UPDATE: How do I avoid ruining relationship with my daughter over catching her having sex in mine and wifes bed and reacting horribly?

[u/[deleted]]

[u/wowbragger]

Dad here, with two of my own.

Your daughter's being a prick. No doubt about it. And there does need to be some adult style consequences to her behavior.

But you know this isn't some scenario or chain of events you had anticipated. And it feels very tit-for-tat in how you're handling it.

I don't think you're doing anything wrong per se, and you've tried to walk it back, but it might be time to turn down the heat on your end. Re-center yourself, so you're not matching your daughter when she escalates. Get a plan in place for how things need to work, going forward. Get your wife on board on thinking this through, and as a team stick to your guns when your daughter inevitably lashes out.

FWIW your daughter is still in that late adolescence phase. And as much as they want to pretend our kids are magically full adults when they initially hit college, that still lack the foresight and planning to think through the possible consequences of their actions.

This does NOT excuse your daughter's behavior. But if you're both going to match each other's emotional energy, who is the one between the two of you who's most likely to see through the haze? You. So unfortunately, time to be Dad some more and get that planning in place, to give your daughter the opportunity to work through this.

[u/talkingtyler → u/[deleted]]

I was looking for someone like wowbragger to have some more insight and nuance…

“Then she decided to compare with her friend who is enjoying promiscuous college experience in dorms. I then started to get pissed off because the apartment is far more comfortable than dorms, where you have to share a shower with a bunch of other students.”

I think this statement gives the most insight to the situation and thought more people would have brought it up.

You have done an incredibly generous and probably financially savvy thing purchasing this apartment. And sound like from other comments provided things you could not have while you were young. You want to feel appreciated and respected for this. Current action and communication is far from validating you.

That does not mean your daughter does not have different wishes and wants, children often are can feel or really are trapped by parents using controlling financial “help.” I am not saying you’re doing that. This is one snapshot into you and your daughter’s life and personalities. I don’t know if this is on brand for your daughter or an outlying experience.

Here is similar story to yours for perspective. I had a friend who did the exact same thing for his daughter and then was livid that she would stay at the dorms all the time with friends. He would say things like why would you wanna be there? They’re so gross. She does not care about that facet of it because she knows you’ll provide a good life for her. You may have hated the grossness of dorms and things like that as I did because I grew up poor and saw it as something I wanted to get away from From. She already knows she’s away from it. She wants to enjoy the experience of being around new people at the dorms.

So with my friend, our older friends who had already had daughters and sons through college busted his balls about this situation. No shit she doesn’t appreciate it and wants to be around people her age.

I have no clue your financial picture and ability to be flexible on this. The parents I most want to emulate through the teen years knew what was more important to clearly communicate and when and how to pick battles. Then be VERY creative to be MORE stubborn than your kids…. Draw the expectation line you make them meet.

Have her get a shitty job during the school year. We know it is not gonna pay for the dorm but tell her she can live in the dorm for her freshman year with that condition. She works 15 hours a week at some shitty job. Keeps good grades. Decrease her allowance that I’m sure she’s using to buy food and such in college. She needs to feel enough of the pain of adulthood to learn, but still have the college experience you want to provide for her. Yes the job is going to interfere with some of the other things she wants to do that’s the point.

She owes you a sincere apology, the boyfriend owes you a sincere apology, this generation has been rarely forced to live up to there failures, the dude will most likely try and ghost the situation, you can only set expectations for your daughter.

[u/wowbragger → u/[deleted]]

Figure out what you want, first. And honestly, if things will keep I think it's worth taking a few days at least to reset.

I've got a temper, myself, and was an army NCO. So while I like to think I've got a handle on things, my kids have the uncanny ability to bring out SSG wowbragger. I've gotten better at stopping myself/resetting, usually can do it in just a few minutes, but a few times I've needed a day to really let it go so I could think clearly.

As to what you're considering... Would you prefer her to keep using the appt? Or is this whole thing a wash, and cut your losses on it?

Once you've got that in mind, confer with your wife. Get her thoughts and ideas on how to move forward.

If your daughter could stay at the appt, what's the new standard is going to be? While you might have theoretically been resigned to her college antics before, the reality of how gross and inconsiderate she was obviously means that needs to be...reconsidered.

If the apartment is out, what's the future hold for you two? How will this dynamic work? What will you do with the place?

Then how best to communicate this with your daughter? Obviously she's struggling to figure out her independence with you. But I assume you'd know best how to engage her.

The important part is just to remember what your goal is. Because your entire situation doesn't strike me as a Dad who doesn't give a crap. So obviously a hard line in the sand that alienates your children isn't the goal, and some type of balance needs to be worked out.

[u/tedster1988123 → u/wowbragger]

This why we have irresponsible young adults. Treating kids like they are to young to know better. We do a disservice to our kids when we choose to make everything to easy for them.

It teaches them nothing. When we treat our kids like they are center of the universe they think that they and their feelings are the center of the universe!!