A
female
age
51-59,
anonymous
writes:This is a question about my daughter. She is 19, attractive, bubbly, fun loving, normal 19 year old. Likes to be out with her friends and doing her own thing has had 2 lovely boyfriends.She is currently with a guy who is older than her, 7 year to be exact. This has never bothered me or being an issue. The thing that concerns me is how she is being treated by him and I dont mean abusive or anything like that.I know and she knows he is not married or has any children as he lives in the same area as us and we know his family. He keeps her a secret from his friends and family. Its like she is seeing a married man. He lies to her about where he is at, which is mostly with an old woman who he does jobs for and spends most of his time there on a night and if he isnt there he spends his time on Facebook adding girls.She doesnt see him much either he just keeps her hanging night after night.She is turning into a different young women. She is constantly anxious, stressed, upset, angry and frustrated. Even her college tutors have said how different she is that she has poor concentration is always angry and has lost her bubbly personality.I am not an interfrearing mother, she lives her own life I am just a concerned and worried mother. We have a good relationship and she is very open with me and tells me most of what is going on with this guy.I have told her she deserves a lot better than him and does she want to be a secret all the time.He also seems a bit controlling with her too as she is unable to say things to him that upsets her as he "kicks off" she says. I do beleive she has being posting things over here about this guy.Any advice will be much appreciated.
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reader, anonymous, writes (2 April 2011): To Cerberus. Brilliant advice one again. I know what you mean about the embarrassment of these girls being younger. She is quite mature for her age but she can say things that make you go 'omg did she just say that' but that is being young and learning in life. She is a shy girl around new people and meeting his parents would be a huge, major worry to her as they are not the nicest of people, that is why he has lived with his grandparents most of his life. It does seem the more he treats her badly the more she hangs in there and she was never that type of girl. Her other 2 past boyfriends, she was the one who called all the shots but they were the same age as her. I try my hardest not to bad mouth him I just go along with her when she is talking about him.He did say to her that he wanted her to enjoy herself and she go out with her friends as he didnt want her friends saying that she never saw her or that he changed her. Not sure on that one if he being genuine!I dont like that facebook situation at all. He adds young girls all the time, adds them, then deletes a load at a time it even looks like he never uses it, as he deletes all the adds of his wall and never posts anything on it. I agree with that, if it not over Facebook then its not official it doesnt even say his relationship status. This is how these two met bye the way.We do talk about my past relationships as her dad, my husband, is 12 years older than me but I never encountered any of the problems she is dealing with.I do think she will hang on in there as she said, she likes that he is older, has a good job (teacher)and when hes being nice he is really nice but I know she has some doubts about him. I dont know if he will ever commit to this relationship, I do believe he does has feelings for her he tells her quite a lot, but actions speak 100 times more than words. I also think he has trust issues with her, as I said she is a girl who turns guys heads and she does like to be out on the town with her friends as she should at her age.I am worrying more about her at the moment because she posted things over here, so then I knew she had a troubled mind. She will live and learn from this guy and this experience in her life and the Ben and Jerrys at the ready and a big bottle of wine.Cindycares. Thank you for your advice I agree whole heartedly with you this is a hobby of his and he enjoys it and if wasnt this it would be something else. Its a good insight into how she thinking at the moment ive just seen this post she has written.Thanks to both of you for your time and advice its much appreciated its good to hear an outside opinion.
A
female
reader, CindyCares  +, writes (1 April 2011):
 I answered your daughter yesterday.
I think the problem is she thinks this situation is all because of the older woman and it sounded like she even sort of suspects the bf of being sexually involved with the older woman ( which, I can't even begin to believe. "Cougar " relationships - older woman younger man - are pretty common, but with a 40 years age difference she would not be a cougar,she would be a vulture ! )
But it's not that if he got rid of the older woman, THEN he'd make a good boyfriend. He'd probably find some other friend or hobby to occupy his time with.
If a guy is uncommited- it's mostly because he dislikes committment, not because he dislikes the girl. I am sure your daughter is lovely, but she could be twice as lovely yet the guy could still prefer not having any obligations to her , keeping things casual, ergo not introducing her officially to his friends.
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reader, anonymous, writes (1 April 2011): I just want to add one more thing, all of this happened before facebook. Facebook is really good for finding out where you stand with a person. If they won't make it official on that then they're not really interested in making it official at all.
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reader, anonymous, writes (1 April 2011): As the older guy it can be very awkward. It's not about the girl as a person but the level of maturity. Honestly OP it can be embarrassing sometimes the things they come out with because it shows their age and does make you feel a bit wrong sometimes.You see there's a 'dirty old man' stigma still attached to that kind of relationship and when amongst your friends of the same age when the girl says something that in comparison to our age and life experience is childish, it can be very awkward but this guy isn't doing that OP. This guy is treating your daughter like his dirty little secret.I had no problem telling everyone about the girls I was dating, all my friends understood, my family understood but I kept them away initially so we could bond first. So the girl would get to know me first, my sense of humour, my tastes etc. It might sound weird but I kinda waited for some of my maturity rubbed off on them so when they met my friends and family they were already comfortable enough around me not to be offended by our humour or things like that pretty normal stuff except hanging out with her friends took a lot longer because honestly it can be annoying as hell sitting and listening to young people talk about all these cool "new" things that are just old hat to us.Again though this guy isn't doing any of that. He lies to her, he's keeping his options open by adding more girls on facebook, he's treating her like a piece of ass that he can and does pick up and throw away. Now I had gotten to that stage before I got with my current girlfriend. I dated younger girls and they always seemed to just grow out of the relationship, it's too transitional a period in their lives to be solid. I'm not proud but I treated girls exactly like he's treating your daughter as good for sex and nothing else. You know the worst thing I realized about all that? Is that they literally couldn't get enough of me and it seemed the more distant I was, the more I treated them mean and didn't commit, the more they wanted me. I really would love to know why that is, I mean I'm not a bad person I was a little bitter back then but the more I tried to get out of those situations the harder they fought to keep me even though everyone in their lives were telling them, truthfully, that I was using them.You wan to know the key issue in your situation OP? It's the effect it's having on your daughter that's the greatest indication of what kind of guy this is. Because you see the girls I dated when I truly was being nice and really did want to be with them for more than just sex. I went out of my way to make sure they felt good. They didn't suffer when they were with me, if anything they were happier people. When dating someone makes you miserable OP then they're not right for you. You know this as well as anyone, if he was treating her well she wouldn't be having all these issues. So if you're wondering what kind of person he is don't, he's irrelevant. It's your daughter and the effect it's having on her that matters and that's the best way to guide her in this too. None of that "he's no good for you" stuff. That only makes it more "romantic" because it gives girls her age that "us against the world" feeling and can actually strengthen her attachment to him. You wouldn't believe how strong that can get, I've seen girls ruin their closest friendships just to stay being used by me because they felt hurt every time I was criticized and "friends should never hurt one another". You know how that works you've surely felt the same about some guy and when everyone told you he was an ass you felt obliged to prove them wrong, "they don't know what he's really like". 'Us against the world' is a very strong emotion.Unfortunately OP she's still so inexperienced that she doesn't understand that love is not supposed to be damaging and painful. Just because it can be doesn't mean we have to accept that. Like the rest of us OP it probably took you a long time to figure that one out. As you can see from this website some people never do.If I were you I'd approach this with caution. I would not bad mouth him at all. She'll see that herself all you can do is tell her if a specific situation they're in is good or bad. All you can do is try and keep her on her toes and keep her life ticking by until she gets herself out of this. As you can see from what I post I mostly write about my own experiences and let people judge for themselves, I can tell them what I experienced, felt and thought, and then suggest a course of action based on what would have worked on me or for me. Perhaps you could open up to her about similar relationships you've had. How they happened and what you did to resolve them. You're the woman she looks to for inspiration and she is essentially a product of you, so perhaps learning how you coped and how you felt may help her relate to her own situation and may just give her that little added knowledge to create some doubt in her mind about this guy. Without directly insulting him or questioning her ability to have a relationship or being bossy sounding.For when this all comes crashing and you want to help her mend her broken heart, Choc fudge brownie is the nicest flavour ben and jerry's, and sharing a few glasses of wine can help too. Good luck OP, I have no doubt she'll be okay, just be the strong one for her and try not worry too much. This is a lesson she'll have to learn and she's learning it young so she probably won't repeat it in the future.
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reader, anonymous, writes (1 April 2011): Thank you for the good advice, very much appreciated. I know we have all being there with the wrong people in our lives and we have learnt from our mistakes and young people do too.
I just hate to see the damage he is doing to her and how she has changed over these last few months. How she sits and waits for the texts from him or when she is going to see him next.
To Cerebus, I once saw some advice you gave someone as you said you were with a younger girl. I just sometimes wonder if he keeps her secret because she is younger than him but he hasnt nothing to be ashamed of her, shes a nice girl, doing well in college, nice looking, always looks good, from nice family, polite, well mannered.
I just do not understand the secrecy, you would think he was married. Infact you would think he was married to this old woman who is 60 something as he spends all his time at her house. Infact my daughter told me last night that this woman asked him if he wanted to go out for Sunday lunch and he said he was going with her. Am I just being over sensative here or is this guy a bit creepy?
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reader, anonymous, writes (1 April 2011): There's nothing you can do but sit back and watch unfortunately. Be there for her without judgement or reservation and help her pick up the pieces when this all goes wrong.
You were her age and you know what it's like. You most likely have dated a few bad apples in your time too so you know from your own experience that there is nothing anyone else can say or do to get her to snap out of this, she has to figure it out for herself.
OP you know from your own experiences that girls her age become more attached to guys like him than any other kind of guy. Women love a guy with an edge, a guy who's exciting and a relationship filled with passion, unfortunately girls her age can't yet distinguish between negative passion and positive passion, so they accept all this drama and they keep going. What's worse is they become so enamoured with the guy that they will fight to keep him.
She has to learn her own lessons from this, she has to find her own strength to ditch this guy and hopefully sooner rather than later. You can't live her life for her and you can't interfere. Just have the tissues, ben and jerry's and your loving arms ready for when she needs you.
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reader, DrPsych  +, writes (1 April 2011):
 I think you are being a nice, supportive mother. The boyfriend sounds like a loser if he has a lovely girlfriend who he treats badly. Sadly this is a life lesson for her to learn. You can advise her but it is up to her to leave him. It is also the case that people will treat you how you let yourself be treated. If she lets him control her and continues to date a man that lies and denies her affection then you have to see that she is responsible for the outcome too. By staying with him she is saying that she accepts the bad treatment. Your daughter is young and most young people make dating mistakes - I did at her age, surely you did too. Hopefully she will realise he is not the man for her and walk away, or he will run off with one of his facebook ladies. If you give her too much criticism over the relationship then she may turn on you when it eventually fizzles out. When people are hurt and rejected they often pick on the wrong person. It can be easier than facing up to the truth and taking responsibility for your own actions.
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