How to Bite your Tongue

caymandriver07
Tue, 05 Oct 2010 18:09:27 +0000

Ok guys, I tried the “say it here cuz you can’t say it anywhere else thread” and that helped a little but I’d kind of like some advice on this one.

The backstory: My daughter doesn’t do well in relationships with boys/men. From the time she was about 14 she seems to have craved the attention of a boy, any boy. Once she got them, she seemed to just dissolved into these rampant moods swings of losing her own identity by absorbing everything the boy liked, agreeing with everything they say or do, and holding them 100% responsible for her happiness or lack thereof. Inevitibly when the boy did even the tiniest thing that made her unhappy they were " a d*ck, or rude, or horrible". She’d get herself so worked up she ended up sick. In fact 10th grade was so bad it almost drove us all crazy…she saw a therapist, multiple times to try to establish herself as a capable independent person, but then it would be back to her old tricks. We’ve really tried everything to break her of this habit to no avail

Unfortunately, because as a mother I didn’t want to see her get hurt so in the past I got too involved in her relationships trying to stave off the inevitable disruption that would eventually come. This was not a good move. We even went so far as to ban boyfriends all together for her last year in high school just to avoid all the drama and hopefully give her a chance to grow up and see that she could be ok without a boyfriend…

well fast forward to September and within 2 days of being on campus she’s already “in a relationship”. I for the most part have tried to steer clear of giving my opinion on anything, and just listening as she speaks…but to make a long story short, this boy has some issues, very adult issues that he is facing at the moment and my daughter got ****ed off at him for a very childish, selfish reason.

So here’s where the trouble began-she asks me to phone her, and against my better judgement i do. Well she starts spouting out about how terrible and rude and selfish this kid is so i tell her if she’s so miserable why does she stay in the relationship. And see just keeps going on and on about how much of a jerk he is because he does this and that and so I say “well he does have a lot going on right now” (the truth) and so then she says why don’t you ever take my side, you never support me, you always call me wrong…and then proceeded to tell me she’s going to go and tallk to someone who would be supportive and hung up…

Now, as a mother I know it is my duty to be supportive and listen and for most other subjects I do just that…but boys bring out the worst kind of nasty, petty, clingy, obsessive behaviour in my daughter and as much as I love her, it’s not an apsect of her personality that I like nor can I agree with her…

I’m thinking that once things calm down a bit to just tell her as much as I love her, i’m not in a position to talk with her when things go wrong in her relationships.

Am I the only one that has faced this before? What would you do? Help? Please…