as the “cat person”) & she’s shown me photos of his cats & kittens. She’s previously said he was from London & rich (he apparently took plane up & stayed in another city for two days with his brothers).

i haven’t had the chance to talk to her properly today as she was @ Uni all day & afterwards we were at a family gathering & got back late. I’m not sure what to say to her either. DH doesn’t know: he will be furious, esp as he’s from a different culture & we are v “traditional”. Plus, the guy is from England, so there’s that distance thing (which I’m not keen on at all: it’s not as if we can just “pop round” to meet him/ his family.) I’ve met all her school friends & family, & most of her Uni friends (not their family as most are from abroad). Anyway, I said to DD to treat this as a friendship rather than a relationship partly due to the distance. She told me they’d take turns travelling (for a girl who hates going anywhere & needs someone to go on a journey with her at least once!)

Yes, I realise she’s no longer a little girl, but really she’s not at all independent. She’s quite immature for her age & looks much younger than her more streetwise, but younger cousin. I really don’t know what to say, without sounding overbearing(?) & pushing her away. Any advice/ thoughts please.

Good grief, she is 18 not 12! She is an adult and you should not be checking her phone or having any say in who she is friends with. Fair enough if she asks your advice, but unless she does, you need to back off and stop treating her like a child.

This can't possibly be real.

Oh it can be real. Does anyone remember the smother with the son?

Nah. I'm not having it.

s @Uni FT, living @home with PT job (1eve washing dishes)

Then mostly she needs to leave home and build up her own life. She's an adult and as long as you treat her like a little girl (wtf do you have her phone password?) she will never grow up. If you're not in the UK then can she at least move into a university residence in term-time?

I wish people would stop saying her dd is old enough to use public transport. If the op is from the Indian sub continent (say) it may well not be safe for a teenager.

Then presumably the OP isn't from the Indian subcontinent. The OP herself expresses surprise that her DD doesn't like public transport, and it is safe enough for her DD to find her own way home.

I rarely post on these type of threads but..she's 18! She's an adult woman.I certainly wouldn't have told my parents anything about my relationships at that age.She doesn't have to tell you anything.I think you need to let her grow up tbh.

It might also be more healthy if she wasn't living under such intense surveillance by the extended family. Constantly "bumping into" relatives who report on her back to her parents isn't exactly conducive to independence.

DH doesn’t know: he will be furious, esp as he’s from a different culture & we are v “traditional”.

When people say that it's usually the excuse for all sorts of over-control. Either you personally agree with your husband's traditions and level of control or you don't. And if your husband will be furious because your 18 year old DD acted like a normal 18 year old for once, then you have a husband problem, not a DD problem.

What country and culture are you living within?

Your daughter has done absolutely nothing wrong, and there is nothing you should be shocked about and certainly nothing your dh should be furious about...
When I was 18, I moved out and fell pregnant 🤷‍♀️

Encourage your daughter to houseshare next year as a matter of URGENCY !! She desperately needs to be out and away from you so she can live a normal life.

Get out of her phone !! Get her to change her password . That is so far over the boundary that you can't even see the boundaries. It's simply an invasion of privacy .

Stop it.

I had to go back to the beginning to see that I had read her age correctly.

Given what you've said about not being from UK culture, your daughter living at home and the boy flying up from England I'm going to take a punt and guess you're in Glasgow - for pp the prevailing culture in Glasgow is that local students don't leave home, largely due to not being entitled to student housing. Also it's the most multicultural city in Scotland and has lots of cheap flights.

As someone who teaches these students at times, parents like you OP are a nightmare. As well as their children's personal lives they tend to try and get involved with their academic lives too and don't accept being told that we won't discuss grades etc with them.

Your daughter is an adult, she has been entirely sensible in how she has gone about meeting this boy and you need to stop checking her phone etc. Many people a year younger than her will already be at uni and living fairly independently. It is entirely normal to meet partners online these days - all the couples I've met recently have either met through shared online interests or dating apps.

Calm down, leave her be, and stop using her as your unpaid babysitter.

Hi all,
Just to respond to a few reports - this poster has been with us for a good while now and we have no reason to believe they are making this up.

She shouldn’t need to ‘admit’ that her friends left after lunch. There is nothing to admit.

I’m agog that you are so surprised tthat an 18 year old woman didn’t get home until 8pm or that she made her own dinner.

Next time she says she’s meeting someone in town, instead of asking her travel arrangements, just say ‘that sounds nice. Have a good time’.

*The op doesn’t live in the UK.

I wish people would stop saying her dd is old enough to use public transport. If the op is from the Indian sub continent (say) it may well not be safe for a teenager*

bear no where has she said she doesnt live in the uk, shes said she doesnt live in ENGLAND, england diesn't make up the entire UK.

While your point about safe use of publuc transport in indua is valid, no where does it give the slightest indication that she is indeed in india.

Also up from engkand would be scotland, northern ireland, and the scandinavian countries, depending where in england he was flying from it could even be ireland or at least northern wales. Not india.

Tbh i suspected ireland, the importance of family, amd living at home. And keeping grounded.

Possiably scotland.

Although the mother i know like this is actually english. I kind of do believe it

Give her some freedom. She hasn't done anything wrong here.

And why do you need to check her phone. I would be embarrassed if anyone had checked my phone at 18.

I don’t know where the OP lives but I assumed not the UK.

Would a Scottish person think the boyfriend was “rich” because he’d taken an internal UK flight? A UK national would know it can be a cheap way to move around, often cheaper than the train.

I was also struck by the comment that the friends families were mostly abroad. And the 4am OP. And the reference to traditional values.

Anyway, I don’t know where the OP is based but I do lots of MNs are not in the UK.

But unless the OP returns we’ll never be any the wiser!

Clearly your culture is a big part of your reaction to this. I simply cannot relate to a culture where treating an 18 yo like this is acceptable and if your DD has grown up in the UK I don’t know how she’s coping with it either. Don’t be surprised if she moves out. Though she might not be brave enough to go against your DH to do that, in which case she’ll end up being more secretive and taking more risks.

I'm guessing OP is somewhere in Scotland coz she said the boyfriend 'flew up'. It's something us Scottish people would say in the same way we would 'go down' to England or Wales.

So Uni could be Glasgow, Edinburgh, Stirling, St Andrews, Aberdeen possibly Inverness but I'd guess either of the first two because OP also mentions that they are in a city.

It's just the Dad who is from a different culture.

And I wouldn't necessarily think of boyfriend as rich because he took a plane when you can get cheap flights that are usually less expensive than taking the train.

Blimey. She could be a university student, living away from home. She could be doing ANYTHING in that situation and you wouldn’t have a clue.
She probably wishes she was.

Op I'm more worried about your behaviour than anything else. Do you really think it's appropriate to be so controlling with your adult daughter? You're going to completely alienate her if you're not careful

Why has this been posted in teenagers?
She's an adult female whose privacy is being massively invaded and who is being told what to do.

I think she would be less snooped on if she set up camp living in mi6 headquarters.

She's not a child.