agonyaunt | (no subject)

DEAR SOMEONE ELSE’S MOM: My daughter is now 20. She became rebellious in high school and took up with bad friends, one boyfriend in particular (now 19). They smoked pot and probably experimented with other things. I know the guy is an experienced drug user, 8th grade dropout — the absolute worst.

My daughter came home at 19, pregnant and crying, we took her in as long as the toxic relationship ended. It did for a while. She hid it from us, but they had some sort of on-again-off-again relationship.

She ended up joining the military, and we agreed to care for her child while she was in bootcamp and training. She just left with the child to her first assignment. Within days he joined her. She never told us, we found out from others.

It seems he has begun controlling her. She is not responding to texts from her best friend. She has responded to mine but only with brief one-word responses (not like her).

My husband is done. He says he feels like burning her stuff that she left behind and taking down her pictures. She lied to us all along and this is what she wanted.

I say we should keep trying to reach out to her. I emailed her and gave her names of organizations that help women in domestic violence issues — just in case she ever needs them. I did not get a response. He may be controlling her email and phone.

We are heartbroken. Any advice? --- HEARTBROKEN

DEAR HEARTBROKEN: I can understand both your continuing need to reach out to your daughter and your husband’s desire to cut and run. It’s what you each need to do to deal with a painful situation that you can only stand by and watch unfold.

While your sharing information on organizations dealing with domestic violence was well-intentioned, it possibly backfired if neither your daughter nor her boyfriend feels there is any abuse going on; in which case it comes off as your being an interfering busybody. You clearly loathe him, but he is the father of your grandchild, and has both legal rights and responsibilities connected with that role.

A less potentially inflammatory tact might be to try and maintain general, neutral communications with your daughter — no matter how cursory or curt her responses are. As a parent and grandparent, you have a natural desire to keep in touch and be part of the lives of your loved ones. Occasional video visits to enjoy your grandchild could serve to let you be part of their lives, gauge how everyone is doing, and help reinforce that you’re there for your daughter and her baby.

If her boyfriend is just along for the ride and not to help take care of their child, he’ll soon realize that unless he’s married to a service member, he’s largely invisible in the eyes of the military. If they do get married, he’s likely to be further surprised that benefits for non-officers are not the Easy Street he may’ve imagined.

Finally, your daughter can’t help but be aware of the military’s zero tolerance for illicit drug use of any kind (including marijuana). If caught using, she’d probably face dishonorable discharge and perhaps criminal charges. Hopefully, this regulation will prove a deterrent to her use of any illegal drugs during her enlistment.

https://www.uexpress.com/life/ask-someone-elses-mom/2021/12/14

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I don't know if this boyfriend is abusive.

I know that the parents sure sound toxic as fuck. They think she's in a controlling relationship and their response is to call her a liar and talk about burning her things? Holy shit!

And all that when the only thing LW really knows is that this boyfriend uses marijuana and didn't graduate high school - all the other nastiness in the letter is speculation.

It's no wonder that she views this guy + the military as an escape from them. And I wouldn't reply to LW's texts about domestic violence resources either, whether or not I needed them.

Yeah, “you can have a place to live as long as you break up with your child’s father” is manipulative as hell, and talking about BURNING HER THINGS??!?

Dude may be bad news (possibly), but the family of origin sounds controlling/toxic ss hell.

Gosh, if you make "somewhere to live" conditional on ending a relationship, I don't think you get to be surprised if any resumption in that relationship is hidden from you, or if the person concerned maintains minimal contact once they have somewhere for them and their child to live that is not controlled by you.

(I am not saying you can't put conditions on someone living with you, but mine are about what behaviour is tolerated in the house and towards the other inhabitants, not what choices an adult is making about their romantic relationships.)

I could live without the snide "this guy's looking for Easy Street" from the advice-giver: is it so unbelievable a man might want to take care of his child? FFS.

Edited 2021-12-24 08:49 (UTC)

Or that, perhaps, sometime in the past few years he grew up and improved as a person? (Though I give a HUGE grain of salt to the idea that he's as bad as they say. He might be. I can't believe it from this letter.)

Yeah, it's true that dropping the rope with her childhood friend and her parents is a potential sign of being controlled... but they're awful so who's to say the friend isn't too, or that she's actually busy or going through a tough time?

Edited 2021-12-24 11:59 (UTC)

Or that she and her childhood friend actually aren't that close, and haven't been in a while, but that her parents can't understand that she's not ten anymore and this is part of it? Or even that they ARE still in touch, but Friend, being a real friend, is not telling the parents at Daughter's request?

All more plausible than the parent's version!

The boyfriend is only 19 now, and would've been 18 when the daughter got pregnant. Despite being so young and "the absolute worst," he didn't just abandon her when she got pregnant; instead they've managed to maintain some kind of relationship over the past 1-2 years even though the judgmental parents who were her only support forbade it. And the minute both she and the kid were out from under the parents' roof, he left town to be with them. Sure, he could be abusive, or taking advantage of her in some way, or just the best of a set of bad options. But it's just as possible that these are two kids from bad situations who fell in love, struggled to make it work despite the circumstances separating them, and have finally made it to a place where they can be together and raise their kid. If so, I wish them luck.

people join the military for any number of reasons, but one of the more traditional reasons is "a pathway out of a toxic family."

Good grief. No useful comments on my part, too busy shaking my head at LW and her brutally unforgiving husband (wanting to disown and deperson his daughter, wtf)