My (42M) girlfriend (44F) is incredibly controlling over her son (15M) and I feel like I should say something but I am not sure how.

I am coming at this from the perspective of a single parent where the father has never been in the picture with a socially behind kid in the second half of elementary school.

Some of these things you mention here I don’t see as too much at all, some way too much, and others possible if she’s doing most all the parenting on her own. There have been so many times along the way where I have had to be strict but wished there was another parent around to balance that strictness. There have been a couple times i’ve even called a family member in to be that ‘good cop’. As well having a kid that is socially behind makes it even harder to let go more. It’s like a double edged sword. You can let things go more knowing full well your kid is more susceptible/easily manipulated than other kids where some bad shit may happen but at least they will learn through the experience, or step in more to try and make sure they don’t end up fucking up the rest of their life. It’s really possible that not only might you bringing up some of these things be welcome but actually really helpful to everyone involved.

A couple things I don’t see an issue with are checking homework/schoolwork stuff from time to time (not going into the school and raising hell unless kid requested or something absolutely ridiculous is going on). Who, where, and when...but it doesn’t need to be down to the minute specific. ‘So and so and some other people’, ‘this general area’, ‘back around this time’. Honestly it just sort of seems like common courtesy. The kind of thing even I would share with someone I live with. Everything else though needs to be worked on...a lot.

/r/relationships Thread