Young love can be a beautiful thing. So many times, we have said how much nicer things were at home when my son had a girlfriend - because he was nicer! And that is good and fine until that relationship goes down the tubes for whatever reason.
This past summer - after being without a girlfriend for quite a while and professing to not want one, my son decided to make a friend into a girlfriend. It seemed okay at first. She helped him realize his passion for physics. They had a lot in common. Since neither one drove and neither had a job, they mainly stayed at her house or ours and watched movies or played video games. But as soon as he went off to college about an hour away, things starting turning sour. She had nothing else in her life but Tyler. She lived for him coming home on the weekends when they spent every second together. That didn't set well with me - we felt like there should be some family-only time. I tried to tolerate things, biting my tongue except with my husband. But I turned Momma Bear when the girl started calling him late at night, guilt-tripping him for being at school, keeping him on the phone ALL night fighting (which made him oversleep and miss classes!), and generally mess with his head. Happily, he was ready to shut it down. Case closed on that one.
Now my 15-year-old daughter has gotten to see the good, the bad and the in-betweens of love. She has spent the last four months "dating" a boy a year older than her. I say "dating" because they didn't go hardly anywhere without an adult with them. I have to say that he is a very nice young man - smart, talented, polite and funny. And that's what Jess thought, too - and I think she still feels that way. But she came to that point in a relationship where she realized that she didn't feel the same way about him that he does about her. It just about killed her to break up with him. I was honored that she sought my advice and we talked a lot. Her biggest fear was in hurting him and destroying their friendship. As much as it hurt her to break it off with him, things seemed to be okay to some degree when he said he still wanted to be friends. She wasn't sure that he would feel that way. They will still have to see each other at school. That was last night. This morning - maybe after having time to think and mope - he wanted her to feel some of his pain...telling her that she had said she never loved him. As she said, "He was in her head!" I tried to assure her that he was just lashing out, but he would calm down.
We talked more about the situation. I told Jess that I have been on both sides of breakups - and both sides hurt. She has a VERY busy weekend ahead of her - and that is probably a good thing.
I told my husband that this made me sad. He asked, "Why? Did you think they'd get married?" No, of course not. I hate two nice kids who had a sweet first love both in pain. I hate seeing a good friendship on the rocks. I want to wave my magic wand and make them both feel good about themselves again. This is already a tough time in their lives with school, issues at home, extracurricular activities, and more. They aren't comfortable in their own skin yet - how can they possibly understand love and relationships. I have always talked to Jess about girls who will hang onto a boyfriend at any cost and that I never wanted her to be one of those girls. I told her that I only want her to be with a boy because she wants to be with THAT boy at THAT time...not to settle just to have a boyfriend. I guess she listened....
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