Homeschool Curriculum & Child Learning

My wife made our son break up with his girlfriend, how to support our son without taking sides?

by Confuseddad
(Smalltown)

I am the proud father of an excellent 13 year old boy. My wife and I have done all we can to raise him that way and I dare say we've succeeded.

Now, however we are in serious disagreement over what amounted to our son's first ... well, romantic relationship. I will refer to the two young people by their initials P and N.

Sadly, as soon as his mother figured out he had formalized this stage of his relationship, she brought down the hammer on it, without mercy. She made him call the girl and tell her that they were no longer permitted to see each other. She emailed her parents telling them the relationship was unacceptable and was to end immediately and permanently. She grounded our son, confiscated his phone and exacted a number of other retributions.

By the time I got wind of all this (out of town on business), a lot of damage had been done. I had on my hands a seriously pissed off teenage son, a fuming wife and had to deal with the very confused and angry parents of a deeply depressed 13 year old girl.

To make things extra awkward, we live in a fairly small town. We are (were?) good friends with her parents. N's parents simply adore P. and were delighted when their daughter progressed her relationship with our son to this stage. P and N have known each other literally all their lives, go to the same school, were best friends long before they became a couple. My wife taught N to knit, N's father routinely takes both kids hunting.

And frankly, no one that knows either of these two young people was remotely surprised when they "finally got together". No one, except P's mother, that is.

As P entered middle school and then his teen years we had all the talks about sex, relationships, respect, responsibility, etc. Though then his mother also added: "While you're still in school, you will not have a girlfriend, you will not date, period." I thought, at the time, that was perhaps a bit extreme but figured we'd hash that out in good time. I suspected it was only a matter of time that P and N noticed that they were a boy and a girl.

Really, they're both great kids. Top students, talented musicians, superb athletes. Both have always had a mix of male and female friends, are easy going, active in the community, universally respected. Heck, they're even annoyingly good looking. I frankly have no problem with these kids having an evolving relationship.

So now I don't understand is why suddenly my wife alienated our son and turned on this poor girl. And made an entire community question her sanity.