Daughter and boyfriend… I know it needs to run its course

[DamnitImTired]

So our dd 19 (my sd) has been in a relationship with her boyfriend 20 for about 18 months.
He is a nice enough guy but we have some concerns over the seriousness of the relationship.
They seem to have skipped over the ‘fun’ part of being youngsters and have immersed themselves in this relationship that is destined in their eyes to be marriage as the end goal. Whilst we are not opposed to the idea that marriage is a good goal it’s rather that we have raised her to be independent and to think for herself. She is smart and beautiful and has been given opportunities that neither myself or my husband where given has young adults.
The opportunity to study at a residential university away from home was given to her and she declined it so that she could be with the boyfriend. He has not been given the same opportunities due to his families finances and seems to be set on a traditional small town life for himself with a ‘trad’ wife.
He spent 6 months abroad working while she was finishing high school and has come back with the idea that the rest of the world ‘sucks’ and home is the place to be. Our daughter has also expressed her desire to see the world and use her education to experience life outside of home. That view seems to have changed due to this relationship and her Pinterest vision board has changed from pics appropriate for a young woman of the world to one of weddings and nurseries and home making trad wives.
Whilst everyone tells me that things will work out and kids will grow up and outgrow early relationships, I have my doubts as this is getting more and more serious.
I understand that perhaps this is the path that she may think is best for her and it may work out ok for her it just breaks my heart that she has changed her view on life so dramatically. I worry that coming from a divorced family may have affected how she sees relationships and is investing too much into the security of this one person and forgetting her own independence.
I also fully understand that parents roles are to support so please refrain from reminding me of my place. And I understand that my dreams and my husbands hopes for his child will not necessarily be hers but we feel like she is selling her life short of her potential.

Every time you post it sounds worse. The no sex before marriage is a killer too as while it precludes pregnancy, it massively increases the rush to the altar.

I think you a right to be concerned as he sounds very controlling already and I’d be very concerned. You sound lovely but I agree that as a non-resident step-mum you are in a tricky place to help. It’s hard if you are the resident mum as they don’t want to hear it and you don’t want risk alienating her.

The previous poster’s idea of a trip away is a good one. Have you and DH got much leave left this year? Could you afford a trip? As he’s such a trad family man your husband could frame it to your daughter as recognising she’s grown up and won’t be around for holidays with him forever so he’d like to go to [insert name of a place she’s expressed an interest in]. If you have younger shared children could they stay with grandparents while you, DH, and DD have a fun, adult (not drunken or anything) holiday and you two model a healthy equal relationship?

Does she still hang out with her former friends? Does she go out without him?

He sounds absolutely ghastly and it’s disappointing your DH sees her “being taken care of” as a positive tradeoff. Obviously remain hospitable and outwardly friendly to twatface, he’d alienate you in a heartbeat if he thought you might turn DD from the path towards being his trad wife 🤮

This is the sort of thing…
you need to be tactical with dates and pick a time that inconvenient for limpet boyfriend.

being a SM makes it really tricky and I agree with PP she potentially seeking that security her childhood she lacked

can you do quarterly weekends to visit her town and take her out shopping / to community events type thing and maybe do a dinner with the BF

Agree with PP that there are some big red flags!

if your H thinks this awful controlling BF is ‘looking after’ DD then he’s part of the problem - FFS!

I think it's very sad to read someone expressing concern that a couple don't want to have sex before marriage. While most teenagers do have various sexual experiences, there is absolutely nothing wrong in waiting until you get married if that's what you both want to do. My daughter had a number of sexual partners in her teens and early 20s but when she met her husband, he a was still a virgin, because of his religious beliefs, and wouldn't have considered having sex with her before they were married. They were together for two years before they got married, and he even asked for our permission to marry her, which we thought was lovely.

There are some red flags which I feel signal control but they are sold to me as ‘caring and gentlemanly’… tracking each other on life 360, he drives everywhere and doesn’t like her to drive, someone put a glass of wine in front of her at a family function and he removed it and replaced it with water…

Absolutely not fine and you're right for this to raise red flags.

Does/did your SD normally have a glass of wine?

Either way I don't think I'd be able to keep my mouth shut with this one and I'd be telling him exactly what he is - controlling and misogynistic (and that's being polite)

Thanks. I’m going to do what I can to expose her to life outside of this relationship. But ultimately if she chooses to pursue it then I think I just have to accept it.

Being a non resident step parent does not make this easy. But there is just something about this guys presence which gives me the chills. I’m probably hyper sensitive to the situation because my hackles are up so speaking up makes me look like I’m the one with the problem. I think judging people by what is considered normal behavior for others (ie teens by what other teens are doing and up to) is a perfectly reasonable way to gauge what is seems right and what seems wrong. I understand that there are exceptions to the rule and there may be more mature youngsters than others but there is just something about this kid which comes across as well mannered, grown up and sensible that doesn’t sit right with me.

There are a few articles about the down sides of being a trad wife: some have been speaking out after their relationships broke down and they realised how powerless they were and how difficult life was as they had no money and limited options. Worth showing her/ talking to her about/ asking gentle questions too get her thinking about the downsides. There was the recent Times article about the woman from Ballerina farm married to a billionaire who gave up an amazing career opportunity and now is exhausted and downtrodden with 8 small children and all the 'straight from the cow lattes' and pretty frocks can't hide how controlling her husband is and how dead her eyes are.

I would also challenge that publicly when he does something like that. It's clear signs of coercive control.

The funny thing with teenagers is that they think they know better and she would in no way apply anything negative to her situation as it’s ’not the same’….

If DD gets pregnant and has a child it will never ‘run its course’, sadly.

You can raise your legitimate concerns with your H 1:1, and depending on his relationship with his ex he and she could discuss it.

This isn’t simply about your ‘hunch’: you have mentioned plenty of specific words and actions by the man that are red flags for sexism and controlling behaviour. These are objective things and there is information out there specifically for teens about abusive relationships.

(If your H and his ex would be disinclined to listen to you, they might read online info by charities that could spark their thinking)

Not all teens outgrow their early relationships, DH and I were each others first real relationship and were married and expecting a child. I wouldn’t just assume it will run its course, because it might not.

You really need to raise your concerns. Usually I’d say stay out of it, but her boyfriend is covered in red flags.

Is he covered in red flags? As a SM I question my judgement all the time when it comes to these kids. My gut just tells me that this guy is so limiting and has placed himself in a patriarchal position in my daughter’s life. Is there such a thing as being too polite, too gentlemanly, too caring? It just seems ‘too much’ for me but maybe it’s not for her?

if she didn’t want the glass of wine which is perfectly fine I would expect her to say no thank you or just ignore it in front of her. But he removed it from in front of her. Maybe this is her wish?
Maybe she likes being driven around?

i just need to watch all of this from a distance I think. Obviously her circumstances in life may have pushed her to a relationship which fulfills unmet childhood needs but i am just so disappointed as she has always appeared to me to have overcome the fallout of her parents divorce and for our involvement in her life she has been taught that she can do and be anything she wants and we have given her the opportunity to follow her dreams and she seems to have actively decided not to.

Without bashing my husbands ex (her mom) one of the reasons my husband felt unhappy in his marriage was her inherent laziness. It could be possible my SD is also lazy and quite likes being waited on hand and foot and is happy to gift the management of her life to her BF.

still no less disappointing I guess and also I would worry that his stamina for that kind of service would wane.

Well, I'm still with my boyfriend from age 19. I'm 34 now.

You have to let her live her own life and make her own mistakes

I am certainly not worried about her being with him long term provided he is a good guy. I am worried about the sacrificing of who she is (or who we thought she was) for a man.

I would say he's a walking red flag

To give an alternative perspective:

My mum had limited opportunities growing up. As a child she always encouraged me to do things and wanted me to aim high. I had opportunities she could never have dreamed of,

I was a stressed and anxious teenager. It was obvious to me that my parents (but mostly my mum) wanted me to be a high flyer academically and go off into an amazing career that changed the world.

I was very depressed as a teen and early twenties because it was clear to me that I couldn't live up to who my mum wanted me to be.

She wanted me to be musical and do all the middle class interests and I just wasn't much good. She didn't see that, she just boasted about me.

I was the one who had to struggle with violin and be the worst player in the orchestra and looked down on because my mum wanted me to play an instrument like the middle class kids,

Sometimes what your parents want for you just isn't who you are. My parents always said I'd have no kids and be a career woman. I had kids early and have always worked around them in jobs that are people jobs where I help people.

I'm not what my parents wanted.
I'm not who they tried to force me to be.
But I have had and continue to have a good life. And that's ok,

You can’t interfere too much in adults’ lives without alienating them. And, if she thinks you are trying to split them apart, she will make it a point of honour to stay with him.

All this talk of trips abroad etc without him will be seen for exactly what they are.

What does her father think of the relationship and has he talked to her about it? Unless you and she are normally very close, you have no role in this as a stepmother who sees her rarely.

Ultimately, if the relationship is controlling, she will eventually see the light (hopefully). She just needs to know that you will be there for her if that happens.

Thanks for this. As a SM who has known this child since she was 3 I think I am fully well aware of my role in her life and having walked the SM road now for 16 years I think I am equally well aware of where my limits are in terms of what I can and cannot do and say. Doesn’t make my concern any less justified. Thanks.

The boyfriend sounds boring and to be frank... awful. Who is he to remove a glass of wine like he's her father?

I have no idea what to suggest apart from encouraging her to expand her activities and opportunities and I say this because...

My youngest DD had a boyfriend, a local lad and without wishing to sound mean, his family were nice enough but hadn't travelled more than about 5 miles from where they both lived and worked. Very insular, and so different to us. He was just boring and madly in love with her and pushing her to commit more.

He wanted me to help him to apply for Uni where my DD was going because his parents 'didn't believe in Uni education'. I refused, it was not my place. She went to this good Uni and the relationship carried on with him visiting literally every weekend and during the week (it was only 20+ miles away, she lived at Uni., not home)

I just think the contrast between this lad from home who was doing not much with his life, and her outgoing life grabbing Uni friends became too stark. They were planning trekking holidays, voluntary work abroad in the breaks and he was like a fish out of water trying to hold her back and they finished.

Could you encourage your SD to join more clubs, make more friends, expand her life a bit perhaps?

You’ve now got me thinking about anything else I find strange about him.
He asked my husband for a job after meeting him once. (We own our own business)
He message my husband quite frequently and I’m mostly quite taken aback by how he talks to my husband as if he was some sort of friend of equal age. Bear in mind we have actually spent what most would consider not very much time together as we are non resident parents who live in another city.
Both of these things threw me off at the time and I just put it down to me being uncomfortable with some one being so forward which is in contrast to my introverted personality but perhaps this is just another way of forcing a relationship beyond its natural timeline.

I think this sounds alarming Op and he sounds very controlling.

However. People do grow and change. I was in an awful relationship between 20 and 22 and was very needy and controlling myself. I'm nothing like that now and have a happy marriage with a totally different type of person. Just trying to give you hope.

It sounds as though some dynamics are playing out for her relating to losing mum and then perhaps trying to 'be' mum and create the family she lost?

Has she ever had therapy and would she consider it ?

There is probably a correlation with being child of a very young mum and then becoming one yourself. I dont know for sure but I'd imagine the facts back that up.

She does see a therapist on a regular basis. This is something we have encouraged after witnessing her brother struggle with his childhood dynamics post divorce.
But I’ve found that therapy requires a degree of self awareness and this appears to be a problem we have as her parents and not something that she has raised any alarm bells about so is unlikely to actively seek help for it.