Reply to 19 year old cousin is dating a 38 year old. Is there anything we can do?

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Reply to "19 year old cousin is dating a 38 year old. Is there anything we can do?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It doesn't sound like anything you do will do any good. Either this boy looks up to you as somewhat parental figures, in which he's likely to have the natural teen and young adult reticence to accepting parental input on relationships, or you only have an on again off again relationship with him, in which case he won't likely find your input relevant.

Relationships around this age rarely last long, except when they do. This can only end one of three ways:
1) The relationship naturally ends (excellent, you got the outcome you wanted and it didn't require your intervention)
2) The relationship was otherwise going well and may have lasted, but the family interference was too much and the couple breaks up (you still got what you wanted but at the risk of immense resentment; on the other hand, if the relationship wasn't strong enough to fight for it likely wasn't "the one" anyway. But your cousin may always wonder if it could have been).
3) The relationship is "the one" no matter what anyone else does, and lasts, possibly leading to marriage (in this case your relationship with your cousin likely depends on how you treated him and the girlfriend)

In at least two of three cases, attempting to sabotage the relationship would likely backfire.

The thing about kids around that age is, they're incredibly sensitive to their own independence -- their right to make decisions for themselves and finally not be controlled by someone else like a child. Most can sense, and tend to rebel against, actual or perceived threats to their own agency. If you're very obvious about it, getting rid of this relationship may cost you your own relationship with the cousin, or simply strengthen the couple's relationship while causing the cousin to pull away from the family.

I recommend letting things take their course naturally.

When I was in my early 20s, my parents were very, very vocally against one of my first serious relationships. The relationship ended naturally for other reasons of the two of us being a bad fit together, but I never quite trusted my parents to the same extent afterwards either. [/quote]

Unfortunately there isn't much of a relationship between us now. My husband and I were briefly his guardians but that did not end well. He's been in and out of contact with us since then.  The last actual contact we had was a drunken phone call months ago. I mostly know what he is doing from his social media activity.[/quote]

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