relationship with son difficult because of girlfriend

[Anonymous]

My son graduated from college in May and is back home. The week before he graduated he let us know that he had a girlfriend (and has had her for as his girlfriend for 3 years). I knew he had a girlfriend back in his sophomore year (the same girl), but googled her at the time and found out that she had past felony charges, had served time in jail, and is 8 years older than he is. So I put up a stink; he lied and said he had broken up with her.

Well, long story short, he is still with her. He is looking for a job, but his GPA is subpar and he is in a liberal arts field so it will be hard. We provide him with a car, insurance, a room in our house, etc. When he told us about his girlfriend, he asked if he could visit her using the car (about a 4 hour drive to where his college town is). We said no because it's our car and our insurance. We also said we did not want her staying overnight in our house (our rules). Needless to say, he is not happy with us. She drives down and they stay somewhere else (I don't know if it's at one of his local friend's or AirBnB or what). She parks somewhere else in the neighborhood (not near our house) and we don't see her (although once I saw her with him talking to a neighbor up the street).

He is our only child. I am having a hard time sleeping at night thinking about all of this. I do not want to become estranged from him. Do you think we are taking the right approach. I am very worried about his future with this woman even though he tells me not to worry. My husband is more worried about him getting a job and taking responsibility in his life.

Any words of wisdom would be appreciated.

[Anonymous]

That's a very wrong approach. Stop paying for stuff. Stop controlling what he does with his life.

He will respect you more if you let him make his own mistakes.

And perhaps it will turn out that this is actually not a mistake, but either a valuable lesson in relationships, or the beginning of a lifelong, happy, relationship.

[Anonymous]

Op, I get you. I would be concerned about his choices as well but know if you try to control his relationships it will backfire. You know the drill, cut of the support - slowly if that makes you feel better. He better be spending 100% of his time on the job hunt or he would be out of my house. It is going to be grim given his not very useful college degree.

[Anonymous]

He has graduated from college. He is a legal adult. You can try to break him up with this woman, but until he wants to, it won't happen.

So as others have said, wish him well, tell him he's an adult and he needs to pay for his own expenses now, especially the car and insurance. The only thing I'd leave him on is health insurance.

[Anonymous]

Agree with other PPs. Time to start treating him like an adult, and to stop during purse strings to try to control him.

Start with the car. If you are providing him with a car, then he gets to use it as he sees fit, as long as he had gas and insurance and isn't DUIing. Let him know how much the insurance is and that beginning on x date, he will be responsible for paying for it. Period. You can leave him on your insurance as long as he faithfully gives you the cash every month. Otherwise, cut him off and take the car off the road. Let him take the bus. If driving is that important to him, he can work at Starbucks until he finds something better.

Girlfriend: would you let her spend the night in your house if you liked her? Then you have no cause (yet) to refuse her your hospitality. Plus, if your son stays with her, you cannot maintain this position and hope to have a relationship with your son. And, you can't know how worried to be without knowing her. Invite her to stay, although of course you can insist on separate rooms if that is important to you--but only if you would insist on that if you liked her. Unless she does things that place you or your family at risk, you must treat her as you would a girlfriend you adored. So if she comes to stay and she uses drugs, steals things, treats you or DS abusively, then you have cause to bar her from staying. But if she is law-abiding and reasonably civil while staying with you, then she gets to visit.

If living with DS starts to become difficult or unpleasant, then you ratchet up the adult treatment. First, require him to pay rent. If that doesn't prompt him to move out or at least make you feel better about his transgressions, then tell him he has to move out by x date. Then enforce.

Adults get to choose their professions, their friends, their partners, their clothing and hairstyles, their actions. If you apply rules that are attempts to control those things without cause (e.g., illegal or dangerous choices), you will create distance and resentment in your relationship with your adult son. Tread cautiously. But by the same token, you get to name choices of your own. If one of those choices is that you want a quiet home without young adults living in it, you can ask him to leave. Just don't do it with the ulterior motive of trying to control him.

[Anonymous]

I think you and your husband, while well-intentioned, are making a big mistake with regard to your son's girlfriend. Instead of giving her a chance and getting to know her, you have already decided she is unacceptable and are trying to force your son to give her up. This strategy has obviously failed to work for the last three years and now you have your son sneaking around to see her. He obviously loves her. If this was my child, I would be trying to get to know her by having her over and getting together with her for lunch.

[Anonymous]

You stand to lose a great deal with this attitude, and I wonder what you stand to gain. Your son has every incentive to lie to you, as you have seen -- he did so for three years. Do you want him to continue to lie? Because he will. What is the point of "forbidding" him to see her? He's not going to follow such a prohibition and it has not value. It only makes a liar of him and it turns you into someone he has to deal with rather than be honest with.

You need to accept this woman as part of his life. I also frankly think you need to reckon with her past as just that -- her past. I'm not asking you to be a bleeding heart liberal, merely to evaluate her as a person rather than a criminal record.

[Anonymous]

Regardless of what you decide about the GF, your biggest mistakes are letting him stay at your house rent free, giving him a car, and paying his insurance.

My two kids, a boy and a girl, paid for their own cars from high school on, and also paid for their own insurance as well. From part-time jobs. We allowed them to live at home rent free if they were in school, but if they were not in school they paid rent. It doesn't have to be market rent (about $500-800 to rent a room, depending on neighborhood) and you could put the money in a savings account for possible future gift to him if he deserves it later, but a grown man not paying rent at all is enabling behavior.

Just because he's looking for a decent job doesn't mean he can't hold down some kind of job in the meantime to start paying for his own life. Grown men also get to make their own decisions about girlfriends.

I'd be kind of concerned about him lying to you about the GF too. I think you are encouraging that with your attitude.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think you and your husband, while well-intentioned, are making a big mistake with regard to your son's girlfriend. Instead of giving her a chance and getting to know her, you have already decided she is unacceptable and are trying to force your son to give her up. This strategy has obviously failed to work for the last three years and now you have your son sneaking around to see her. He obviously loves her. If this was my child, I would be trying to get to know her by having her over and getting together with her for lunch.

This.

They have been together for three years, and he hid it from you. You owe him a big apology. Time to get to know this woman that your son loves--and who could end up the mother of your grandchildren.

[Anonymous]

If I were you I'd apologize for treating him like a child, that sometimes it's hard to let go.
I would drop the car issue.
Side Note: he should be paying some towards insurance at least. He's 22 not 15.

I agree with you about overnight guests you aren't married to. My parents had the same stipulation and I was adult enough to respect and get a place of my own.

But be open to visits to the girlfriend in generl, bbqs, family dinners etc.
Be as positive as you can about the girlfriend . He knows your concernss.

And then hope he gets a good job.

Once he's working as a professional a 30 year old felon, with no real career will seem a lot less appealing.

[Anonymous]

You've gotten a lot of sane advice.

My advice is on low help him get his dream job out of the country specifically a country that won't accept travel from a felon.

Key is he can't know it's your idea, meanwhile you act sweet as pie to the girlfriend.

[Anonymous]

Once again DCUM shows it's misandry. If this had been a parent speaking of their 22 year old recent grad daughter dating a 30 something felon with no career there would be 20 pages of warnings that he is abuse who is going to ruin her life and you need to do everything you can to help her see it.
Because it's a male and his girlfriend it's somehow a beautiful lovestory and OP just needs to get over it because everyone knows men can't be abused and taken advantage of.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Once again DCUM shows it's misandry. If this had been a parent speaking of their 22 year old recent grad daughter dating a 30 something felon with no career there would be 20 pages of warnings that he is abuse who is going to ruin her life and you need to do everything you can to help her see it.
Because it's a male and his girlfriend it's somehow a beautiful lovestory and OP just needs to get over it because everyone knows men can't be abused and taken advantage of.

I don't hear anyone saying it's a beautiful love story. I hear people saying forbidding a grown up is useless.

[Anonymous]

You've gotten a lot of sane advice.

My advice is on low help him get his dream job out of the country specifically a country that won't accept travel from a felon.

Key is he can't know it's your idea, meanwhile you act sweet as pie to the girlfriend.

OP here. This sounds like the "controlling his life" that people are advising against. Also, he's smart enough to figure this one out.

[Anonymous]

OP here again. Let me just add that the felony was assault with a deadly weapon. Also she had another charge just a few years ago for assault. She has alcohol issues which son says are no longer a problem.

She has a job right now, but I believe she will have a hard time securing jobs in the future. Her parents are professionals and I would not be surprised if they had something to do with her getting this job (like donating to this small non-profit).