Daughter and an older "boyfriend"

Peanuckle

My 15 year old daughter told me this morning that the lad she has been chatting to online and on the phone for the past 2 months isn't someone from school, as she's led us to believe, but he's actually 23 and goes to University about 40 miles away (or so she says, not sure what to believe now). She actually asked how would we feel if she became his girlfriend? :mad:

She's normally a very responsible girl who has never had a serious boyfriend but now I find out that when she told us she was going to the cinema and beach with her friends for the day she actually went in his car to visit his mates at Uni :eek:. She apparently told him that we knew and were ok about her travelling so far with a complete bloody stranger. She is quite insistent that he wouldn't hurt her and she trusts him, personally I don't think she has enough experience to be able to know that.

Shocked isn't quite the word for the way I feel right now, I haven't got cross or lost it in front of her, just said I need some time to get my head around what she's said and we will discuss it later.

What do I do now? I can't tell her Dad because he will go ballistic, she has passworded her phone so I can't even get the guys phone number to speak to him and find out just what is going on. Does he even know she's 15? If I take her phone and laptop off her she can't contact him but will that just push her into something more drastic? After all she now knows where he lives and might get it into her head to go down there somehow.

alwaysonthego_2

When I was 15 my bf was 20 and my parents were supportive.

What I would say is that I did not have underaged sex and it soon fizzled out.

If you make a fuss you will push her away and she will carry on seeing him as it is more fun when your parents don't approve.

You should try and welcome her bf in to your family laying down the law so you can keep an eye on the situation.

It's a part of growing up!

pookienoodle

why not tell her you won't even consider O.K ing the relationship until he phones you and has a chat with you.
You will then have a better idea of the lay of the land.
don't panic,I dated a 25 year old when I was 15 and nothing untoward happened.

MrsTinks

I had a boyfriend who'd finished uni when I was 15 He met my parents and was paranoid about doing anything but kiss and cuddle till I was 16...
Probably the sweetest guy I've ever known after my now hubby... Don't go off on one just yet - deal with her lying yes - but the age gap honestly isn't the end of the world
I'd tell her that you will remove x priviledges for y time for lying to you. You want to meet and talk to MrWonderful before she's allowed out with him again but you promise to not fly off at him etc etc

Mips

I have always gone for older men.. I wouldn't worry.. just hope it's a phase and she doesn't eventually end up married to someone twice her age!

At 15, a bloke with a Car, in University... is cool

So much better and more interesting than the spotty little 15 yr old brats who play Xbox live and ask you to pull their finger

custardy

get him round for tea and see what he is like
personally on first thought i would disapprove purely because @ 23 i wouldn have had no interest in a 15 year old girl
however i bet he thinks she is older

nzmegs

I also had a 22 year old boyfriend when I was 15 and although he was a family friend I never told my parents. For 2 years we met in secret or pretended we were just friends and at was incredibly hard on me as a 15 year old.
he and I did not have sex and he was very particlular about that. He simply didn't want our relationship to go that way until I was ready. by the time I was ready i had moved on to another boyfriend and was 3 years older and wiser.

Think of it as a good thing she has come clean about her new boyfriend and it now gives you a chance to get involved, meet him and judge for yourself.

For em having an older guy interested in me was glamorous and exciting and I learnt alot about men and about myself. I think you will find that your sensible daughter is simply too mature for boys her age and I would be more worried about hormonal 16 year old boys than a more mature 23 year old.

If he is willing to meet you then give him a chance.

Intergalactic_Floozie

Wow, 8-years does sound like a big age gap however If she's mature for her age then you could probably knock a couple of years off the gap, and if he's immature, even more.

I was with a 24-year-old man at seventeen, but then again, seventeen was legal and I was an old head on young shoulders.

I'd rather 'condone' it, so that she will tell you stuff and you know what is going on, rather than come down on her like a tonne of bricks whereby she may go behind your back and you wont know what is going on. I could never talk to my mum cos she would fly off the handle, and I was forever lying about where I was, and what I was doing.

Thing is that if she wants to see him, then she will. If you ground her or punish her then she's just going to try and find deceitful ways around it.

I think all you can do is let her know you aren't happy about it, and a lot of people would think a 23-year-old man with a 15-year-old girl is very wrong indeed but she needs to learn from her own mistakes. Warn her that if she does have sex with him, then s/he is breaking the law, and he could find himself on the sex offender's register. Why don't you ask if you can go with her to meet him on mutual ground?

Also (oh God, have typed and re-typed this paragraph loads of times), I hate to say this but judging from my own experience as a 15 year old girl, if she's wanting to erm....try things with a lad.....she will do it. Hopefully a 23 year old uni student will be more sensible than a lad of her own age....

Peanuckle

We have just had a chat, wanted to talk to her while no one else was in the house (she has brothers who would listen in given the chance :rolleyes:). I pointed out the recent news story about the 14 year old who ran off with her older boyfriend and how he is now being looked on as a !!!!!phile and how would she feel if she gave this young man that sort of reputation. She has asked a lot of questions about at what age would the gap between them be less of a problem and she's spoken to him and, from what I can gather, he's told her that they can stay friends if we approve but anything more has to wait til she's older. I'm still not happy with the idea of him coming up to visit her but at least she's accepted that if she goes in his car down to whereever he lives then they run the risk of the police locking him up and escorting her home (the thought of that scares her enough to make her not want to risk it).
She said, he's more mature than the boys her age and doesn't have a one track mind, in fact he's never mentioned anything physical between them which is a big weight off my mind as I'm sure she was being honest about that.

He sounds a decent chap but, I know from experience sadly, that words are cheap and I still know nothing about him.

freda

He sounds a decent chap but, I know from experience sadly, that words are cheap and I still know nothing about him.

Can you invite him round for lunch, tea, coffee, a bbq or something similar?

Could you ask your daughter to ask him to invite you to visit with her next time they go to his uni - maybe you could suggest you all go out for a pub meal?

If you aren't going to ban your daughter from seeing him, the only way to know something about him is to make a real effort to get to know him.

Dinah93

I would ask her to invite him round to dinner, preferably just the 4 of you, no other 'kids', so you can get to know him, check hes decent, and is aware of her age and so on. If he's a good bloke, he might be scared of coming to dinner, but he wouldn't be against it if he cares for your daughter.