Dear Prudence,
My 17-year-old daughter was invited by her boyfriend’s mom to go for parents weekend at her 18-year-old boyfriend’s college five hours away. She was told that it would be just the two of them and that they’d share a hotel room. However, when they picked her up, her boyfriend’s stepdad was in the car too. During the drive over, it became clear that she was to be sharing the hotel room with both the mom and the stepdad. She was uncomfortable with this but did not want to rock the boat. My husband and I felt the sleeping arrangements were completely inappropriate and booked a room for our daughter for the first night. We weren’t able to get a room for the second night, however, because everything was booked, so the stepfather stayed in his stepson’s dorm. Now my daughter is spitting mad at us. It has caused a real rift in our relationship. Did we do the wrong thing? We don’t know the family that well and just feel that a teenage girl shouldn’t be tricked into sharing a hotel room with a grown man. And how do we heal the relationship with our daughter?
—Teenage Daughter Is Mad