Had a nice visit with my youngest son this weekend. We had a good heart-to-heart chat about his current girlfriend - I think he's going to break up with her. It seemed well thought out and calm, which is a change for him - previous relationships often were ones where he was dumped and clung on with WAY too much OCD texting, or there was some fiery ending. In this relationship he is just seeing that their fights seem to repeat themselves, and that when he tries to discuss their differences and how to better handle things, she just deflects, deflects, deflects.
He's also seeing that she's impulsive in a rather immature way - and somewhat controlling. Example: she wanted him to start parting his hair differently. Now - first of all, my son is VERY fashion conscious, so he's definitely NOT doing anything with his hair that isn't totally cool. Second - he HAS to part his hair on that side because he has a cute little cowlick smack dab in the middle of his hairline. His hair looks just FINE! If that was the only thing I'd say no big deal, but apparently this is just emblematic of other things that are also very controlling. Like she doesn't want to stay at his place because it's too messy - I gotta tell you, I defy you to find a house with 3 young men that looks neater than theirs! Everything in its place, everyone takes their shoes off when they enter the house, nicely decorated, well organized - it looks great! So he stays at her place all the time, and then if they come to his house and it IS messy, it's hardly his fault, because he hasn't been there!
They've only been dating for about 7-8 months, and while on paper they seemed to be a good match, he feels it's clear that this is not going to be a good fit for him long term, and he doesn't feel it would be fair to keep the relationship going. She meanwhile lost a roommate and tried to talk him into moving in somewhere new with her (umm, no).
I'm proud of him that he seems to have tried to resolve their differences in a mature way, and is seeing that they may not be a good enough fit for a long term relationship. And mature enough to see that, although he doesn't want to hurt her feelings, it would be worse if he lets the relationship continue too long. And glad that he feels close enough to me to talk this all out.
