my parents don’t support my college decision and it’s really messing with my head

I, 17M am going to college next year but my parents don't support my choice. My life hasn't been perfect, my parents divorced and other stuff, but they've generally been fairly supportive of everything i've done.

I'm committed to go to NC State University (In state). My choice was between that or BYU, which is super far away. I've grown up my whole life Mormon and my mom is and my dad used to be as well. I chose NCSU over BYU and now whenever I ask if they can at least respect my decision or support me they always dodge the question and it hurts me so much bc if they've supported me for other things does that mean I made the wrong choice?

Here are my reasons for picking NCSU over BYU:

  1. I don't know if I agree with everything about my church or if I want to continue being Mormon, and I want the freedom to explore my faith in an unbiased area that give me room to make that decision either way, as opposed to going to BYU where I feel like i'll feel isolated if I decide I don't agree with it.

  2. At the end of 2024, I started dating my gf who is one year behind me in HS, so I will be leaving for college while she has one more year still. I made sure that this decision wasn't based off of a high school relationship because everyone says it's bad to do that, and I do believe that my other reason is more of the deciding factor. But, that being said I love her very much and the thought of leaving across the country is something I don't think I could handle, I don't think we'd do great in a long distance relationship, because we need to be physically together.

Everye time I thought about going to BYU and telling her that we had to break up I just felt incredible pain and I don't know how i'd recover from losing her in that way.

When I made my decision, my parents seemed very disappointed and they are convinced that she is the only reason I chose this. But I thought so so much about it and I was able to become confident in my decision. But every time I talk to them they don't think I thought it through enough and so much so that they don't seem to support me at all. My dad has talked about not funding me at all. I'm a good kid, I don't drink, I go to church, and I do great in school.

Whenever I think of my decision on my own I feel good about it. But whenever i talk to my parents I just feel very hurt that they don't support me.

What do I do and am I just overreacting?

Posted May 5, 2025, 2:14 AM UTC

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