DD coercive control

[mumnamechange]

I have posted before about my dd 15 being in a toxic first relationship with a boy 15 from school, that we have been unsuccessfully encouraging her to leave.

He is obsessively in contact, especially if she is with friends without him, threatening suicide if she cheated or left, accusing her of cheating, has persuaded her to have sex before she is ready, and without a condom, he love bombs her and goes on and on to get what he wants. My dd mh is not OK after covid and she is manipulated by him. The trouble is she can't see it and thinks he is wonderful.

I know everything that is going on by accessing her messages, but she does not know, so I am unable to discussed what I have found without destroying her trust.

We have tried calmly calling out his behaviours, as have her friends, to no avail.

I have spoken to the parents about his threats to kill himself and encourage them to check his messages. They were really grateful but I think pretty clueless and I don't think they can/will do much to help our situation.

School won't get involved as it is out of school.

And now our dd is lying about their sexual relationship and lying about/hiding his behaviour. So she clearly knows it is wrong but is pretending to us it is not happening.

I have been searching online for advice and support and I think she is being coercively controlled by him.

I am feeling desperate and I am considering blowing my cover and telling her what I know and how, to get it out in the open. Then to insist she stops seeing him and enforce it. I am worried enough to risk our relationship for her safety.

Am I mad? What else can I do?

Thank you for sharing your experience. So many have gone through this mumofblu, it's awful. I'm glad your dd isn't with her bf anymore it sounded horrendous.

Dd is not doing anything concerning but she is accepting of his behaviour and engages with it. He gets himself so worked up when she is out without him and he has name called a bit and she doesn't even stick up for herself.

She doesn't seem unhappy, quite the opposite, like all the attention from him is a good thing. She had no other experience of relationships and doesn't realise this is not how it's supposed to be.

I am going to go to the Dr as well, it's making me ill. And i will be pushing for help from the school.

Thank you.

I hear you doormat and feel the same way too, but I'm worried I'll make things worse. So hard to know what is the best way gently or firm.

I won't be able to respond for a while but will check back in this afternoon. Thank you all of you very much.

I don't know what you should do but don't tell her you can see the messages, it may seem like a breach of trust but she's still a child and she needs your support whether she realises it or not. If she knows you've seen the messages that's all she will think about.
When does he hit 16? Is it before her? And is she on a good oral contraceptive? Or better still an implant. He can't muck around with that,

@Doormatnomore
I agree with you saying that it's an adult situation that many teenagers are having to navigate unfortunately.

The social worker involved with us said to not make our Dd feel guilt for not being able to identify and leave a relationship that many grown woman would find difficult to leave .

We heard many excuses from our DD about her bf behaviour . He had a difficult family , he needed her , only she understood him . And along with love bombing her she couldn't end it . Even when he became abusive .

I know how I wanted to scream at her , to tell her he was abusing her but we needed more than me and her dads voice
Counselling and social worker provided that

My heart goes out to you .

And yes I hope you've managed to sort contraception.

Poor DD and poor you. I’ve just got out of a CC relationship - am an adult - and until I realised it for myself, no one could have convinced me that was what was happening. As others have said, sort contraception and anything else you can “control” without revealing that you have read her messages, in the long term she is much more likely to confide that she’s not happy than if you’ve lost her trust. Her friends are better placed to comment on his behaviour at the moment - she may hear them even if she doesn’t want to. And maybe instigate some family “phone free” times so she gets a break from him when she’s at home … not easy to achieve but if you’re all doing it she won’t feel got at. And then “just” wait…

I'm sorry you're all going through this OP. Just to add (as someone who's worked in safeguarding) as well as speaking to the school, I wonder if you can call the police next time he threatens suicide. A welfare check would be fine and then you could offer up details if the context. Coercive control is a crime and they might be able to speak to both of them.

Secondly, do you know what social media she follows? Eg on insta or Tik tok? What kind of influencers. Are they promoting internalised misogyny, doormat behaviour, stereotypical gender roles? Perhaps you could encourage her to follow some influencers who promote positive self esteem, feminism etc? There are a few I believe.

To be honest, reading back on my threads, we really didn't handle a lot of it well but we did what we thought was best at the time.

I did sound quite anxious but that's coming from a place now of hindsight and DS being out of the relationship so we're all a lot calmer.
At the time I was an absolute mess because when you are right in the middle of it all, it completely consumes you.

We spoke to and sought help from everyone you could think of, her parents, school, police, therapists, social services etc.
No one could help. (We are in Australia)

Or more to the point, no-one could help DS unless he wanted to be helped, and at the time he didn't want to listen to anyone.

I think ultimately you just need to be there for your daughter, speak with her about healthy relationships and boundaries etc.
Try not to push her away

I really appreciate all the feedback and support thank you.

It seems that most think I shouldn't reveal my snooping so I'm going to hold off on that, especially as i was unsure.

He is 3 weeks younger than her, they're both summer birthdays.

We have an appointment for contraception, i worry about the pill being unreliable so will ask about other options like implant or injection. I know I'm late organising it, but she was adamant they weren't having sex and was asking me why i wanted her on contraception. Again worried about revealing my knowledge. It was hard to know what to do.

I recognise a lot of what you write mumofblu :(

Thank you for your viewpoint Umbellifer, I'm sorry you went through it too. Blowing my stack is a knee jerk reaction and advice like this helps me re focus.

The safeguarding perspective is helpful, thank you Melbourne. I didn't think police would react but it is worth a try. She's on tiktok a lot and tends to follow anime accounts and similar, the ones she shows me just have weird humour or pov videos. I'll keep an eye though.

It sounds like you went through an horrific time Work. I totally understand how it consumed you, I'm there right now. Our job as parents is to protect them and when we can't it feels like falling through space.

The main advice I'm taking from you all is to keep talking and supporting her and i certainly will.

Thank you

mirena coil is a good idea because with the pill he might persuade her not to take
it