Woman shares relationship saga; 'My parents don't like my BF, so they gave me an ultimatum.' UPDATED 2X

"My parents don’t like my boyfriend, so they gave me an ultimatum."

Looking for experience and opinions. All are welcome. I’ll try to make a long story short. I am an only child and My current boyfriend and I have been dating for 6 years, starting when I was 19 and he was 20. We met at junior college where we started dating and after that we went to different UCs but within an hour of each other.

My parents met him early on by joining us at dinner, everything seemed to go well. Then soon after, we went to his parents house who live about 2 hours from my parents so I could meet his family, and after learning this my mom told me how hurt she was that we didn’t come to see them too.

I expressed that this weekend was for me to meet his family, but it was clear that she felt almost betrayed.

Fast forward, my parents invite me up to our cabin and my boyfriend joins, we take my car because it was already loaded with laundry etc. After we arrive, my dad pulls me aside and pretty much quietly yells at me how wrong it is that I drove and that we took my car. “He’s the man, he should be driving” blah blah blah.

This started everything going forward on a sour note. The cabin is in Tahoe, (it gets cold in the winter) so my boyfriend wore a sweatshirt with his hood up during some of the time at the cabin. My parents to this day, site this as weird and rude as well as a reason they don’t like him.

As we continue our relationship it’s clear that my parents don’t like him, but they can’t really give up what I would call good or justifiable reasons. They’ll say he’s just not a good “fit for the family”.

They don’t tell me to stop dating him (because they can’t, I’m an adult) but they do tell me that I need to keep them and him separate.

They don’t want to really hear about him and he’s not welcome at their house or cabin. he’s never cheated on me, abused me, he has no drug problems etc. nothing that a normal parent would site as a problem.

Eventually it became an ultimatum given to me by my parents. They’d tell me that if you continue to date him, eventually it will be either him or us and you’ll have to choose. Among other things they would tell me that he’d never be an attorney, which is what he wanted to do, and insinuating that he probably wouldn’t be much of anything at all.

After undergrad I started working at a financial firm. He graduated from undergrad at UC Berkeley and was accepted to law school across the country. We were always very serious about each other and made the decision to do long distance until he graduated and moved back to Ca.

My boyfriend has since graduated from and Law School, moved home, and took the bar last month. He starts work this October, and had a contract since last year. They have known about this as well.

Now, 6 years into our relationship I call my parents and tell them that we are going to be moving in together. About 20 minutes later I get a text, from my mom, saying that she doesn’t want to rain on my parade but that this “path” excludes her and my dad from my future.

That they love me but they can’t be in my life if I choose to be with my boyfriend. I told them I would never understand. Since then, they have sent me more and more text messages saying stuff like “we feel like we’re losing our daughter” “this is heartbreaking” etc. and all at the same time including that this is “my choice” and my fault.

I texted my parents that I thought my boyfriend and I should come over and talk, that texting about this kind of thing is stupid, but not to be patronized or belittled and if it turned to screaming that we would leave.

My parents then replied that they wanted to see me face to face to talk but that my boyfriend isn’t allowed. My boyfriend even called my father the night of the initial “we can’t be part of your life” text to try and talk or meet up and see if there was a way to talk through any legitimate concerns.

My dad did not answer and responded until a week plus later, only to text him that they haven’t really ever liked him, that he wants to work through it with me alone, and it’s mine and my boyfriends fault for not trying to address things earlier.

Among other ridiculous “reasons” to not like my boyfriend were “Berkeley isn’t a ‘man’s’ college.” - my dad.

One time in college, my professor lost my final exam, and when I found out via my final grades and was frantically calling her to figure out what happened, my parents told my boyfriend “see this is why we didn’t want her to have a boyfriend in college”, they’ve found ways to blame him for everything.

The only thing that ever had any merit was that he wasn’t working yet. Well, this was because he was going to school to be a lawyer. (apparently marrying someone who will make a lot of money is a bad thing?)

My boyfriend is the nicest, most calm and peaceful person ever and he loves me more than anything. But apparently their pride is more important than being wrong and accepting him.

I guess I’m just trying to figure out if this is normal? Or if it’s as wrong as it feels to my boyfriend and I.

FYI boyfriend as well as my parents and myself are of the same race. Somewhat similar financial status as well. **no important details left out, I promise. I wanted objective feedback. Believe me, if there was more, my parents would make it known to me and I would have included it in this post.

"Mom was a career politician, dad was a firefighter and politician. (Both conservative republicans) I’m an only child. Not close to aunts and uncles. Only surviving grandparent is dad’s mom, she was happy to hear that I had tried to get the 4 of us to talk. I have to now tell her that they declined the offer. She often tells me that she is very sorry that I’ve been put in this position.

I have come to the same conclusion, me going alone is only their last ditch attempt to bargain and manipulate my opinion. Leaving him out so he can’t speak or defend himself is just so they can gang up on me and control the narrative.

He’s white and we’re white. I promise it’s the whole truth. Parents are conservative and think anything that deviates from what they would do must be wrong. BF went to school for longer to do law, dad thinks he should have started working at age 13… “like he did”.

My boyfriend is the best, he’s never said a bad word about my parents either, despite how awful they’ve been to him. His parents are wonderful, his dad who is not a touchy feely person even called me and explained how sad it is that my parents are doing this, that he and his wife love me and my bf and support us.

Before we give you OP's updates, let's take a look at some top responses:

ahtu writes:

Love should be unconditional. These are some narcissistic old generation control methods that you do your potential future children a favor by overcoming before they are born. This will carry on and your parents won't really contribute to anything positive in life when they can't accept that the unfortunate reality that you aren't their little girl anymore.

My dad was like this, kicks me out of house on false accusations, but only wanted to scare me. Then when i left he was saying all kinds of bs that was worse than the kicking out. "Uhh yeah, that's not what i mean, you can stay but pay 450 a month". Oh i have to pay more than 50% of the rent and live with you, using my student loans. Yeah no dude i'd rather live in a box.

This is just immaturity and lack of emotional intelligence and self-awareness. I really don't understand why people gamble with their own insecurity, it's the most counter-intuitive thing when you want to stay as involved as possible. They project losing her by risking something that is pretty inevitable.

floert writes:

Exactly. I know this all too well but in my story my partner has some issues and has hurt me emotionally and my parents have seen it. My mom wants me to keep him separate from the rest of the family.

It's harder for me because we have two kids. In the beginning when everything was nice and good she was still saying how she didn't really want me to be with him and I took offense to that. So now at this point she has told me if I want to stay with him then that means I don't want her in my life.

And it hurts because at this point I don't know what I want. I just want peace but every option looks like turmoil at the moment and I'm just stuck doing nothing scared to make a move to do anything.

I'm an only child too and I love all my family so I don't want to lose any of them even though I wish my relationship with my partner would get better even if it did I would be hard for things to go smoothly with my family again.

But I do get the sheltered feeling. Even in past relationships I feel like even as an adult my family in general was on top of me in a way I felt like I couldn't always breathe. Anytime I explain it they don't get it.

My family also would tell me how it was wrong for me to drive to him when we would go on dates because he was the man, and so on and because I didn't push the relationship in the traditional way they did with dating and everything that's why my relationship failed.

But in reality this story disproves that. OP didn't do everything that her family felt she should do or how the relationship should look for them for it to be considered good and the relationship is thriving by her doing it how it works for her.

featrrrh writes:

I have no clue what is wrong with your parents, but something definitely is. It sounds like a control issue, and it sounds like it’s time to break free.

All you had to tell me was cabin in Tahoe, and I immediately knew who your parents were. And please know Tahoe is one of my happy places. But your parents are so far over the top and so far out of bounds that I’m not sure they are even playing the same game of life that you are.

If they choose to cut themselves off from you, that’s their choice. You cannot take responsibility for that just because you want to live your life. So what they’re trying to do is manipulate you into doing what they want you to do for whatever reason.

Best advice I have for you is to keep the boyfriend and lose the parents. I don’t have a mother of three girls now in their 30s. But if I ever acted like your parents are, I would expect them to cut me off in a heartbeat.

You are not an extension of your parents, regardless of what they seem to think. The mere fact that they brought you into this world and supported you while you were growing up, is exactly what they were supposed to do because they brought you into this world.

What they are not supposed to do is to try to control you, to guilt, you, to manipulate you, to somehow make you think you are an extension of any reflection of them. Their job was to raise you and love you and support you so that you could become an independent adult human being. I think they succeeded in getting a raise, but they are failing miserably on the rest.

So move in with your boyfriend. Live your best life. Let them know that that’s what you’re going to do and if they choose to step out of your life, that is entirely on them, and you refuse to take responsibility for their choices. And if they keep trying to guilt and manipulate you, just keep repeating that to them.

And if you have to, go no contact. I know that sounds harsh, it is easier sometimes to say than to do. But give it a try for a while, and you were going to be incredibly surprised at how much simpler your life is and how much happier you are.

And if they send flying monkeys to tell you how you are hurting your parents, tell the flying monkeys to go take a leap because your parents are the ones who cut you out of their lives. And let the flying monkeys know that if they don’t change the subject right now, you will let your relationship with them go to no contact as well.

Update 1:

Hi everyone, updating you all on this long awaited “resolution.” After many more hurtful texts from my parents that said they can’t accept my partner and that it doesn’t matter if he’s a good fit for me, if he’s not a good fit for my “family” then it’s never going to work out, I went over in person to meet with them and pick up my legal documents.

They made it clear that my boyfriend was not welcome and that this was a “family matter” they needed to speak with only me about. (Clear manipulation obviously) So, I went alone.

I’m on my way, I know what I think and how I feel, I’m very sure of what I plan on saying. (Thanks to Reddit I have additional confirmation that I’m not crazy or wrong or a bad person, but they are in fact in the wrong).

It was strange, walking into your parent’s house and feeling like you’re meeting strangers. Kind of felt like having a 26 year long relationship and being broken up with via text, then having to go pick up your s and memories from your Ex’s house… Except that ex is your parents.

After about an hour of small talk, we got into the nitty gritty convo about the elephant in the room. A previous text that week had said, “we don’t expect to change your mind…we just want to talk.” but it’s clear that this in person meeting was a last ditch attempt to shake me from my reality and into theirs.

They came at me from every angle, “he’s not a man’s man” -dad “I don’t respect him” - dad “I hate him, he’s taking away the most precious thing in our life, how could you not hate someone like that.” -dad, even at some point physically threatening him.

My mom was either agreeing or adding little tidbits and reminders of things she doesn’t like about him. Some of which are things I mentioned in my previous post about when I went to meet his family and didn’t see her and my dad too. Mentioning also that she doesn’t like that I made the first move to talk to my boyfriend and not the other way around.

You get the gist. It was all out war on my BF. They tell me I’m depriving them of a son in law. They say he is selfish for not breaking up with me years ago when he realized that my parents didn’t like him.

They even just started blindly throwing out shots like “I don’t even know if he has any friends.” (Like WTF mom and dad, of course you don’t s about him because you’ve made me keep my relationship out of earshot for 6 years ) but I digress.

It ends up being a 3 hour long conversation where I spoke for all of maybe 5 minutes with my heart rate at 150 the whole time (thanks for reminding me of that Apple Watch).

They also don’t fail to mention a few other shining points such as: We knew you would put this on us, this is not an ultimatum, we are just reacting to YOUR decision and choices”. -Was their reply to my saying, “this is not my choice, this is an ultimatum you’ve given me and neither my BF or I want this.”

We knew you would make us the bad guys because we’re not #Team boyfriend’s name.

Any of your friends and family who say we will come around or it will get better is lying to you and saying what you want to hear. They asked me why they should like or be impressed by my BF, I told them various accolades. Dad replied with “education doesn’t impress me.”

I told them how wonderful he was through some of the toughest times in my life (college) and how he supported and kept me sane when even my parents were coming down on me about how I wasn’t doing enough.

They said “that’s what any boyfriend would do”. (Ummm no mom and dad, it’s not, and the two of you certainly were making me feel worse that entire time)

They said because my BF’s dad helped him get through school by paying his tuition that he’s had everything in his life handed to him.

dad said “I think you’re mom is having an epiphany about who you’re becoming.” Like I’m some monster.

they said “we feel like you’re not listening to us” because I’m not just blindly agreeing to break up with my BF.

dad said “this kind of thing happens all the time” (as if that makes it normal or justified)

At the end, I have to break the news that in between all of the hurtful texts and prior to this meeting, my BF and I signed a lease and moved in together. Nothing they were going to say was going to sway me otherwise, even they said that.

So we had taken the leap and made the move the weekend before this meeting. I was commuting about 20-30 minutes before the move, and my commute is the same after the move.

Update 2:

Only difference is we now live in the same city that my BF (new attorney with crazy early and late hours) works in. Believe me I had all kinds of requirements prior to this move, it has to be safe, have in unit washer and dryer, safe parking, etc. & it’s only for a year or two while we save $ so we can buy a home. Contrary to my parents belief, I’m capable of rational decisions…

I tell them first that we signed the lease and where it is, (ya know, to try and lighten the blow that I am outright “disobeying” them). They start going off about how “oh of course, making it easy on him again”.

(They saw me always going to my BF’s house as me catering to him, even though the only reason was because we were never comfortable being together at their house, then of course he became essentially banished).

So they see this move as me being some smitten teenaged idiot, not about how this is a relationship with compromise. They tell me that my commute is going to be brutal and that I’m lying to myself if I think it’s not.

(Again, I have already been doing it for a week. I KNOW it’s not any worse, it’s a prettier drive even.) But it’s clear that I can’t slowly ease into it and I have to just rip off the bandaid because they are straight up just wrong and trying to convince me that I don’t know what I’m talking about. So I say, “IVE ALREADY BEEN DOING IT FOR A WEEK! WE MOVED IN LAST WEEKEND.”

They are just dumbfounded. lol. Like I thought you guys said you weren’t planning on changing my mind so why so surprised that I just went ahead and made my choice???? My mom starts crying.

My dad keeps saying “you fd up kid.” It’s about 10 pm at this point so now that they know I have a slightly longer drive home they are kind of sweeping me out the door so I can get home before it gets too much later. My mom gives me this big sobbing hug. At this point I’ve run out of tears.

I was crying throughout the entire conversation but at this point was just over the bullshit. My dad who rarely even tells me that he loves me gives me this awkward desperate hug too that just kind of makes me roll my eyes. I get in the car and drive home just totally exhausted and confused.

Truthfully they did a good job of again, making me question my own thoughts and choices. But I get home and just start spilling everything that they said to my BF. He’s not surprised, but as I said in my last post, he remains Swiss in all of this and doesn’t say anything shitty about them. He just holds me close and lets me vent.

Something else that came up during our lovely 3 hour discussion was my anxiety, I have previously shared with them that I think they are a huge source of it and had been throughout my childhood as well. Prior discussions have always gone nowhere “you had it so easy, we don’t ask that much of you.. etc.”.

Clearly not listening to me. So I brought it up again in this discussion, how my parents are a huge source of anxiety and my BF is a calm rock in all of it, that I’m so grateful he’s such a great partner.

My dad screams at me how he never laid a fg hand on me and how he was physically disciplined as a child and that he can’t own that he and they could have anything to do with my being an anxious person.”

He even says “you need therapy”. (Like yes dad, thank you, I sure do, and also F you.) Also said “I have a hard time swallowing that I had anything to do with your anxiety, you’re going to have to work out those demons with yourself”.

Alllll of this to say, the answer you’ve all waited for is that I moved in with my BF, am keeping mom and dad at arms length, and also I have started therapy. It’s 26 years of emotional abuse and narcissism to unpack and learn from, but I’m working through it.

The guilt tripping and lack of boundaries is so real and has been so real for forever. I know my situation isn’t as bad as others and is also worse than others, but for all of you out there in similar situations, seek therapy. It is a really good thing. There’s so much behavior to unlearn and grow from.

Even if you don’t think it’s that bad and that you’re doing “fine”, see a therapist if you can. Your abusers have learned behavior too, they have learned how to get to you and how to manipulate you, whether it’s vindictive or not. They have learned how to make you do what they want and think what they think and then they know how to make you feel horrible about doing anything differently.

Seek counsel in family and friends whose advice you trust, seek therapy, and above all trust yourself.

I still get very emotional about all of this, it’s still a very fresh wound. I mourn the relationship I had with my mom and the one I will never have with my dad. My health is definitely suffering at the moment from all of the stress, but I’m working on getting my mental health back and I know my body will follow.

Breaking the wheel is hard and terrifying. It’s like being a crate trained puppy forever and finally being allowed to go outside, but outside is unknown. The crate is all you know and even though you know the crate is confining and freedom is in front of you it’s all so unfamiliar, uncertain and frightening.

You know what’s behind you and it’s easy to want to run back to it. But no matter what is in front of you, it’s better than the crate. The crate is not living for yourself, its living for someone else. So go out and make your own life.

I hope this story can help someone else out there like me who was seeking validation about their feelings and situation. Thank you again to all the redditors who shared their thoughtful insight and advice. It truly got me through the most difficult days of my life.