My (23F) boyfriends (23M) parents don’t want us together
It’s like the title says they have absolutely no interest in meeting me and don’t want their son with me. A little back story, we’ve been together a little less than a year, we come from different religions though I am non-practicing and this is both of our first relationship. Besides this we have a really great relationship, we balance work school and seeing each other very well, we have great communication and he’s extremely supportive. At first I didn’t know this would be an issue at all because he never mentioned that his parents only wanted him to date within their religion. About 3 months into the relationship he met my family and that’s when I asked why he hadn’t seemed to want to introduce me to his family. He then told me about how traditional his family is. I should mention that he’s first generation his parents are immigrants and he’s the oldest son and grandson and no one in his family has had a serious relationship with anyone outside their religion. Since then we’ve struggled to figure out how to handle this. It’s caused guilt on his end as he comes to my family holidays and barbecues and he gets upset he can’t give me that. It’s caused a little insecurity on my part as well because of a few things his mother has said. When he tries to approach the subject with her she has varying answers. Sometimes she’ll say whatever makes you happy and other times she will scold him on how he’s an embarrassment and bringing shame to their family and their reputation. I only go over to his house when his parents aren’t there and when I do he will get passive aggressive texts about me being there. When he gets those texts he does quickly defend me. His mother has also said she thinks I’m a distraction preventing him from focusing on school. Another time I went over for a movie night he was hosting, it was me and his friends and their girlfriends, the next day after his dad accused his friends of taking a piece of meat from the freezer and then his dad accused me. One time when we were on a date his grandmother called and while on speaker she was actively trying to set him up on a date since none of his grandparents know about me (arranged relationships aren’t uncommon in their religion). He’s very nervous about confronting his family and telling them he’s serious about me since they support him financially and pay for his college. He also believes there’s a chance he will be disowned which we had a long conversation about since I felt terrible at the thought of being the cause of that but he was admit it was his decision to make and none of it was on me. I’m sure there’s other things I’m forgetting but overall I’m just wondering if anyone has advice on what we could do that isn’t breaking up. Is this relationship going to work? Anyone have any experience with this? I’d love to hear positive experiences from people who’ve experienced something similar and I’d love advice!
Posted Apr 5, 2026, 3:00 AM UTC