Getting attached to your kids significant others

Have no experience with this, but don't be like my sister. Her son and GF broke up but my sister kept having a relationship with the GF--inviting her over etc. Made it awkward. I felt bad for my nephew who wanted to go on, but his mother was sabotaging him.

My dd had a serious bf that she met when she was 18. We LOVED him - except for the fact that he is Australian (we're Canadian!). He was a great guy, seemed perfect for her, but was geographically undesirable LOL They met when they both lived in Banff for a year, and then he moved back to Australia & she moved back to Ontario to finish school. They did the long distance thing for 3 more years, flying back & forth for extended visits - but in the end covid killed their relationship. We were all shocked when she broke up with him actually, we thought for sure he was her person. I almost think we were sadder than she was! LOL But now she's with a new guy & we love him more, he just seemed to fit in with our family right away. After the last guy we tried to not get attached to him, but he really is great. And of course he is from Ireland, and now they're both living in Manchester (I guess she has a thing for guys with accents LOL) Whenever they come here to visit they just stay in her room - they do live together after all. But at first it was weird for all of us.

DS has a very serious gf too, in fact he's told me she's the one. But he went through a string of girls before her that we barely bothered to get to know, they came & went so fast. This one is wonderful though and she is like a member of our family. I'm so glad both my kids seem to have chosen well, it makes it so much easier when we like their people!

my kids are in their 30's and mostly settled.
I say.. treat the friends with respectful kindness, but don't think it is the last relationship unless they tell you and it sticks!!

don't over invest, and don't maintain a relationship afterward. their relationship is theirs alone and I keep out of such stuff.

I know of one situation where the parents adored the boy their daughter was dating so much that they invited him to move into their home. He is the boy that grew up next door to my house. He had a very volatile relationship with both of his parents and I used to find him sitting on the bench by my front door, just trying to escape his home life. Whenever I found him on my porch, I always invited him inside.

He was 6 years older than my son, but they got along quite well. He would play my son's Nintendo games and my son would watch to learn new tricks. He really was the sweetest kid and we kind of adopted him. He always came over for Christmas morning and I always had gifts for him. He said he didn't need presents, he just enjoyed watching my son open his, but I insisted. He was always helpful and polite and we adored him.

He grew up and went off to a college in another city and met this girl. They dated for about 2 years and then decided they were not right for each other. But her parents adored him and did not want to sever their relationship. With their daughter's permission, they invited him to move in with their family. He lived with them while finishing school. Living with them, he was able to quit one of his jobs and focus on his education more. By this time, his parents, my neighbors, were divorced. His dad was an angry alcoholic and his mother just didn't have a maternal bone in her body. She was verbally cruel to him and felt he never did enough for her.

The situation with him living with his ex's family worked out very well. She dated other guys and he was happy for her. He went to her wedding and sat with her parents. They made better pseudo siblings than they did a couple. When he got married himself, they all sat at the family table with him. My son and I sat there also. He said we (meaning myself, my son, his ex's family) were more of a real family to him than his own parents so he wanted us to be there with him. His ex was there with her new husband also. He was just the kind of kid that once you got to know him, you wanted to keep him in your life.

So, sometimes it works out. Of course, if the daughter hadn't agreed, I'm sure the parents would not have invited him to live with them.

I’ve cried over a couple of breakups. Youngest daughter dated the same boy for 3-1/2 years of high school and broke up with him on the day she left for college. I was mostly upset for him. He had been a part of our family for so long. His mom and I still get together several times a year for dinner and a drink.

Oldest daughter had a college boyfriend break up with her unexpectedly after 2 years. He had charmed his way into all of our hearts and we thought he was “the one.” Even my younger daughter cried about that.

Now both daughters are in their late 20s and living with their boyfriends of 3 years. I’m pretty confident that these young men will be permanent members of our family and are treated as such.

My eldests first love will always have a soft spot in my heart. Of course it helps that they are still friends.

In fact, they and many highschool friends were recently at a friends' wedding north of here. The old boyfriend learned that my dog was soon to cross the rainbow bridge. He stopped in for a visit on his way home to say goodbye to his old, good friend, my dog. A photo of them with them looking into each other's eyes, Toby's head resting in his hands told me two things. 1. Dogs never forget their friends regardless of time away and 2. that boy, now young man is a good one and as in some movie they said, he will always have a place at my fire.

Some of the others they have dated, meh. But this one was friends first in childhood and friends after. A lifelong one, I would guess. He's welcome here anytime.

In my experience, treat every girl as a potential wife. Be inclusive. Be curious about her without being overbearing. Be the potential MIL you wish you had. If it works out, great. If not, you've been human to a person your kid thought was great. If your kid keeps them in their life as a friend, then you can too. If not, back away and move on.

One of my sons married his 7th grade sweetheart 11 years later and the other dated and brought home half a dozen young ladies. Both wives now tell others they feel so lucky in the in-law lottery.

Just treat them the way you'd want to be treated and not as someone going through a revolving door. We meet a lot of people in life for just a short time and we treat them with respect. Kids SO aren't any different.

Break ups are hard on everyone!

When our son broke up with his girlfriend, it was pretty 'weird' for a while. They were both young (a high school romance), but they had dated for several years. She was a pretty big part of our lives and he was very close with her family too.

We still communicated with her, and our son knew it - but we kept it casual and infrequent. As time moved on and they moved on - she came back in to our lives and he stops and sees her parents when he is back in the area. Not always, but once in a while. They are friendly to each other, but both have moved on and have serious relationships with other people now. Neither live anywhere close. But it is SO nice that they don't hate each other. We are friends with her family as well and get together once in a while to go out and eat. I've met her new boyfriend, as they stopped by one day so she could introduce him.

I wish this is how it could work for everyone!

I absolutely loved ds's first gf. She was gregarious, sweet and she was like the dd I never had. They were together for 3.5 years and broke up as juniors in college. I was so sad, but they were young and I anticipated that could happen and likely would.

I never cared for gf #2. Still, I was welcoming and kind, because I didn't want to push ds away. I always had a bad feeling about her and it turns out I was correct. When she hurt him I told him that I would support the relationship if that's what he still wanted, but if not I would support him. We've talked a lot about the situation and he realizes what I was feeling all along and agrees.

Don't get involved in the relationship. Support your child and be there to listen. You don't want to push him away. It doesn't sound like he's that invested from what he says. It could be too early in the relationship.

We let gf #2 sleep in ds's room when they would visit. In their 20s in grad school,two consenting adults? Might as well.

You know, I have a couple of exes who I am still friends with, and, years later, I've run into their mothers at weddings or birthdays or other events, and I've found it weirdly touching when the mothers are still genuinely interested in my life and express kindness to me.  I think sometimes you can feel the lack of interest on the part of the parents (note I didn't say the fathers asked after me!), and it can feel almost dehumanizing. 

That said, I would have thought it weird if the moms had otherwise kept in touch or reached out, and I've basically treated my older kids' romantic partners like I treat their regular friends.