<p>“Fine, I’ll go to college and be miserable!” sounds like teenspeak for “Phew, thank you for saving me from myself.” I think you’ve got things going in the right direction.</p>
<p>It means, “Fine, you’re probably right, but I reserve the right to blame you for anything and everything that goes wrong.”</p>
<p>DH is at fault for trying to meddle with S’s relationship by telling him that long distance relationships don’t work. Not true. My DH and I long distanced it for my first 3 years of college. I guess that DH objects to the GF for reasons unrelated to the long distance issue. Let the relationship run its course, and trust your S to make the right decisions for himself in relationships. Trying to intervene in these things can only be counter productive and damage relationship between DH and S.</p>
<p>Methinks both Gwen and Hunt are right.</p>
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<p>Agreed. My now-husband and I had a long-distance relationship for two years while we were at different universities. We then had an opportunity to be on the same campus without either of us making an academic sacrifice. We got married two years later and have been married for 35 years.</p>
<p>Good for all adults involved for communicating and providing a united front. I too agree that the son’s reaction is the best you can expect. Letting the relationship run it’s course is probably the best case. I know from personal experience that the relationship discouraged is the one that will drag on LONG past it’s natural expiration date…and I do mean L-O-N-G past. When at all possible I’d encourage the girlfriend to visit him. He stays on campus and continues to bond as much as possible and she has to assimilate to his new world. it will either work or it won’t.</p>
<p>This is good progress imo. I agree with others that have already said, “fine I’ll go and be miserable” is as close as you can get to a teenager thanking you for being their parent. My marriage of 12 years also began as a long distance relationship (over a year in other states), so it really can work and DH needs to closely censor all he discusses in regards to his gf/relationship from now on. You will have to support their relationship, just because it’s the respectful thing to do. Trying to stop them from seeing each other will be a definite backfire --I wouldn’t even entertain that thought unless you want them to elope, lol! Best.</p>
<p>Take him out for a nice meal and tell him how proud you are of him. Even if he rolls his eyes.</p>
<p>The boy is so lucky to have a caring step mother.
My coworker had a similar story. And finally her stepson and his GF broke up and he went to an OOS college and has a lot of fun since then.</p>
<p>Really, long-distance relationships work beautifully at this age. You don’t have to work hard to sustain it, but you have someone to feel connected to when you’re all alone in a new atmosphere. I spent the last year of high school visiting my bf 3 hours away at college, and it was great for both of us. We didn’t do the turkey drop till the next year. </p>
<p>I second the idea of showing pride, revisiting campus…maybe seeing what events will be happening there that gf might want to join him for, now that she has this cool college man to visit. (I remember seeing Hall& Oates with bf at college-- felt SO glamorous, haha.)</p>
<p>If your kid is anything like most his age. As long as the kid is miserable on campus for a week he will find a new girl to fall in love with.</p>
<p>I agree with BowTieFratty. I can count on one hand the number of guys (and girls) that I knew that were actually faithful to their hometown significant others while at college when I was a student. And some of them were in very long-term committed relationships. Sad, but true.</p>