I never “pretended my daughter was 17.” I’ve stated my kids’ ages countless times on this board.
He said he might try to find my real daughter in real life. There isn’t a good reason to say that, though I accept that he didn’t mean anything by it. It’s a disturbing thing to hear.
I’ll be sure to read all 55,319 of your posts before responding to you again. In return, you could perhaps read even one of the posts you respond to?
Obviously.
Too bad you don’t have a mod hat to dictate what kinds of warnings are issued. Guess you’ll just have to settle for whining and pouting.
I think it was obvious to most of us that he was only saying it to make a point. In fact,
And quite frankly, some guy threatening to go out and shoot guys for flirting with his daughter is pretty disturbing as well.
I have the feeling your daughters are going to be getting away with a LOT behind your back. (And before you say “no they won’t”, trust me – I was a teenager, and I had a friend with a strict dad like you – and you wouldn’t believe the crap she got away with.)
You forget, Dio is better than all other parents.
I’m not strict. I don’t intend to be strict. I am actually quite permissive. I will not allow adults to exploit my children, though.
It’s a good thing no-one has suggested otherwise, then.
TurningJapanese, I hope you’re still reading to see a perfect example of how not to react to the situation. I think Dio is providing an excellent service in this thread by playing the role of the bad example. Your approach, much more measured, realistic, and rational, appears spot on.
And you might be wrong.
When I was 27, I met a wonderful 17 year old girl. We were very close friends for ten years, but for her the romantic/sexual spark never ignited.
She met someone else along the way and ended up marrying him. A year or so later, I started dating a woman who had been a high school classmate of the first woman. She, oviously, was also ten years younger than me; she was 28 and I was 38. We’ve been married for more than 13 years now.
I am, however, still the closest of friends with the first one. After my wife, she is my best friend. We communicate regularly online. Our families socialize from time to time and our daughters have had sleepovers.
So I am a partner in a friendship that started 26 years ago, between people ten years apart in age.
I’m not saying it’s typical, but it happens.
DtC, there are only 12 states in the US in which the age of consent is 18. In your state, it’s 16, plus there are close-in-age exceptions down through age 13. You may feel protective of your kids but you would have no legal standing to threaten a boyfriend in this particular situation. I sympathize with the history you have, being a sexual assault survivor myself, but violence is not a solution, and hypothesizing that you’d threaten every guy who you might deem inappropriate is not a rational response.
Oh, and my mom was 18 - but graduated from high school - when she met a nice guy at her workplace. She thought he was a few years older than she. He thought she was a few years younger than he. Turns out they were 10 years apart, but they didn’t figure that out until they’d been dating for a while. They married, had my sister and I, and were married until my dad died just a bit short of their 25th wedding anniversary.
Of course, those were different times when women were more expected to marry young and have kids young, and generally I think that those in their early-20s and up really shouldn’t be dating high schoolers, but there are exceptions. The gal in this case needs to communicate with her mom, and freaking out isn’t going to help anything.
(Bolding mine)
Steophan, it’s obvious you’re not in earnest. Still, it’s better not to suggest, even jestingly, that you want to find another poster or their family IRL, in this or similar contexts.
No warning issued.
I go away for one day and look what happens! 
Actually, after Daughter and I spoke, things are back to normal. She is feeling down about the punishment and not seeing The Guy, but she’s not being a pain about it.
As far as the The Guy, I didn’t want to issue an ultimatum, so I asked her, for the sake of my peace of mind, to just cool it with the Guy until she’s 18. If they care for each other now, they will in 6 months. She agreed. We’ll see how that works out.
It won’t make me more comfortable about the situation, but I’m hoping the break may cool down the relationship.
Another reason for the request is that her father reacted much like Diogenes the Cynic would react. They are not on speaking terms and has refused to go back to his house. I spent over an hour on the phone with him, talking him out of hurting the Guy. When I asked him why he would do that, his response was “It’ll make me feel better” Nice. He finally agreed not to hunt the Guy down when I convinced him that he should be worrying about his Daughter more than his own feelings right now. Like it or not, she cares about the Guy; if Dad hurts him I don’t think their relationship would ever be the same.
We usually stay on the same page as far as discipline and such, but I just can’t go along with his attitude. They had a great relationship before, now I’m here trying to mediate a truce between them and trying to deal with Daughter and her feelings… the whole thing has just gotten out of hand. I’m hoping the 6 month breather will calm him down as well.
It’s become a much bigger deal because of his extreme reaction.
Thanks again everyone. I feel a lot better about the situation, and have some great advice to think about.
Long page count. PTIP.
Be charged with a serious crime (murder, drug dealing, grand theft) at 17 most prosecutor’s are going to be gunning to trie the accused as an adult.
Well, as long as your child isn’t the type to respond positively to an adult flirting with them what do you have to worry about? I would say it’s part of life that your children are going to encounter people you don’t won’t them to met. Tough we can’t sanitize the world for them. Teach them how to react to potential danger and make responsible decisions and you won’t have a problem.
ugh, really? Pretty much the one piece of advice agreed on almost universally was not to stop her from seeing the guy, but you did that anyway to appease a lunatic. This does not bode well for the future. Either she will resent the hell out of you for months/years/decades, or she’ll see him anyway and you’ll get pissed if you find out (or she’ll get extremely secretive to keep you from finding out). You’re setting this up to fail out of the gate, and it’s a REALLY BAD IDEA.
You had a really great teaching opportunity here, that she could ignore the reaction of her crazy as fuck dad and come to you as an adult with adult problems. Instead you chose to treat her like a child. I’m really unhappy about this. Not that my opinion matters more than it costs to read…
Save the sanctimony. She did absolutely the right thing. I think I would like her husband. At least there’s one other sane and responsible father left in the world.
Asking that they cool it doesn’t necessarily equate to not seeing. I would definitely keep your eye on the ex as I guarantee your daughter is still seeing the guy and just presenting it as “being friends” instead of dating.
I would still have the birth control (hopefully refresher) discussion with her.
No she did not.
There are two stages here:
- the daughter is punished for several days for the lying, a period during which she’s not going out; she’s not seeing the guy but she’s not going out for ice cream with other friends either. But this is for the lying.
- mother and daughter have agreed that it’s best to tone things down with the guy - this does not mean “you’re not allowed to see him” or even “you’re not allowed to touch him”, it means “take it easy”. And it’s for a limited period, the next 6 months.