<p>I tried to meet most of my kids friends & their parents over the years. It helps in case you need to contact them later & I think its just a friendly thing to do.
I certainly would try to meet the parents of a romantic interest, especially if they were relocating to be closer to them.</p>
<p>If cultural or personal difficulties threw up barriers to meeting, as opposed to physical ones in the case of deployment for example, I would have a harder time being fully supportive of the relationship because I know how difficult it is when the families aren’t on the same page.</p>
If you had “met” H on some of the previous threads, you might not be so quick to make that judgment. He can be a bear, and sometimes what he doesn’t know won’t hurt us. Right now it’s better to wait and see and not potentially create disturbance until it’s necessary to do so.</p>
<p>I would just flat out tell her, No, it’s not a good idea. If their relationship is that strong, it will survive the separation. And if it’s not, it will only drag her down. My son convinced his girlfriend, who was a year behind him in HS and not as good academically, to go to the local state school near his prestigious southern ivy. Her plan was to get a good year in and transfer to his school or another good private school nearby. Well, it didn’t work, she started really dragging him down in the relationship by limiting his options - he was all set to move into an academics-oriented frat, but she objected, she convinced him to get a credit card (without my knowledge) and ran up debt buying stupid stuff, and ended up leaving him holding the lease and financial responsibility for a house she had convinced him to share with her and a few others, after she decided she wanted to move back to her hometown. It was a nightmare for him, financially and emotionally, and it could have all been avoided if he hadn’t tried so hard to keep the relationship going by having her move there. If she had gone to the local school where she ended up, he would have gotten so much more out of his undergrad years, and been so much less stressed and in debt. His poor choice still affects him with a bad credit score and lack of savings. Now granted, your daughter’s relationship may be much stronger, but if it is, then the experiences they are both having separately will enable them to bring much more to the relationship. It sounds like they both fear that distance will drive them apart. it wont. It is just as possible to break up if they are in the same town or same school, and believe me, it will be far messier.</p>
<p>D wanted to transfer and it wasn’t for a relationship. I am the softee with the kids and wouldn’t tell her no but her father did not take it well. At all. I finally told her that she needed to make her school work. Once she knew she wasn’t going to transfer, she decided to make her school work. She made friends, she found a roommate that she lived with for 2 years. She worked hard at her classes and did well. She made her school work and when she graduated she was happy. And has a very nice boyfriend that she met at school. </p>
<p>Based on your previous posts, I would tell D that it is highly unlikely that she will be able to transfer and to make the best of her situation. If the boyfriend is that great, he will still be there later. I sometimes think that as moms we project on to our kids relationships and our own lost dreams. </p>
<p>I wouldn’t be neutral. I would tell her that if she wants to transfer, she has to bring it up with her dad and get him to agree. I would take myself out of this and not be a buffer between the kids and your husband.</p>
<p>Xania, I learned the hard way that sometimes I, the mom, was the most invested person in the family in a particular relationship. I took the breakups harder than the kids; I projected lots of happy endings onto relationships that were transitional or casual or even serious but “not meant to be”. Maybe your H has the right attitude here???</p>
<p>Xania, the reason I suggest discussing it with your husband is because sometimes a somewhat “blended” approach to a problem is more effective. I am an eternal optimist and my husband is more pessimistic. I tend to assume the best of people and he assumes the worst. He approaches situations with only his own or his family’s interests at heart, whereas I favor an outcome where everyone comes away with something. Neither of our approaches is effective in all situations. </p>
<p>My H’s caution has often helped me avoid minefields, and my optimism has convinced my H to give someone a chance where he otherwise would have shut the door. So sometimes a discussion with someone who approaches life differently can temper our own outlooks, which might actually need some checks and balances. In the end though, I always go with my gut instincts, which have never failed me! Sorry if my post sounded judgmental, really wasn’t intended that way.</p>
<p>I totally agree with Consolation’s advice in post #94 on all counts.</p>
<p>Your D has already made her college decision and, being that it is only the beginning of October, is most likely still acclimating to her new environment. If they want to be together, what would make most sense to me would be for him to apply to schools that are near her. </p>
<p>If it were my D, I would very strongly discourage a transfer to be close to a HS boyfriend.</p>
<p>Best if luck to all of you, and I hope that it works out for the best for both of them.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine being married and not letting hubby in on what was going on with the kids. He’d be so upset at being left out of a conversation I’d never not bring it up. Everyone should get a say.</p>
<p>My 19yo has a very serious gf he wants to marry someday who doesn’t go to the same college. I’ve met the parents once. If/when they get engaged, I’ll have them over for dinner.</p>
<p>My 17yo has a bf who is here all the time and we’ve only seen the parents a few times - at picture taking moments. </p>
<p>One nice thing about not having a boy/girl friend at their actual school is they get to concentrate on their own classes, doing their own thing and not worry about the time they’re taking on projects, wanting to hang out with friends, etc. This is the time to know who you are not how to be so and so’s girlfriend. I’d be really worried that my d was so easily giving up her own path to follow a boy.</p>
I’m sure a lot of people can’t imagine dealing with a spouse who is or was verbally and/or physically abusive. Obviously, one has to address the matter sooner or later, however sometimes timing your approach is the better part of valor.</p>
<p>OP – with your D, it’s October and she just got to college. I would strongly discourage a transfer to wherever the boyfriend may or may not end up and other than that I would punt with her and say “well he hasn’t even decided where he’s going yet, so you need to make your own college work, get great grades and follow your own interests and let him enjoy his senior year.”</p>
<p>With the boyfriend, I’d strongly encourage you to stay out of it. If you aren’t a (recent) immigrant family, I don’t know that you fully appreciate what those families are like (I grew up in one). Depending on cultural traditions, they may not even want their son to have a gf yet, let alone be planning his life around a gf. If he wants to sell them on a particular school because your D can get in or afford it or it has her chosen major or it puts him within an easy commuting range for D, that planning is between him and your D. You can tell your D, we can afford x and anything more is up to you, we won’t support you going to schools a, b, c, and whatever other parameters you have for her; but it is up to her to communicate that to her boyfriend to see if he can or wants to pick schools within those parameters.</p>
<p>There is about a 0.1% chance that this relationship works out, no matter how “special” it looks to you now. I don’t mean this in a bad way but he may just be “using” you and your D for some sense of “normalcy” and stress relief that he needs; when he gets to college, his peers will provide that normalcy. However, any college decisions he makes need to appear to be his and his parents’, just in case this relationship is special and gets to marriage. If his parents ever figure out that he went to a certain school because your D or D’s parents influenced him in any real or perceived way, it could set up a lifetime of resentment between his parents and your D and I doubt you want your D with inlaws who treat her poorly. It may be bad enough to them if he marries outside the culture, it will be worse if they have ANY reason not to like her or her family going into a marriage.</p>
<p>xania, post 109 is disturbing. Are you in danger? It sounds as if your domestic situation is as much of a problem as whether or not your D should transfer.</p>
<p>BF won’t know where he has been accepted until spring unless he’s doing ED, and I get the feeling he is not that type of student. By the time he knows the full list of schools to which he has been accepted, it will be too late for OP’s daughter to apply (unless she is planning on applying to transfer to all of his app schools?). </p>
<p>While she’s waiting to see where BF lands, encourage her to get involved in activities at her own school, discourage her from coming home for visits until Thanksgiving/Xmas. With luck she’ll have a host of friends, profs and activities she adores when the time comes to bail for the BF.</p>
<p>I too am concerned about post 109. Xenia, if your H is verbally or physically abusive --and frankly from other threads he sounds like it – you need the strength to focus on resolving that first. </p>
<p>By discussing colleges with the BF, it sounds as though you’re trying to “maneuver” the situation so you can present D’s eventual transfer to your H as a fait accompli and hope that he won’t blow up at it if the plans are already set. That’s how it reads to me.</p>
<p>I had a serious HS boyfriend, a year old than me. We were In Love and One Another’s True Love for all Eternity and all that. My parents disliked him, but they couldn’t argue that he wasn’t smart and a hard worker. He “introduced” me to the school that he and I wound up attending, as I didn’t know much about it prior to that. I know in my heart I didn’t follow him there, but it sure looked like it to everyone else and frankly the only reason my parents allowed it is because they couldn’t argue it wasn’t a great school. In all fairness, he never pressured me to go there, just opened my eyes to its existence. I can imagine my parents would have been beyond livid if his parents had talked to me about it or interfered in any way in my decision-making. So in talking to this kid about it - no. Just no. The star crossed lovers want to figure it out? Let 'em. It is not your place to talk to him about it or give him advice.</p>
<p>Xania…from my “back seat”, I think you are way too invested in this BF/GF relationship. At first I thought you did not want your daughter to transfer. Now I’m getting the sense that you want these two at the same college.</p>
<p>Let THEM deal with this. If your daughter wants to transfer, that whole process should be up to her.</p>
<p>If the boyfriend wants to go to college, I think he should be doing his college application research on his own. It doesn’t sound like he can “follow” to your daughter’s school. There are plenty of people who can help him besides you. Send him to his guidance counselor at school…and to his own parents (since they will be paying the bills, they NEED to be the ones involved). </p>
<p>It sounds like you are VERY concerned about your husband’s reaction. If there is the potential for this to become explosive, you need to handle that first and foremost. It does NO ONE any favors to potentially be in a volatile situation.</p>
<p>Agree completely. In the absence of anything else, there IS no reason you need to go out of your way to meet the parents (unless it happens naturally and organically). Much less “have a talk” with them about your children’s relationship, how serious they are, how your D is thinking of transferring to be with BF, etc. You will come across as being overly invested in the relationship if you convey to them that it is important that the two of them be together so you are supporting your D in transferring and suggesting certain alternatives to their son. THEIR son. </p>
<p>Are you invested in their relationship, or not? If, tomorrow, D announced she was breaking up with this guy and transfer plans were out, how would you feel? I get the sense that you try to smooth over things and make situations nice for others … you smooth your husband’s ruffled feathers and now you try to smooth hers.</p>
<p>It would not matter to me one bit if this guy were my daughter’s future spouse or if he turned out to be the spawn of Satan. My advice is the same either way: I would encourage her not to make ANY decisions for romantic reasons at this stage of her life. She should be focused solely on her education, having fun, and pursuing life experiences that do not require this level of romantic commitment. A boyfriend at this age should be nothing more than a pleasant distraction, not a reason for a major upheaval.</p>
<p>DITTO Massmomm “A boyfriend at this age should be nothing more than a pleasant distraction, not a reason for a major upheaval.” My nephew and GF applied to all the same schools. GF followed him to whatever schools he chose and then they deposited at the same school for freshman year. GF broke up with my nephew just after HS graduation and then proceeded to show up at his graduation party with new BF, who WAS nephew’s friend! Former GF invited new BF up to campus for weekends which was awkward for my nephew. Nephew ended up leaving that school. (not solely because of this reason, but a messy way to start college)</p>
<p>OP- Post 109 concerns me. If your Husband is at all abusive to your DD and you think that her changing schools could cause him to do so again I would recommend she NOT change schools.</p>