I’m a 19 year old guy (if that matters or anything), and I’m in agreement with everyone here. This guy sounds like a freakin’ tool.
Ditto what everyone else said.
Here’s another thing I’m interested in: your daughter. Does she have a history of attracting/rescuing losers/control freaks/potential abusers?
Is she inexperienced or does her enabling behavior indicate her own issues? In short, is her boyfriend a symptom of an underlying conflict within her?
P.S. No offense, whatsoever.
Wow. I’m gone for the afternoon, and look what happens, I get lots of responses!
Me, too, baby, me too! And I’ll be helping her any way I can. Problem is, if I try too hard to help her, I might just push her in the wrong direction!
Oh, believe me, I wouldn’t! In fact, when she said that to me, I said “when have you ever known me to lie?” and she said, “Umm. . .never.” I said “that’s right, and I’m not about to start now. The very fact that you feel the need to lie to him is a very bad sign.”
I do understand that. I guess I invited the contrary experiences, because I didn’t need anyone popping in accusing me of painting with too broad of a brush and whatnot. If anyone actually posts contrary experiences, I will certainly know that these are the exceptions, not the rule!
Well, he won’t find any weak links here! We’re all agreed that this guy is very much potentially bad news, and we won’t hesitate to do whatever it takes to protect her from him!
I completely agree with you! Having said that, though, it’s a fine line we tread; see, our daughter has been diagnosed bipolar, borderline personality disorder; she is also suicidal (when she skips her meds or doesn’t get enough sleep) and is a cutter. Typical for this type of person, she’s very rebellious and manipulative. This is why I’m convinced that outright banning her from seeing him won’t work. I have to help her to see for herself that this guy is horrendously bad news incarnate!
I know this is a very serious issue, but this still made me giggle; thanks!
Very good points that I hadn’t thought of before! I’ll be sure to bring this up with her.
Well, we can get the Baltimore news out here, but we often don’t bother. I’m thinking about having her read this, but on the other hand, she might just pick the article apart, finding the differences between the creep in the news story and her creep! :rolleyes:
casdave, that’s some excellent and potentially very useful information about solvent sniffers. I suspect when I talk to her about it, she’ll say “Oh, that doesn’t matter because he doesn’t do that any more” in which case I’ll tell her that obviously he’s still affected by it, or he wouldn’t still be getting disability!
Well, she’s already been sexually active (although she says she hasn’t done anything with him yet), so, yeah, I think chances are good that that’ll happen sooner or later, if she doesn’t dump him realy soon. I will tell her, though, that even if they are sexually active, that doesn’t mean she can’t come to us about problems, and it doesn’t give him the right to control and manipulate her!
An excellent point I hadn’t thought of! And as a matter of fact, we can find out. Hubby’s best friend works for the Dept. of Public Safety in Baltimore and has access to all kinds of neato information! What a great idea!
Ah, don’t I wish I had that option! I don’t have any relatives that are in a position to take on a kid with all of her problems!
If anything, I’ll err in the other direction; things that might seem inocuous coming from some other guy will seem freaky coming from him!
No offense taken! Yes, she has a history of attracting losers. One of the big problems (see above statement about bipolar disorder/borderline personality disorder). One of the big symptoms of all of this is impulsiveness; she doesn’t think through her actions. Also, she doesn’t like to put a lot of effort into things; to have a good relationship with a good guy, you have to work at it. She’s not really willing to do that at this point in her life. Emotionally needy guys are easy to win over in the beginning, and that’s what she looks for: the path of least resistance. I’m hoping that when keeping him happy gets harder, she’ll decide it’s too much work for her, and give up.
Thanks, all, for ideas, responses and support!
By any chance is/are any of the following possible:
-
A close (probably female) friend of hers just got herself into a relationship, and your daughter doesn’t want to feel unpopular/undesired/etc, or the friend is spending a lot of time with this new beau and your daughter doesn’t want to be lonely, or maybe the friend (or someone) said something to your daughter that made her think there’s something wrong with being single, or there’s something wrong with her and guys don’t want her.
-
Your daughter sees your successful relationship with your husband and wants that, but doesn’t know where to go looking for a proper guy so she’s settling for whoever comes along.
-
She feels threatened in a social situation where she hangs with this guy, and despite the drawbacks she feels safe® with him there than without him there.
Shots in the dark, maybe.
Something I didn’t see mentioned here: This guy evidently has issues about beinbg accepted by others (loved). He gets a positive response from your daughter and wants to keep that - natural reaction. I’d say the daughter also has some leanings in that direction as well, and it’s good you have strong family love and support.
It seems unconditional, I hope it is, cause that is what will save her if saving is needed. "We all make mistakes, it’s OK, we love you no matter what, the important thing is that you are happy… etc.
I feel sorry for the kid. Sounds like he was the kid that was picked on in jr. high and did things to get acceptance. Problem is, at this point he’s likely developed a good “me vs. them” ethic that could have him reacting in dangerous ways at a moment’s notice.
His jealousy comes from his lack of acceptance by others; he’s afraid if your daughter has a chance she’ll leave him. So he ‘buys’ her, with a $70 necklace. He’ll try to turn her against you (cause ‘they’ don’t understand), try to get her to engage in impulsive behavior (let’s run to jersey abd get married at Atlantic City before your parents make us split up).
Get as much info about this guy as you can. Get to know him! Invite him to dinner, to family events, gain his trust. Then you have to head him off at the pass: figure out which kinds of things are likely to happen and mitigate.
Tell your daughter how important it is to you that when she marries you get to give her away/attend the wedding/give her a big wedding, etc. Do it with love. How important it is to you that she takes time to get married, has a long engagement, etc. How important it is to you that she not be abused and that she is free to have as many friends as she wants. Let her know that jealousy is a sign of insecurity, and insecurity usually means someone is hiding something. What is this guy hiding?
Obviously you can’t tell her to stop seeing this guy, but you can learn this guys secrets, show her his secrets and have her make an informed, sensible decision.
Best of luck, and luck is made, not born.
It is incredibly important that this guy knows you aren’t going to suddenly become uninterested in your daughter. Abusers (which he sounds like to me) look for women who are cut off from support systems, or who are easily separated from those support systems.
Stay involved. If they are at your home, be around, check in, ask questions and generally be a gigantic pest, even if it angers your daughter. If they are out, just happen to show up where they are. Have family members or friends show up and check in too. If they are at his home call - frequently.
The message you want this guy to get is that your daughter is not someone who he’s going to be able to mistreat and get away with it. That if she’s unhappy or hurt you’ll be there and you’ll know - even the most cold and hardened abuser won’t want it to be known that he’s abusive. But again above that they look for people who are abusable, and a girl who is cut off from her family is easier to abuse. Not that you seem like the type to wash your hands of her, but well… just stay very and visibly involved.
Twiddle
Firstly, yes, I think this is a bad idea. (OK, it’s possible he’s a lovey but misunderstood person, but it’s tripped enough warning signs to make me say ‘no way’.)
However, I don’t know if forbidding her to see him, sending her away, etc. would necessarily help. I realise not having kids/being a teenage girl, etc, doesn’t exactly qualify me to give this advice, and it sounds awful, but look at it like this. In 5 years time, she’ll likely be a young woman with a job, at university, etc. Then she’ll have to make her own choice, and if her experience of potentially abusive people is “Well, it was fun, but my parents were against it” she can end up right back there. Somehow she herself has to be convinced. She thinks she’s in love (I’m fairly sure), so is probably not going to like hearing any of this. Personally I’d start by explaining why you think this is bad, saying “You’re going to have to choose between this guy and Paul sooner or later. I know what I’d do.”, saying that it’s her decision, but knowing exactly where she is is good, being there for her when it all goes wrong. I know this doesn’t help you know what to do, but I think it needs to be considered.
Oh, I just thought of this - it probably wouldn’t help, but would any of her friends be more persuasive? You could consider it.
PS. You sound like a great parent. For instance, making clear that her being sexually active doesn’t prevent coming to you for help, etc. Not that many years ago I could have been very happy with you as my dad 
Obviously this is an incredibly bad idea. Young guys do tend to be a little more jealous and just downright weird in relationships, but it’s a lot easier to deal with when they are 15 or 16. That this guy is acting like this at 20 means he probably won’t ever change.
I agree that you’re going to have to make her realize that this is a bad idea without actually pounding it into her head, which might push her towards him.
Also, kudos on not lying for her. My parents refused to lie to my friends or girlfriends for me and, although I hated it at the time, I’m thankful for it now. I think it made me a stronger person and gave me better social and communication skills.
This is a horrible train-wreck of an idea. He’ll use it against you saying things like “Your family is a bunch of psycho-stalker weirdo-freaks!” and she’ll say “Yea, I like, totally agree. What the hell is wrong with them?!!”
Then they’ll just make sure that from then on you don’t know where they are.
Wouldn’t have worked, Shade! What with me being a woman an’ all. . .
Everyone else, thanks for all the input, but I believe the situation resolved itself last night, even as I was composing my ever-so-lengthy post. My daughter was sitting out on the porch with her friend, who was spending the night. As they sat there, Paul showed up. Daughter ran up to give him a hug (she hugs all of her friends), and Daniel just “happened” to be passing by and see it (I strongly suspect he was checking on her). Then Daniel took off and showed up a few minutes later with two friends, intent on kicking the crap out of Paul. My daughter left the scene, and when she came back, Daniel and company were gone; apparently no fighting took place (maybe when they realized that Paul is a body-builder and could have wiped up the street with them, they took off). Anyway, my daughter gave Daniel time to get home, then called him and said “It’s over; I can’t handle the jealousy shit” and hung up. He tried to call here a bit later, and my middle daughter, who knew nothing of this at that point, answered the phone. My daughter said to just hang up on him, so I did. But if he continues to call here, I think I will have to send hubby around to have a little chat with him.
’Punha, I believe it’s entirely possible that she sees what her father and I have, and wants it for herself, but doesn’t know how to go about it. I’ve told her many times that our relationship did not develop overnight. We dated for more than two years before we were exchanging “I love yous”. And we discussed important things like politics, religion, kids, everything. We didn’t agree on everything, and that’s actually a good sign, IMHO. If I was dating a guy and I said “I’m Catholic” and he said “Me, too!” and I said “I’m a conservative” and he said “Me, too!” and I said “I want 5 kids someday,” and he said “Me, too!” well, that would worry me. If I wanted to live with someone who agreed with me all the time about everything, well, I’d live with myself!
I told my daughter last night that I hope she’s learned something about jumping into relationships too quickly, and she says she has; only time will tell. This whole thing is a pattern for her: she talks to a guy a couple of times on the phone, goes out with him once, and bam, they’re exclusive; throwing around the word “love” with abandon, etc. I’ve tried explaining to her that using the L-word so recklessly cheapens it, but I don’t think she gets it. Well, maybe someday she will.
Doh. Thanks for the heads up.
Though I maintain that as a hypothetical, you could be either parent
I’m glad it worked out, kudos to daughter for figuring out so quickly that this was a bad idea.
On the subject of love, I am forced to quote from Sabrina the Teenage Witch. I realise this is probably the only meaningful quote in any program with a title that sounds even vaguely like that, but I found this one poignant:
“I knew it would be true love. It always is at their age.”
Nice save! 
Nice quote!
I am a seventeen year-old girl, norinew, and I have to applaud the way you handled this situation. By not yelling at your daughter or demanding she stop seeing this guy, which would have alienated her and probably accomplished nothing except forcing her to lie to you, you still managed to monitor the situation and make sure it was ok. Props to you.
Sounds very bad news to me …
wonders why it’s only men like the one in the OP who approach/hit on women
Thanks, monica; I really appreciate that. Now if I could just convince my particular brand of 17-year-old that we’re really not unreasonable ogres! :eek:
I’m so glad this worked out so well, and so quickly.
And just in case you want MY vote (which I’m sure you don’t ) I think I’d be hoping that she’ll wake up some morning and start looking at this Paul person in a whole new light!
So, this glue sniffer is a coward as well as a bully.
My thoughts are that he will end up in jail, look at the kind of company he keeps, the type that would get together before assualting someone, and it appears he planned the attack beforehand by calling his ‘friends’.
I’ll lay money down that this idiot has had contact with the police and that he is familiar to them.
You might consider giving your local police a call so they can have a chat, read his horoscope to him.It might also be useful if anything else should happen as he will be on police radar as well.
Glad to hear she dumped him. Now, please run don’t walk to your nearest bookseller and buy a copy of The Gift of Fear. She should read it before this guy tries to win her back. And you should read it and your husband should read it. And Paul and Jessica should read it too.
Oh, boy, I hope this isn’t indicative of what I’m in for. I’m going through this with my almost-16-year-old right now; depression and cutting. She is starting on a very rebellious path, and getting very mouthy and downright obnoxious.
She’s been really good about taking her meds and seeing her therapist, though.
Glad to hear she dumped the creep. Hope things are going well.
As an aside, have you tried dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) for your daughter? My sister has BPD with the same problems (cutting, suicide attempts, going haywire when she’s off her meds or not enough sleep), and I think the dialetical behavior therapy is starting to help. It involves a group therapy session once a week, and a close relationship with a personal therapist they see once or twice a week.
Anyhow, good luck. It sounds like she’s making some good decisions, despite her other problems. That’s a very good sign!
You might also check out Red Flags! How to Know When You’re Dating a Loser by Gary S. Aumiller and Daniel A. Goldfarb (Amazon has it, but I don’t know how to do a complicated link). They’re a couple of psychologists who do police profiles. Could also be titled How NOT to Raise Your Son, Unless You Want Him to Grow Up a Total Loser Unable to Function Among Healthy Adults.
Good reading for anyone, really.