Forbidding Teen Romance

has your husband ever read romeo and juliet?

you're not much better. you're sending her to therapist, not to help her get better tools in order to bolster her own self esteem and establish boundaries, but to 'get through to her' with the opinions you've decided she should have.

this does not bode well.
khairete
S.

ETA: Your daughter is "set" on this relationship? Then LOVE on him. Use reverse psychology and be overly loving and oh my God - he's the best...she will start seeing all of his flaws and then move on...talk with the therapist about this. Seriously. Reverse Psychology is great for teenagers. She's REBELLING!!
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C. - you forbid this relationship? She will only want it more.

Tell your husband that if he wants her to run off and be with this character? He can keep yapping. If he keeps his mouth shut? She will figure it out.

If the kid needs to apologize - so be it. But I would NOT say the apology makes everything alright, it doesn't. ACTIONS speak louder than words.

Interesting that he wants his parents involved. It's possible that they said he was grounded and he needed to apologize - but a lot of kids (especially those forced to say "I'm sorry" at age 3 when they weren't!) think an apology is a do-over and implies some obligation to take them back and pretend it didn't happen.

I think forbidding a relationship never works, but I think empowering a teen (especially a girl) to say, "I deserve better than this" is a good thing. It's also not your daughter's obligation to take him back just because he apologized. But if she wants to, you can consider letting him and his parents into your living room (your territory) and just listening to what he says. Don't respond, and tell your husband to contain his body language and eye-rolling. Don't fill the silences. Let the boy do that. Let him squirm.

I think it's important to separate whether they break up or have arguments from what he does on line. It's fine to state your concerns (after he goes through the squirming) - say you think he sounds sincere in his remorse, but you have concerns about his decision to go public with a private argument/dispute, and you wonder what else he will do on line if they argue again. Then stop talking and let him think about it and try to come up with an answer. The less you say, the more he has to talk and the less your daughter will say you are ganging up on him.

I don't know what the parents will say. If they say, "He wasn't raised like this and he knows better," you have to find a diplomatic way of saying, "Well, obviously not since he did it!" Like, "It's difficult to control what our children do on line once they have phones and computers. So what do you suggest? How will things be different in the future?" If they come up with something like, "Well, he knows now and he learned his lesson," you can respond with something like, "What's a good way to ensure that? My concern is that once something is out on the internet, it stays out there forever. Even if someone takes down a post or a tweet, someone else has shared it, forwarded it, or taken a screen shot of it." Again, let everyone else do the talking while you just listen. You have to have a totally neutral tone in this though. It's very hard to not react (either in anger or immediate forgiveness or all-is-well) - you have to be unemotional and kind of blank. That puts the onus on them and lets them find new ways to say things. Based on how agitated or angry they get (or don't), you'll get a good indication of what the dynamics are like.

It's good to let the teens know that their actions say more about them than about the person they bad mouthed. So this boy putting something up about your daughter actually damaged his own reputation as well.

If it happens again, you have to have a good hard talk with your daughter about why she thinks she should put up with this from this boy. What will she do with the next boy? And the next? And the 25 or 35 year old man who belittles her? There's also a lot of pressure on women to do stuff to make men feel better - to take more care of the man's ego than her own. Work on that if you see signs of it.

Forbidding a relationship makes kids sneak around, and once they turn 18, they have even more freedom. You don't want a relationship of defiance going on.

I don't think I'd forbid it. I'd have them meet at your house, and have friends over there, and observe it. That way if you see anything manipulative or controlling, especially in a group dynamic, then you can address it.

I went out with an unsavory kind of guy, My mother observed some behaviors she was not comfortable with. I was living away and she didn't have as much influence as I wish she'd had. I was older though (college). It's unfortunate but it was a learning experience. My grandmother and my mother just kept empowering me by being supportive.

I would just let her know you have her back, and get your husband on board. Start small - have him visit your home, and have other kids there too - and make it light/casual and also be around.

If you feel comfortable over time - let them have more freedom. If it was a girlfriend who had trashed her on the internet, how would you handle it? Know what I mean? It's kind of like cyberbullying in a way - it's a breach of trust - it's not just dating, it's trust issues here - and dad has to back off a bit to let your daughter learn how to manage her own relationships.

Just be there to guide her and step in if necessary. I'd also keep an eye on their texting, etc. If he's been very careless with what he puts out there on the internet - I wouldn't necessarily trust him in that regard either. Keep an eye on it.

You forbid her from seeing him? She will want him that much more. It's like the forbidden fruit.

DO NOT forbid it. Welcome him. Tell him you are very disappointed with his words against your daughter. However, she has chosen to accept you back, despite your poor behavior. I will be watching you. You want my trust back? You'll have to earn it. Saying sorry is NOT enough.

Your husband wants to protect his daughter from someone who has proven to be a bad seed, but the truth is sometimes, especially as they approach adulthood, we have to let our kids make their own mistakes or we risk pushing them away. I would talk with your daughter, explain why you want so much more/better for her and hope that one day she will demand better for herself, and then let her know you will let her make her own choices because it is her life in the end. It will be hard but you may have to be open to allowing this boy to prove he can change and be the man your daughter deserves if she decided to give him the chance, and it sounds like that is what she wants.

If your daughter is willing, have your husband meet with her therapist for one session to talk about his response and possible consequences. It seems to me your husband is the one who needs a bit of getting through to. Unless you have real safety concerns about this young man, ie he is controlling or otherwise abusive, dad is going to have to accept that while she is his daughter, she is also a person in her own right who needs to be able to make her own decisions. If he holds firm on his ban on a relationship, that will mean she won't seek out his help if she needs it at some point down the line. And really, that is the opposite of what he is trying to achieve.

heres what a teen thinks... oh mom forbids me to see him.. so i will sneak around and do it anyway.
find another way to deal with this, give the guy another chance, help your daughter find a new group of friends or have her get a job so she does not have time for boyfriends

You seem to forget that this young man is still YOUNG. Your husband expects him to act like a full-fledged adult.

This idea of forbidding their relationship is just going to come back and bite you both in the butt. What's going to happen if she ends up with another guy who doesn't give a darn about apologizing to her parents? This boy at least tried.

I met my husband when I was 16. He was 17. He broke up with me 4 times in 3 years. He said some not-so-nice things about me when we were broken up, too. (No social media back then.) When he came back to me, I called him out on it. He apologized to me. I gave him another chance. The rest of the breakups were more about him being in college and me still being in high school. That's part of growing up.

When I showed up to move into my dorm as a brand new college student, to my surprise, he was sitting there waiting for us, and my mom whispered to my dad "Here we go again...". They didn't interfere. They trusted ME to decide if I wanted to continue dating him. We spent two years together in school, and then he waited for me to finish before we married. He and I both did a lot of growing up during those years. And we've been married 30+ years now.

You need to sit down with your husband and really look at your roles here. How is your daughter going to learn how to trust herself if you try to force your hand here? You will either make her sneak behind your back, making her resent everything about you, or you will make her doubt herself SO MUCH that she will just be a ragdoll for anyone after she's out of your sphere of influence.

Be supportive of your daughter. Don't be her guard. Show her EARNED respect. She him EARNED respect. If they end up marrying down the line, you will be glad that you did. She may end up walking out on you for him if you try to keep them from each other. In one short year, she will be an adult and you will not be able to do anything but take financial support away from her. Is that what you want? To keep her from going to college because she wants to date this young man? So she would end up taking a low paying job and moving in with him to get away from her domineering parents?

Don't do it. Accept her wishes and show GRACE to this young man. If my parents hadn't shown grace to my husband, what would have happened? Would he have been cold towards them? Would they have been ugly to him? Having harmony between my husband and my parents has been a blessing to ALL of us. That's what YOU should want for your daughter long-term. If she tires of him on her own terms without holding on to him to spite her controlling parents, she will find someone else. If she marries him later on, you will WANT to be friends with him. Think about this carefully. The course of action you two are following is only going to cause you all problems.

I will say that forbidding it will not work well at all. Keep your eyes open. My daughter was seeing a boy that seemed awesome. He had great potential and was just very nice. Then I started really noticing that he was not so nice. He broke off with her but they ended up being friends. But he got very manipulative. She went through a lot of ups and downs. And the downs were usually after spending time with him. He made her feel like she wasn't worth anything. The one thing I will say is he had horrible role models, and he parents were ...something else, esp Dad. Keep a close relationship with your daughter so she will talk to you.

I agree forbidding the relationship will make your daughter more likely to be with him. I would work on being positive with her and trying to keep her busy with activities. Try to encourage her to spend time with her friends. Also, if you need to maybe limit time on electronic devices. I am currently going through a similar situation with my daughter. You will get frustrated focus on self care for yourself.

It doesn't sound like he has anything positive to offer if he is rude to your daughter and toys with her emotions by breaking up and making up over and over, then spreads gossip whenever they are apart. It would probably be best to let them grow up and mature some before they get back together. She is at an age where her self-esteem needs to be cultivated and she needs to learn to stand up for herself, while recognizing abusive relationships. Maybe they can attempt to ease into a friendship, but it doesn't sound like he respects her enough to have a relationship, nor that he loves her. I guess you can't really stop her from doing what she wants to do because she will just do it anyway, but you can talk to her and help her realize he is not good for her and she can do better, as well as reminding her to value herself and stand up for herself.