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The original was posted on /r/relationships by /u/meowtrix911 on 2024-01-20 16:40:43+00:00.
Hi everyone, this has been bothering me for a while and I’ve had nobody to talk to about this and it’s really been putting me in a bad place mentally so I figured I’d post it here to hopefully get some advice.
For context: I met my gf in my senior year of college. I was out of state at university (4 hours drive from home) and she is an international student from China. We started dating soon after we met and were seeing each other basically every weekend. My parents were against the relationship from the very beginning and considered her to be like a “working girl” from the start (because of the way she dresses and wears makeup; which side note isn’t even very revealing. She wears designer clothes often but they’re not overly revealing or out of the norm in any way). My mom is also slightly racist against China but I’m not sure how much this is influencing her actions. They told me that I shouldn’t take this relationship seriously and that I should just be with her to “have fun”. I get attached to people somewhat easily and I am not the type of person who goes into relationships for sex with no serious intentions. She is also my first serious girlfriend which my parents also complain about as because she’s my first I don’t know any better and I need to have more experience before I’m serious with anyone. My parents also complain about the fact that my girlfriend is a student and on a student visa even though she has many more years of eligibility to stay in the us and she is majoring in an in demand career field.
So, I was dating her for a while and my parents were okay with it until she came home with me for Christmas. I had been head over heels for this girl up until this point and was completely infatuated so my parents had some merit in saying that I was not myself but things slowly started changing as my parents complaints became more forceful and aggressive. After our vacation together with my parents during winter break I went back to school and we were together when I randomly got a call from my mom telling me that I have to break up with her or else because my mom found on that I took her to eat somewhere expensive for her birthday which was in December. I was able to cool things down by telling my mom I needed time to be able to break up and delayed things saying that I’ll break up by the summer and so on. There were arguments every few weeks which usually resulted in my mom blocking me over something small and then threatening to disown me only for me to beg and apologize and reiterate that I’ll break up by summer.
Fast forward to summer and by this point my mom had a “revelation” and decided to give my gf another chance but things didn’t work out in the end because of a miscommunication and my mom freaking out about little things such as my gf being upset about one of my female friends. At this point my mom threatened to disown me again and blocked me again. However at this point I’m living alone in a completely different part of the country as I have graduated and landed a good job. This back and forth has gone on until today with basically going from blocked to unblocked and from hated to loved and back and forth all while my mom says she’s doing this for me and loves me one week and tells me to go fuck myself a different week for little things that happen. There is almost no communication about problems as my mom is always right.
So here I am today, my parents threatening to block me for good and never talk to me again or see me ever again unless I leave my girlfriend. I have never made any commitments to marry my girlfriend nor have we any plans to live together as we’re currently long distance and may be this way for some time because of the location of my job. My parents have also done this before with a previous girlfriend of mine whom they didn’t approve, but I broke up much easier with that girl since I wasn’t too into it so it never got to this point. I just feel so alone and I love my parents so much and we’ve had such a good relationship in the past and they’ve been very good to me. Though I have always been afraid of my mom and she’s extremely overprotective and makes me tell her wherever I am at all times and freaks out if it takes me longer than 30 min to answer a text. We also use an app where she can track me and see wherever I go and she’ll often call me almost screaming if she sees that I’m sitting still too long lol. However, they always provided for me and paid for my tuition and everything. However I also love my girlfriend and feel like I would be miserable and regret it for the rest of my life if I left her without really wanting it or it feeling right deep inside of me. I also believe she loves me as she has tried hard in her own way to make things right with my parents and has stayed with me despite all this pressure on our relationship and is staying in the US mainly for me. My parents think that she’s just with me for a green card but I very much doubt that with 100% certainty and I don’t plan on marrying her within the next 5 years anyway. But at the same time I don’t know for sure if it will work out in the long term either and I’m not rushing into it either but I want the chance to explore this relationship because I really think we love each-other. So idk what I should do or how I should feel at this point. I just feel so empty inside and lonely.
TLDR: My parents are threatening to disown me/block me on everything if I don’t break up with my girlfriend of 1.5 years. I love her but we haven’t made any long term commitments to each other but we have both made sacrifices and communicate to show our love. My parents are also great parents but super overprotective (such as using an app to track me at all times) and have also done this before with my previous girlfriend. I don’t live at home but I don’t know what to do because I love both my parents and girlfriend but I know I will regret it if I leave her.