How should we handle our 17-year-old son's 19 YO girlfriend staying every weekend and never leaving his room!!!

[ThatTidyFawn]

Hi I have never posted before but really need some help and advice. My son is 17 and has his first girlfriend, she is 19, lives about 15 mins away from us went to a diff sixth form but they met on Snapchat. She comes on a Friday evening (we pick her up she doesn’t drive) and then usually leaves on a Monday morning. After she arrives on a Friday she never leaves my son’s room (apart from to go to the bathroom which she seems to try to ensure she does when no one is around). Initially my son said she was very shy and I understood but asked him to encourage her to come down, join in a bit etc. We would only be nice to her etc. It’s got worse if anything. My son comes down makes a ton of food for them both takes it back up. She never leaves the room and they basically spend all weekend in his room. It’s like we have a secret lodger! This has now been going on for a few months and just feel it’s a bizarre situation and that she needs to integrate a little bit with us if she wants to spend time here. My son takes my straighteners for her to use without asking and one day I needed them in the morning and knocked on his door and asked him to bring them out. He called just to come in which I did and they were both still in bed and she pulled the covers up over her head it was so awkward. They constantly order takeaways late at night and leave tons of food and packaging all over the room. We are constantly saying to bring things down after eating. My son sends me lists of things he’d like when I go to the shop and I know 80% of them are for her as most of it is stuff he doesn’t like eg smoked salmon, olives etc. I want to put my foot down and say it’s not continuing like this but my husband isn’t supportive of me taking a hard line approach and says does it really matter if they stay in his room. Although he agrees it’s not ideal, he hates confrontation and my son gets angry at us really easily so my husband doesn’t want to cause a row. I am also worried about my son’s A Levels as he wants to go to uni but since seeing her is hardly doing any work and his work is suffering. He goes to see her on a Monday and Tuesday evening (not overnight just for a few hours) and so there are only 2 evenings a week he’s not with her. It is so tricky to navigate and appreciate we have let it get to this but I kept hoping things would change. What do you think I should do? I am thinking of asking my sister to come over and mediate us talking to him as I don’t think he’d kick off in the same way if she is there.

Leaving the odd girlfriend to one side - this is unhealthy for your son. To get no exercise and stay cooped up in his room for days on end every week is not the behaviour I’d want to encourage or permit! Where are his friends? Other social contact? Hobbies? A Saturday job? It’s one thing if you have a young adult living at home who is contributing to the household but he’s a teenager about to embark on a serious year of study and this relationship is not going to be conducive to that at ALL. I’d frame it like this to your husband.

What happens if this continues is he may well fail his exams and then you’ll have an even bigger problem on your hands and he’ll have lost touch with normal living. It’s sad that she has so many issues but she isn’t your problem and the intensity of this relationship could be very damaging to your DS. I’d cut the lifts off and have a serious chat with your DH and present a united front to DS.

Start parenting your son! He’ll fail his exams if you abscond….

But that's even weirder.

Maybe you've discovered a mice/ant problem and need all food to be kept and consumed in the kitchen/dining room only and cleaned up immediately after finishing!

She stays over 3 nights a week, orders and pays take aways to someone else's house, happily accepts rides, no issues with making special requests for expensive food items. She is not shy or anxious.

Put your foot down. If she basically lives with you for half the week (which i don't really understand how in MN this seems to be the norm), then she has to accept that it comes with strings attached which include interacting with the people you live with. If this adult woman with a job can't do that then maybe they should hang out at the park. If she has such mental health issues where she genuinely is incapable of doing that, then she needs professional help and the solution is to not be locked up in his room

I suggest you read up about coercive control. My daughter had a boyfriend like this - she never went anywhere and just saw him. It turned out he was controlling what she did. She finished with him eventually and he stalked her. It isn't healthy to live like this.

Does he not have friends or a job? If he sees her two evenings during the week and all weekend. That doesn’t sound healthy at all, even before the “never leaves the room” part.

I can somewhat relate and it can be a pain in the arse. You start out with kindness I.e. picking her up but then you've made a rod for your own back and it's very hard to change it. But you can. It's your house and you pay the bills.
So I would start by saying no food in the room anymore. You want to eat you come to the table/kitchen etc.
She might well be shy but there is a very fine line between shy and rude and you need to explain this to your son.
Go in small steps to try to get to know her and but she needs to meet you half way with those small steps too.

When it's one of the days when she's not around why don't you show your son your post and he can read the replies.

Good luck. X

This Friday, you go and pick her up.

Insist she sits in the front with you and then have a chat.

Tell her that she is more than welcome in your home, but it isn’t really the done thing to ignore your hosts. You can tell she is shy, but you’d really like to get to know her better because your son likes her so much.

No more eating meals in the bedroom (I have that rule at home anyway as it’s gross) and tell her that you’d really like to see her wandering around the house, treating the place like her home, having a cup of tea and a chat in the kitchen etc.

If she hasn’t had much in the way of decent parenting, she probably doesn’t know the right way to behave and is feeling very shy and awkward. Help her feel more comfortable.

And rather than restrict your DS from seeing her because of his A-Levels, tell him how many hours of study you expect from him outside of school and let him figure out how to get it done.

Our daughter is allowed to have her girlfriend over two nights a week. Not consecutively. Three nights with two nights consecutive when it's a bank holiday.

We don't expect them to spend all their time with us, but a five minute conversation on arrival and departure is definitely expected. And DD's girlfriend uses her products, not mine.

Set some boundaries that work for you.

Our DS and his GF (Now wife so DIL) moved into our house after university. Her family are from abroad so it just made sense. They ate with us sometimes and sometimes made their own food they they paid for. They paid the electric bill as she worked from home and always was cold so had a heater in the room. They have now bought their own home nearby

They were obviously older at 21 years old so a different time frame but she came each holiday during university so 18 years old

But the part of your story that struck me were the lifts each time and special orders of grocery lists. That is a very simple thing to rectify. Just do your shopping without salmon and olives etc and don't ask them for extra items and buy some of the things your DS likes but don't take additions to your shopping list. If she speaks to you and asks politely then maybe but not through him. If they can pay for take aways then they can buy treats like salmon

Do you have other children in the house? What do they think?

I don't think he will do college work on the weekends she isn't there so don't see that helping

If he is 17 he is lower 6th hopefully

Did he enjoy school and work hard for GCSE?

Does he have any friends at his 6th form college that you could suggest he studies with?

Does he have free/study sessions at college, that he could study with his friends or at your house?

So I think shopping lists and lifts are the things to start with

I’d just say sorry no. If she wants to come and stay she has to eat in the kitchen with the family. I would stop picking her up.

What does “integrating” mean OP?
Most teenagers spend a lot of time in their rooms, with boy/girlfriends, at school or out with friends.

What are you expecting?

This is very good

Oh yeas we have one of these. We called her Anne Frank as they live in our loft conversion . I know, shoot me now.

She’s currently pregnant with my grandchild and I’m not even 50 - he’s 18 and we are wondering if she’s actually going to unpregnant herself but I laid down the boundary very early that this house does not do babies. Do what you want but I’m done with kids - get a job.

I have white chairs. No babies.

It’s horrendous…we are trying to steer it without losing him forever but he was a Year 7 in 2020 kid and I’m afraid the pandemic is to blame with a lot of this as 2-3 years older are okay and 2-3 years younger are generally but.. that particular cohort and a couple of other key ones are not. I work in youth services so it’s not just my lot here.

they once spent £16 getting Kaspars to deliver them ice cream?!

I think it will pass with boundaries but they will be late bloomers so don’t enable it if you can help it.

Assuming that this young woman has functioning legs, why can’t she walk to your house? Or get a bus?

This doesn't sound like an easy life! Especially if/when he fails his A levels because he has done no study - you will be stuck with this for years to come

Some of the above sounds sensible

but please beware OP that a lot of the advice in this thread may well be from parents with no experience (yet) of parenting this age group 😅

so easy to imagine how you would just not stand for things even in reality things creep in and young people do things very differently from how we did things at their age. It is a different world now.

also this age group has had a massive setback in their social development from COVID restrictions and anxiety and social anxiety are very commonplace

my DS at 19 started going out with a girl a bit like this, She was shy, and anxious, and to start with e we wanted her to be comfortable so gave her lots of space

So I can see and have experienced how this sort of behaviour and set up creeps in

i have continued to ask her to join us for dinner and occasionally she does

i have not set it out as a rules thing but more as in we would like to get to know this lovely girl of yours a bit better 😁

also took her out with us for a meal of few times, so over time things have changed a bit but it did require some effort

i am not big on the laying down the rules approach but everyone should parent their young adult kids how they see fit.

just a perspective from someone who has been in a similar situation 🙂

bit of coaxing like “come and have some pizza with us tonight, we would love to spend a bit of time with you 😁”

Totally agree. Plus who on earth allows food in bedrooms. If they eat they come downstairs. All meals happen in the kitchen that solves the problem

What is she like in the car on the journey to your house, is she sociable or does she just sit in silence?

@SpillTheTeaonThomas omg that is quite something 😬😬😬 how are you all coping? (Other than a dark sense of humour 😅)

What a load of rubbish. I do have kids this age. Their girl / boy friends are polite and sociable. They eat with us, they make polite conversation and they integrate into family. I wouldn’t stand for it. Mind you my kids are not allowed their girl / boy friends to stay over until post a levels.

Smoked salmon and not even a thank you? Fuck that. Also bit weird a 19 year old girl going out with a 17 year old boy 🤢

Absolutely not, stop picking her up, stop buying her food and stop letting your son order you around like you are running a hotel.
Say no to food in the bedroom and tell him that the sleepovers are not happening until he grows up, integrates with the rest of the household and stops living in a pigsty.

Tell him that you will stop picking her up unless they both sit down and agree a few house rules with you:
Basic politeness is non-negotiable.
They have to at least have dinner with you every night, and join in the conversation at the table.
They contribute an agreed amount each week to cover food for the extra person.
They do not borrow your possessions without asking.
You expect to be regularly thanked for your hospitality.

If they can't work with this, then she stops coming over.