*The following article contains discussion of suicide/self-harm.
Most parents only want the best for their children. They also know from experience that as their kids grow older they're going to assert their independence in different ways, including but not limited to dating.
But suppose the parent doesn't approve of whoever their son or daughter is dating? Relationships are bound to be strained—though hopefully not permanently.
People shared their stories after Redditor Morticiar asked the online community:
"Parents of Reddit whose children have dated awful people, who was the worst? Why?"
"The very mentally abusive boyfriend..."
"The very mentally abusive boyfriend who got in her head so badly that he convinced my epilepic daughter that if she stopped taking her meds she wouldn't have epilepsy any more. It was only because she was taking mind altering drugs that she had a problem."
"The car accident was pretty full on but she got out unscathed and no one else was hurt."
Alfredthegiraffe20
Thankfully she walked away from that crash!
This could have gone so differently.
"She started protesting..."
"I have only stepped in once when I saw one of my girls spending a lot of time with someone I didn't approve of."
I work for the happier side of my state's human services agency, but we still share a lot of our agency customers with Child Welfare."
"I have a pretty good memory for names, faces, etc, and within the department, we talk quite a bit, so I will occasionally run into a family about whom I already know an uncomfortable amount of private information, but generally it doesn't affect the decisions I have to make aside from who it gets assigned to next."
"She came home talking about this boy she'd met, and I recognized his first name immediately, because it was uncommon. I asked her, 'Tou're talking about 'Firatname Lastname, right?'"
"She gave me this really confused look and said, '....yeah...?'"
"I told her, 'Ok, kiddo, look. I can't discuss the reasons for this. I know you like this kid, but the answer is absolutely not. You are not to hang out with him or his circle of friends. I need you to trust me on this, because I can't tell you anything about my reasons for it.'"
"She started protesting, and I pointed out, I'd never said anything like that to her before. It wasn't until nearly six years later that she learned about his criminal history as a juvenile, which included rape and a number of other unsavory things."
slice_of_pi
You sound like an excellent parent and you handled this situation tactfully and with class.
"Barely in high school..."
"First guy my daughter dated."
"Barely in high school, already showing attitude problems. Anyone older than him was seen as an annoyance in whatever he wanted to do in life, even at 15. Came from a broken home, turned out he was the third of 10+ kids by one man with as many different women."
"Already started getting suspension in high school because of same disrespect towards teachers. Had unfortunately convinced daughter to skip school a few times with him. Her grades started showing major drop, had to start intervention."
"Took six months and discovery of him trying to date two other girls that finally stopped the relationship. He had gotten one of those girls pregnant by mid ninth grade year. Seeing the relationship end, felt crisis averted."
"A year later as we are at home, daughter comes running into living room saying he is outside her bedroom. Before I can check the back side of house, cop has come up to house. He apparently pushed his mom down a flight of stairs in an argument, took off and could only think to come here. As I am talking to cop, bringing her to back side of house, we hear the gate slam on the other side as he takes off down the road."
"Cop says he is not as much of a threat to spend chasing, puts out an APB for others if they see him. I request a restraining order to clear any controversy I may have. Two years pass. Apparently he got three different girls pregnant in those two years."
"Daughter comes home one day to tell me he has a warrant out. Had pushed his 3rd pregnant girlfriend down a flight of stairs in an argument. She had ended up miscarrying. Local police office actually contacted me later that night about it since I had requested a restraining order on him 2 years prior and they did not know his whereabouts."
"They find him about 40 miles north, charge him with manslaughter, and he has been serving a sentence since he was 17, about 2-3 years ago. I fear for the two other children he had with his other girlfriends each time I think about them."
Lostarchitorture
This is quite the rollercoaster ride.
Thankfully your daughter is away from him at last.
"My son dated a woman..."
"My son dated a woman who would smack him across the face when she would get angry with him. Once in front of me. My ex-husband was very violent and I was always terrified that my boys would take after him. I never considered that they might end up in an abusive situation themselves. They eventually broke up."
sm710
Glad he did!
It could have been much worse.
"He steals a car."
"He's 15. He steals a car, comes to the house to elope with her. She won't go, so he takes off. Police spot him, and he leads them on a chase from Seattle to the Columbia River, at speeds of over 100 mph at times. At the river, he slams into an abutment and is killed instantly."
ikusuzwen
This story took me on a journey.
"My stepson tried to break up with his girlfriend when they were 16. She threatened suicide if he left her. Despite all of our pleas, he was too afraid of her self-harm. It’s been 8 years and he has just become a shell of his former self."
"He’s lost weight (and he was skinny already), he’s got dark under eye circles. It’s so hard to watch, but she’s convinced him that we all hate her and, by extension, we hate him."
Lilliputian0513
This is tragic and we are sorry to hear it.
Hopefully you can get through to him someday.
"He worked hard to separate her..."
"My daughter started dating him in high school. He immediately started separating her from her friends. Get this, one of her friends is quite buxom, and told her she could not hang out with her because of that."
"He worked hard to separate her from family and friends. During her first year of college she ended up pregnant. He joined the Navy, and they left home. He began drinking and became verbally abusive."
"After getting kicked out of the Navy, they came home and my husband helped get him a job. Then another child was born. The drinking continued and the he started on meth and the violence began. She would deny the abuse and stayed with him and had another child."
"Finally, she left him. Then the next loser was also an addict and they had a child. Again violence. CPS took the children due to drugs and abuse. So I had four kids. I kept them for a year and a half and she regained custody."
"That lasted three months, and she lost custody again. We split the kids with other family due to my health issues. I am raising the oldest two."
"Now there is a new guy and a new baby. Yes that makes five."
"I love my daughter dearly but I’m disappointed in her."
629mrsn
The tragedy of this story cannot be underestimated.
A nightmare for any parent.
"My stepdaughter..."
"My step daughter started dating a guy when she was 15, hiding the relationship as only a friendship. Once they started dating officially he started controlling her every move. He didn’t drive or work but she did both."
"The car was a car her mother and I gave her that was ours. He started driving it and all that s**t. He got her strung out on drugs and was abusive to her already weak mental health. He would break her down constantly and make her feel worthless."
"They would rent motel rooms to sell drugs and who knows what else out of. Her father and my wife would never just put their foot down on anything and me being a stepparent, I was not listened to as I feel like I should have been. This s**t continued until 5 months before her 18th birthday when we caught them red handed."
"I took the car away and made it disappear. He was arrested and spent a few months in jail for a s**t ton of drugs and dealing stuff with two of his friends. Before she turned 18, like two months before, she had a real huge mental breakdown while at therapy and they thought she was going to self harm."
"I told her father and her mother and grandparents that she needed to get into a facility for treatment and it was important that they do that before she turned 18. It didn’t happen. She turned 18 and moved to a different state to live with him and that is the situation now."
"It is f**king real sad how this motherf**ker ruined her life by destroying her ambition and self confidence."
Pessimistic_Soviet
Condolences.
Hopefully one day she makes it out.
It can be so difficult for people in abusive situations to see what's happening in front of them.
To reiterate: most parents want the best for their children.
But once they're old enough (and sometimes before that), all bets are off.
Children will evolve into their own people—for better or worse, though this doesn't mean that they are incapable of redemption either.
Have some stories of your own? Feel free to tell us more in the comments below.
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/
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