Hey all, my (24f) parents (72f and 70m) don’t like my boyfriend (25m). I grew up in an affluent town extremely comfortably. My parents paid for my private university and I just had to pay for a year of grad school.
My boyfriend though grew up with a single mom and sisters from different dads. His father was incarcerated most of his life. They grew up below the poverty line but he has had amazing mentors and a great community around him so he was able to get into the same university as myself with the help of generous loans and scholarships. I also want to mention that his family is the nicest most caring and supportive family I have ever seen. They just haven’t had a lot of luck. We started dating our senior year of college and fell madly in love with each other (and we are still madly in love with each other). He is so respectful, caring, and gentle with me. I am so thankful for him and how much he uplifts me and cheered me on through my graduate program.
We now live in NYC and he works full time in hospitality and I work for a small nonprofit. We make around the same amount of money and both live comfortable on our incomes. We have been dating for 3 years now and are now thinking about getting engaged and married. We are both in therapy and are on medication and are really taking care of ourselves and love our community.
The problem is that my parents do not like him. They think he will turn out exactly like his dad and are worried he will be abusive, end up in jail, and will be a deadbeat dad. He has shown them and me nothing but love, and has had many male mentors throughout his whole life. They do not want me to marry him and would rather I break up with him because they think I deserve better and that I’m somehow lying about his kindness.
We are both really hurt by this and are still planning on getting engaged, but I really wanted my parents blessing (Ik it’s old fashioned). It doesn’t seem anything we say or show them will change their mind. I want to marry him but I also don’t want to ruin my relationship with my parents? I’m not sure what to say to my parents anymore to convince them and they don’t seem to understand that I am an adult who can make reasonable decisions. What do I do?
TL;DR my affluent parents don’t want me to marry my boyfriend of 3 years because he was raised by a low income single mom and are worried he will turn out the same as his dad.