Relationship with Adult Child

He is an adult and he has made his choice but I do feel that if he is a reasonable man you should ask him to sit down with you and his father and tell him how you feel. Don't forget to start out by telling him how much you love him and you respect his decision making but you both feel that something does not seem right.
You could also give the counseling a little bit more time. It can be a long process.

Good Luck,
S.

I hate to say it but let time takes it's course. It took my son joining the Navy and being cheated upon while he was half way around the world to end something that probably shouldn't have started in the first place. (But please don't let your son join the service!) He was acting the same way. And the girl tried to get him away from us as much as possible. Gone were our holidays with my son, our weekends and activities. He was entranced. But all they did was fight and she was flirting with every guy who walked in the room. Not to mention she bent over all the time so everyone could view her watoosie. The point is we couldn't do anything really. Just like my parents couldn't do anything about me marrying the wrong husband the first time. It has to be discovered sooner or later by your son. Let's hope he does soon. Now I have another son and am waiting to see how his love life goes...fun, eh?

does your son work he needs to work a full time job, he also should being paying some sort of rent be it a 100 dollars a month, you need to teach him responsibilty and let him learn his lesson on his own if this young lady continues with her attitude you continue to love her above and beyond than your son will know its not you pushing him away, you should set up boundaries with your son and his girlfriend not letting her good luck

You say he's in counseling - that 's great. It has to be hard to watch his behavior. Like holding sand in your hand - the harder you squeeze - the more sand will fall out! I would stay connected and keep lines of communication open, even if it is basic stuff right now. Making him a nice dinner or dessert (without her!) and eating together or even getting him to take a regular walk with you to stay connected can help. Criticizing her or saying anything negative about her right now might drive him away - hopefully very soon, he will trust you enough to open up and you can get your opinion across without him feeling attacked. I hope this season in his life passes quickly - it's hard to see your kids like this. You can only do your best to guide him and pray for him to stay on track. Best of luck.

If your son's behavior has changed drastically, don't be too proud or naive to believe there may not be drug use involved. I hope that is not the case, but make sure it isn't. You would be amazed at how common it is, no matter the economic or social class or religious upbringing. Also, if the counselor your son is seeing (and be very grateful he is willing to see someone) isn't getting results, perhaps you should consider finding someone else. When our children are born, we all have great hopes for them. As they grow up, we realize that if they can just be healthy and happy, that is enough. Good luck to all of you.

This is definitely a situation for prayer. How is he when you bring her up as a subject. Try active listening and not being judgmental. Listen for his feelings, ask open ended questions, get a book on it. When and if she enters the picture again respond in a different way to her trying to control you, 1. just ignore her orders, say um-hm and then continue on as you were with no intention to talk to her about it, 2. look for her good motives, is she trying to help you or your son, this will help you to have a better attitude toward her, but still don't do as she says, 3. when your son seems upset, moody, say, "You seem to have something on your mind today. Do you want to talk about it?" He is 20 and you have to respect his right not to talk to you. 4. Look at the beam in your own eye, are you being controlling? 5. Get some couselling yourself and talk to the couselor about your conceerns, especially her mind games, to know how to deal with that.

Leave the topic alone. He has to find and figure out his own relationships. It's the hardest thing to do, but he's an adult and saying anything good or bad can have an adverse effect. Just be curteous to the girl, and don't bug him about it. The great thing is that he's only 20, and she'll probably not be the one he ends up with. Especially if he's still living at home. If he comes to you for advise about her, just say that It's not your place and he needs to decide what kind of relationship he wants, and then say all that matters to you is that he's happy; and leave it at that. You can let him know that you support him and are there to listen, however be really careful about giving any advise as it can come back to haunt you. Just remember that he's still really young and if they are already starting the break up make up process they most likely wont last too terribly long. At most another year. Good luck

Have you raised a man that you are confident can make decisions on his own in other aspects of his life? If so, have the confidence that he will find his way through this situation as well. Has he come to you seeking guidance on this issue? If so, then you have been invited to offer guidance. If not, keep it to yourself. What brought about the counseling? Is there something else going on in his life that is making him moody/irresponsible? Is it just a phase of his life? Thankfully I did not live with my parents through my early 20's- I would have been sent into some sort of counseling/rehab for sure... it was a phase and I grew out of it. Hopefully he does too!

I have to say that I think you unfortunately will have to ride this out. You really can't do much about the relationships others are in, even when it's your own child. If the relationship is bad, it wont last. He is probably with her for a number of reasons, things you don't want to know about. The best thing you can do is support him, not in the relationship but in life in general. People with healthy self esteem don't let themselves be treated badly for long. Have you ever perhaps tried talking to her? Try seeing where her head is, why she is the way she is. Maybe she could use a little support herself. There is good in everyone, find the good in her and maybe if she has a stable adult female in her life to set an example for her, she will become a better person. Good luck with everything!

I don't think you should go out of your way to make her feel like she's part of the family. I think she should earn that and so far she hasn't. It's probably best to distance yourself from their relationship. All you can do is tell him how you feel but ultimately it's his decision.
He's the one who needs to open his eyes and realize he's not in a healthy relationship.

Hello,
I only have a 16-month old, so I cannot offer advice from a parent's perspective, but I can offer one from the (adult) kid's perspective. When I was 19 I was in a very similar situation to your son. 19-20 is such a hard age. You are an adult in so many ways - your personality is set, you are firm in your convictions and ideals, and you are beyond any parenting like grounding or curfews (even if you live with your parents). At the same time, you are just learning who you are in the big world, not just your family's world, and that is very, very scary. When I was in this place in my life, I started dating a guy I met at college who was all wrong for me. He was controlling, manipulating, all the things you are describing in your son's girlfriend. It caused a major rift between my mom and I, who had always been very close. It took me five years and three break-ups to work him out of my system. It all had to do with me, my self-confidence and my own self-image. There was nothing my parents or my siblings could have done or said to make me change my mind about dating this person, and their saying things against him just made me push them away. I had to come to my own conclusion about how bad he was for me.

When the relationship was finally over my mom never held it against me, and I have been so lucky and grateful to her for that. She said she was just so glad to see me smile again and to have her girl back. As you use the term "adult" in your subject line, you know that at 20 your son is his own person. Even though he is living with you, you can't "parent" him anymore. He is clearly searching for some answers and it will probably take him a while to find them. This will be especially hard while he is living with you. You can set boundaries about what and who you want going on in your own home, but you can't forbid him to see this girl anymore or anything like that. It will just push him back into her arms. It is so great that he is in counseling, but that is a process that takes a long time. Keep your home safe for you and the rest of your family, but just let your son know you respect his decisions as an adult and that you love him. He has to find his own way out of this. When he does, you'll have a much easier time reforging your relationship if he knows you were there for him even when he lost his way.

That being said, your statement "she wants to run us and him" - that you can do something about. Your son is dating her, not the rest of your family. You extended the opportunity to be a part of the family and she has refused. You are now free to gently, but firmly remove yourself and the rest of your family from their relationship. This would probably be a healthy thing. Make your own plans and move forward with them without getting tied up about whether or not they're there. If this girl feeds off controlling others, take away her power to do that over the rest of you. She'll see there's no gain for her there so she'll eventually stop trying.
Good luck

Hi--We have 2 adult sons and just found a really good book I highly recommend called "Setting Boundaries with Your Adult Children" Six Steps to Hope and Healing for Struggling Parents, by Allison Bottke. We going thru a difficult situation with one of them and I read it cover to cover with highlighter in hand in one sitting! It is EXCELLENT! Also, there was an article in June 29th Sunday's Southtown life & leisure section called "Boomerang Generation, Moving Back in with parents" that recommended several books that dealt with parent/adult child situations, here is the link: http://www.southtownstar.com/lifestyles/1028223,062908boo...
I know how difficult it is to "parent" but not "over parent". I pray that you get the guidance needed to provide BALANCED suppport to your son while not getting too wrapped up in his "stuff"--I'm pray this for us too!
Blessings:)~J.

I know this may sound a bit cliche, but how about having him write down a pro-con list? Fold a paper in half and on one side write down all the benefits he has from being in a relationship with her and on the other side write down all of the negatives. He doesn't have to let you read it. But maybe when he sees on paper that the cons outweigh the pros he might rethink his decision to stay with her. If not, he can at least talk to the therapist about why he continues to stay in a relationship even though it's not in his best interest.

Good luck!

Just spend time with him and encourage him- compliment. keep quiet when it comes to his relationship unless he asks for advise. I know this is so hard to do- My daughter will be 20 in nov and I have such a hard time keeping quiet. it is a tough age. I pray on it every day. God bless.

My son got involved with a girl like that when he 18. They married at 26, seperated in 7 years but got back together 2 years later. We never held anything against girl, even tried to get close, but she refused. He remained pretty close to us through the years and eventually he was talking about filing for divorce and starting a new career, really talked like he had his head on straight. Then, all of a sudden, he blew up at us for no reason and walked out, disconnected his phone and got back together with her. It's four years since he walked out. They had a child but we heard through friends about baby. He refuses to allow us to meet her, will not talk to us, blocked our email addresses. We have attempted to talk with him and he just walks away. It has been devastating to the whole family. My nephew just visited us and they brought pictures of our son and the granddaughter. There was never any argument, regrettable words, nothing that would cause a family split. We never said anything bad about her, he did. He complained a great deal about her and her family. He evidently thinks we were bad parents. However, we raised three kids. Our oldest daughter passed away but we were very close, and the other one we are very close with her and family. Nobody was beaten or abused. We were an upper middle class family that went to church together, family vacations, good communication. People say it's probably her but he's a big boy and should be responsible for his decisions. It's extremely painful and I wish I had an answer. I hope that your situation turns out better and perhaps the counseling will help. If he stays with her, you will probably have a limited relationship because it does not sound like she will cooperate. It's a terrible waste. If someone has answers, I'd love to hear them.

This will sound a bit rough,

but.... he is an adult....Stick a fork in him, he's done!

It is so difficult to take a step back and allow our older children to occassionally take a fall, but sometimes we have to allow them to skin their knees, pull themselves up, dust themselves off and continue on or they will never learn how to function independently - they will CHOOSE A PARTNER WHO 'TAKES CARE OF THEM' because they have not learned how to take care of themselves.

I do not believe in protecting young adult children from the world - but that is just my view, probably not too popular. I have had to cut the apron strings with both my older children. One of them (in her 20s) is doing great with her own apartment, work etc. The other one (19) is still struggling. It is extremely difficult when to know to help and not help.

Your son's girlfriend will likely not be out of the picture anytime soon - and guess what - if she is, it's likely he will meet someone else very similar to her.

Be silent and strong in your own convictions and let him skin his knees and pull himself up without your help - in my experience it is the only way he will learn.

hugs,

W.

What ever you do don't bad mouth the the girl. If he does it then just listen & be supportive of him. Adult kids/teens tend to do the opposite of what their parents want them to. So if you say negative things about her he will actually go back to her & then be mad at you. Keep the lines of communication going & have him stick with the counseling. It sounds like he suffers from low self esteem which is why he chose this girl in the first place. Keep building up his confidence & be there for him no matter what happens with the girl.

Hi,

I'm sorry to hear that you're family is going through this. I too have a 20 year old son who had a somewhat similar situation. You have to stand firm and let the both of them know that you don't appreciate what is taking place. Get to know her parents (that should shed a little light as to why she's the way she is). Let her know that it's your house not hers and that she can run her own house as she'd like, but this is your families' home.

My son got tired of be at his former girls beck and call and she was seeing other young men. He finally cam to his senses and let her go for good. Her family misses my son, but they understand what their daughter put him through and do not blame him one bit.

So stand strong and let her know that she's out of line.

Did he go to college? Or does he work? There is nothing you will be able to do for him but eventually he will snap out and realize he is in a bad area. You need to keep him busy so he doesn't have too much time on his hands. If he is in school full time he should still have a job part time or if he goes away to school he should have a summer job. If he is not in school at all he should have a full time job and pay rent to you. Your son is 20 and needs to make his own mistakes when it comes to relationships. The biggest issue is making sure this girl doesn't pop up pregnant. Too many kids are just laying around not doing anything. He needs to start being responsible even if it is tough for you to do. In the long run he will be better off.

PRAYER!!! Daily, continual, heartfelt, desperate prayer will resolve this.