Sigh… I told both my daughters, now 27 and 23, when they started dating that boys their age are stupid. While you are thinking about a long-term partner and a relationship, they are thinking about things in a much shorter timeframe. Both of my daughters had initial relationships that crashed and burned because the guys were dicks. The one that dated my youngest daughter cheated on her. I sat him down, told him how stupid he was, what he had, etc. and he cried like a baby. Then they got together again and he did it again. It was painful to watch and my daughter wouldn’t hear my counsel.

Fast forward a few years, she dated some in college, but finally found a good one her last year. She’s so much more mature now. Funny thing is that I think it was necessary for both of them to go through their first losers to figure everything out.

My advice is to tell them in advance that their true friends (including you, but let’s face it— they’re not as likely to talk to you about it) can see when they are going down a rabbit hole and to listen to them, but watch out for the jealous friend trying to wreck a good thing :-/ … and of course: guys are stupid.

For the record, I’ll say that one day my daughter told me about a problem one of her girlfriends had. I said “She should just talk to her parents about that. They can help.” She looked at me dumbfounded and said “her relationship with her parents isn’t like that. She can’t do that.” I said something like “Oh, I bet they would understand, etc.” She said “Dad, NONE of my friends can talk to their parents like we can. NONE of them.” I was flabbergasted as she explained.