To stop giving lifts?

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I could do with some advice regarding my current situation.

DS has a new girlfriend. They’ve been chatting a while online but only just started to see each other in person over the last few weeks.

Last weekend she lied. It was a big lie. I won’t go into detail just in case family are on here but the lies were so significant it involved 999 and a welfare check on her. She was absolutely fine. The lies spiralled and that was the result.

I told DS this should be a deal breaker but he has accepted her apology, said everyone makes mistakes and she deserves a second chance. I personally don’t think so and I have made my feelings very clear, as has he. We haven’t argued, it’s been civil conversations mostly, just a bit defensive on both sides. No raised voices etc. DS is stubborn but usually has a strong moral compass.

Due to where we live and a limited rural bus service, DS will rely on me for lifts after 5 pm. There is no Sunday service. I have always been on hand with lifts for my DC as its part of living rurally. I don’t want to give lifts if it involves dropping off DS to see his girlfriend or picking him up but my worry is I am taking this too far. There may well be a falling out which I get. He may well go anyway and then just say he’s missed the last bus. I am not foolish enough to think he wouldn’t try – I would have at his age. He can still see her but he would need to be on the last bus home. Am I taking this too far? What’s your thoughts?

How old is he?

I would rather know he’s dropped off and collected safely. Allow him to make his mistakes as that’s how he will learn. (Assuming he’s 15/16 ish and not 13/14

I mean you’ve basically told him he should break up with his girlfriend.

no matter what she did he’s never going to take that well. Nobody likes being told what to do.

obviously you can stop the lifts but he’ll know full well why you are doing it and presume you are doing it to try to put pressure on him to dump her.

He’s 17. She is 16.

Gosh, parenting teenagers is hard isn’t it. I wonder if there’s a compromise - you will pick him up but he needs to get himself there? And an open explanation that while you uunderstand you can’t stop him seeei g her, with this type of behaviour she is bad news and you can’t in all conscience enable this relationship. But you’ll still bring him home because his safety is the most important thing to you.
I often find myself asking my child “well what would you do if in my position?” when facing dissent.

I think it’s too far, and that you need to back off. He is allowed to choose his own girlfriends and you risk promoting the relationship if you push too hard.

I think stopping the lifts, unless he can drive and you lend him your car, would be very unreasonable when you live rurally.

I have been there, with a gf I didn’t like, and I kept it zipped and am glad I did - I do understand how hard it is!

You just have to hope you’ve given him the skills to navigate through this and realise for himself that it’s not going to wink. You risk pushing them together if you make demands. I would still give the lifts but wouldn’t encourage the relationship, just be neutral.

Thank you all. You are all helping. It’s been good to write down how I feel. Almost say it out loud if that makes sense. He’s a good lad and I can honestly say beyond not giving a shit about home schooling back in Covid days that this is the first real hurdle I have faced with him.

Then I would phrase as a focus on school / college balanced and balancing your needs as a family. Eg at least 50% of evening spent doing school work and being a family.

Do you know her parents?

And talk about her needing professional help and time to work through emotions and feelings with people that have the toolkits to help her.
Talk about self empowerment as opposed to rescuing. Relationships need freedom and space for personal growth and also what healthy relationships look like and boundaries

contraction wise if you haven’t discussed this see if it comes up.

My daughter had a friends when they were all about 14-16 who regularly talked about all sorts of things eg suicide, gender ideology etc and many of those were really hard for the group to manage. Eg she would post I’m lonely and if no one replied within 10 minutes she would then ramp it up with subtle implied threats to self harm and then escalate.

I tried to support my daughter by telling her she had her own struggles and yes to take threats seriously but that the responsibility for someone self harming was not on her and she could be supportive but also sign post.

Eventually there was a serious incident so I contacted the parents directly and also emailed their form tutor at school (same form) as the pressure for support to the peer group was just too large for them to cope with.

The girl involved did find that over the years everyone stepped back from the dramas and they are all in university now but this one girl has spiralled and has left university twice.

I and my daughter have rescuer written on us and we need to be careful and acknowledge this.

supporting friends, etc doesn’t need to come at the expense of having a positive healthy relationship or friendship with them and it is not easy in some cases to navigate it

I don’t think you can stop your ds from seeing his gf. Isn’t your ds just going to end up staying the night or don’t her parents allow him to stay over?

How is she apart from this? Generally ok, not too possessive, clingy or demanding? Just wondering if this was manipulation, teen stupidity or a cry for help.

I really think it depends on how she is as a whole as to how much I would discourage the relationship… if at all. And by discourage, you can really only say you don’t like some of the stuff she’s done, because the danger is at 17 you could push him towards her. And of course you can decide who you allow into your own home.

If you have discussed it with him, he knows what you think so I would leave it at that. With lifts, we live semi rurally with no public transport to speak of and my rule for lifts has always been that if a teenager with access to public transport could get to the place where my kids want to get to then I need to drive my kids there or pay for a taxi as they didn't choose where we live. Sometimes it means that I drive them to a bus stop or train station where they can then make their own way to where they want to be.

I live rurally and I try hard to be available to give my kids lifts whenever they ask, because I recognise that living out in the sticks was a choice that DH and I made and it's not fair for them to suffer from it. I haven't been in your shoes, but I think I would stand by that even if I disliked one of their boy / girlfriends, because it's still the case that if we lived in a town they could just go there anyway. So I would still give him lifts, and keep the lines of communication open in case he needs to use you as a sounding board if she does anything further.

If he wants to carry on seeing her then he needs to get himself there and back. He’s plenty old enough now!

At 17 he can be learning to drive ready to make him independent of lifts.
He could get himself a motorcycle or scooter and be independent immediately.
This would of course mean that he was free to make his own decisions about where he goes and who he sees.

I was brought up rurally and got a moped at 16 otherwise I had no way of getting to work, college & socialising, same with several of my friends. The ones who remained dependent on lifts or public transport (which was sparse even back then) were the ones that by default had less opportunities.

If you were living somewhere where DS could go and see his GF under his own steam, would you be stopping him?

If you wouldn't, then don't stop the lifts because you've chosen to live somewhere where he can't do that.