I'm seeing the red flags

mrsconn23

Dear Prudence,

My boyfriend and I have been dating for two years. I thought we were getting serious until now. His 14-year-old niece lost her father six months ago. Her parents were divorced, but she was close to her dad. My boyfriend has been “stepping up’ and spending a ton of time with his niece. I think that is admirable, but I am wondering where the end is. My boyfriend takes his niece out to eat alone with him at least twice a week. He has canceled dates with me, even the day of, because his niece had yet another crisis. We tried to reschedule a romantic getaway three times because something with his niece always comes up.

I have tried to join in when his niece comes over, but I get frozen out. She will ignore any of my attempted conversations. If I say I want anything for dinner but Chinese, all she wants is Chinese. She will sit on the other side of my boyfriend and cuddle him and shoot daggers at me if I sit on the other side. I have been made to sit in the back of the car because his niece wants a shotgun. My boyfriend tells me I am being paranoid and his niece just is having a hard time adjusting to her dad’s death. Her mother keeps encouraging my boyfriend to take his niece out and says I need to adjust here because I am an adult and shouldn’t be “jealous” of a teenager.

I am not jealous. I am very, very uncomfortable. My boyfriend tells me that this niece acted the same way with her dad. I have told him that this niece should talk to someone professionally, but I got dismissed. What should I do? I love my boyfriend with all my heart, but his entire situation is intolerable and not letting up.

— Can’t See the Color of the Flags

banana468

Tell your BF that you are LITERALLY not OK taking a back seat to a child. 

There's grief and then there's behavior that is unacceptable.  If the BF won't put a stop to this then it's time to tell him that you're not going to go along for the ride.

charlotte989875

There’s a lot here and I think everyone is to blame. 

I think the BF needs to recognize that boundaries can be good, even in the midst of grief. So ignoring you, freezing you out, being rude is unacceptable behavior. And he needs to be the one to help her understand that. 

But the LW is also a wrong here for not recognizing that a child who lost a close parent needs strong positive role models and that the boyfriend stepping in is a good thing. No the grieving teenager doesn’t get to dictate everything in your lives but six months is basically no time at all. 

banana468

charlotte989875 said:

There’s a lot here and I think everyone is to blame. 

I think the BF needs to recognize that boundaries can be good, even in the midst of grief. So ignoring you, freezing you out, being rude is unacceptable behavior. And he needs to be the one to help her understand that. 

But the LW is also a wrong here for not recognizing that a child who lost a close parent needs strong positive role models and that the boyfriend stepping in is a good thing. No the grieving teenager doesn’t get to dictate everything in your lives but six months is basically no time at all. 

Yeah I agree with this too. 

The concern I have is that the LW is actively also suggesting a very real good idea of therapy and has been shot down.  So at 6 mo it's hardly any time but it's also a time to start phasing from early grief and into a new normal and I can't completely blame the LW for thinking that there's a time to start to emphasize boundaries while also being a strong role model.

VarunaTT

It's not exactly the same, but this niece's behavior reminds me a lot of my great-grandmother.  Basically, she needed to be the center of attention, at all times, of everyone's life.  If someone was going on vacation, GG suddenly ended up in the hospital and vacation had to be cancelled.  E

Especially since the comment was made that she behaved this way with her dad, I think therapy is absolutely in order and the adults probably need some too because they're going to have to learn how to put healthy boundaries into place.  She's manipulating the situation of her father's death so that the adults around her are justifying behavior that ordinarily probably wouldn't be allowed to happen.  I'm not saying this is true of niece, but this behavior is an early pattern of a personality disorder, so therapy is almost a must at this point to either diagnose and deal with it, or to help niece through grief.

ILoveBeachMusic

Yes therapy is needed all around. The niece is grieving and probably doesn't have the tools to deal with it. The LW also needs to be more compassionate -  6 months isn't an unusual amount of time to still be grieving. Heck, I have a friend who lost her husband 10 years ago. She has had therapy and worked through a lot, but there are still days that it just hits her like a ton of bricks. Everyone deals with grief in their own timeline.

short+sassy

banana468 said:

charlotte989875 said:

There’s a lot here and I think everyone is to blame. 

I think the BF needs to recognize that boundaries can be good, even in the midst of grief. So ignoring you, freezing you out, being rude is unacceptable behavior. And he needs to be the one to help her understand that. 

But the LW is also a wrong here for not recognizing that a child who lost a close parent needs strong positive role models and that the boyfriend stepping in is a good thing. No the grieving teenager doesn’t get to dictate everything in your lives but six months is basically no time at all. 

Yeah I agree with this too. 

The concern I have is that the LW is actively also suggesting a very real good idea of therapy and has been shot down.  So at 6 mo it's hardly any time but it's also a time to start phasing from early grief and into a new normal and I can't completely blame the LW for thinking that there's a time to start to emphasize boundaries while also being a strong role model.

This was the biggest red flag for me.  Why wouldn't someone want a grief-stricken child to go to therapy.  Though that would be up to the girls' mother, not the uncle.  But the b/f could at least suggest it, instead of dismissing it.

On the one hand, he's saying that she's so grief-stricken, everything needs to be dropped to help her.  While also saying, "Nah, she doesn't need therapy."  I don't understand that. 

Casadena

uncle cuddling his 14 year old niece feels really gross to me.  really, really gross. 

MissKittyDanger

There's flags here and the fact they're fluffing off LW's suggestion of therapy is a flag.

Admittedly, it took over 6m for me to seek therapy after my dad - not because I was avoiding it, more because I thought I could handle it {spoiler: still can't}

MyNameIsNot

Casadena said:

uncle cuddling his 14 year old niece feels really gross to me.  really, really gross. 

I'm here too. And the way the kid is being kind of possessive about him, there's an off factor about this. 

Casadena

MyNameIsNot said:

Casadena said:

uncle cuddling his 14 year old niece feels really gross to me.  really, really gross. 

I'm here too. And the way the kid is being kind of possessive about him, there's an off factor about this. 

Yup.  It has a definite ick factor.  I think the uncle is choosing to be oblivious to the behavior and enjoys the 2 women (1 woman, 1 child actually...) "fighting" over him in a sense.