tl;dr: my (27F) bf (27M) asked me to stop having a relationship with his family because he does not like that I have a better relationship with them than he does.
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Hi everyone! I am trying to get y’all’s opinion on the situation here. To start out, my (27F) boyfriend (27M) and I have been together for 5 years and live together. Like all couples, we sometimes get into disagreements and arguments (lmk if I am wrong haha).
This may be extremely long, but I think some background info is pertinent to the story. I truly apologize in advance if it is super duper long!!
My boyfriend is white while I am not. We both have very different upbringings. I will start with myself.
I was raised by a single mother, who was pretty strict with me growing up just because I am a girl. My mom is very traditional and upholds our culture. I would say my family is very close with each other. My cousins are like my siblings and my aunts and uncles treat their nieces and nephews like their daughters/sons. My mom is a lot less strict now fyi. In our culture or maybe just my family (idk), we do not really share our feelings or apologize after arguments. Additionally, we tend to “roasts” each other as a sign of love. When I have beef or intense arguments with a family member, it is normal for us to not really make up but just get over it (after sometime to cool off). We tend to forgive and forget pretty quickly. No arguments or beef would extend over a day or so. Also, we kind have an understanding with each other. For example, if I am arguing with my brother, it is something between us two and should not affect anyone else’s relationship. We do not expect any other family member to be on one person’s side nor be upset if someone is interacting with my brother. Basically, I understand that my issue with one family member should never affect my other family members’ relationship with the person I am arguing with.
On the other hand, my boyfriend was raised by both parents. He is not close with his father at all. He is closer to his mother. His mother is so so so kind and understanding. She is the opposite of my mom lol. His mom supports whatever he wants to do and was never strict. He does have an older sister but due to age differences they are not as close. I understand that his parents’ relationship was pretty toxic and it took his mom a long time to divorce him and leave. From here on out, when I talk about his family, I mean his mom and sister. I do not know much about his dad. In his family they emphasize a lot on sharing what they feel and think. They are also pretty kind to each other. It is very normal for him to openly share his feelings while it is not for me. My boyfriend somewhat resents the fact that it took his mom so long to leave her relationship. He also is upset with the fact that his sister has made up with their father and thinks she should not have a relationship with him because he was toxic. He would ignore his mom’s and sister’s texts and calls for months which I feel bad for them. They worry and want to check in but he avoids them completely.
In all honesty, I understand and see why he is upset HOWEVER I also think it is ridiculous. He does not see the fact that sometimes it is hard for people to leave toxic relationships (especially women) and I believe his mom tried her best to give him a good childhood. As for his sister’s relationship with their dad, I think it is unfair because his sister and father went through therapy together and resolved their differences. He and his father tried therapy but he felt like it did not work….(but he only tried it for like a few months and stopped going so idk).
Okay, I am not at the point of this post yet because I also need to describe our relationship.
As I mentioned earlier, we do have arguments and majority of the time it is on the issue of me having a hard time sharing my feelings. I understand it is my problem and can cause rifts between relationships. My boyfriend says that because I do not openly share my feelings/thoughts easily, he thinks I do not care for him. This is not true. I do care and love him very much but this is something I am not used to do and is very hard for me to share my feelings. I told him I will work on this but it takes time. I cannot magically change overnight. I even started therapy to help me with this for almost a year now. I believe I have improved but definitely can still be better at sharing. My therapist and boyfriend have also mentioned the improvement. Though, apparently not enough for him. He constantly brings up the past (me not sharing and result in him thinking I don’t care about him) which frustrates me as I am actively working on it. The past me is not the present me. I truly think it is unfair to constantly bring up the past. He has done things for example have anger issues when we fight. I called him out on that and told him I do not react well when he is angry and get super mean. He has acknowledged it and has worked on it. He no longer gets so angry when we have fights. I see that improvement and forgave him (moved on). I never bring this up in our fights but he will bring up my faults. This is why I feel it is unfair for me.
Okay, now the true story that I need an opinion on and lmk if I am the A. Mentioned earlier, my boyfriend THINKS he does not have a good relationship with his mom and sister. He recently told me that he does not like the fact I occasionally communicate with his sister and mom. He says it is not okay that I have a better relationship with them than he does. So he basically asked me to cut communication and do not have a relationship with them. First, I want to say, my relationship with them is not deep. I do not talk to them often and if we do it is either wishing each other a happy holiday or birthday. I occasionally send his mom flowers on her birthday and mother’s day. I am not close with his mom nor sister but we do have a good positive relationship. From my perspective, when they interact it is seems pretty normal and I do not even think his sister and mom knows that he has issues with them. Because of this, I told him to maybe try to talk to them because it seems like they are in the dark on how he feels about them. He told me to not butt into his family’s dynamics or relationship. “It is not my business.” Anyways, I told him that I do not agree and do not want to cut off my relationship with his mom or sister. I think it is rude to randomly stop messaging them when they message me and I do not want them to think I have an issue with them. I told him that his relationship issue with them should not affect me because he does not even really tell me the full story as to why he is upset with them. If I never talked or barely interacted with them in the past 5 years, I am more willing to not have a relationship but that is not the case. I think that if he wants me to not talk to them due to his feelings towards them then he needs to tell them this. It is not my responsibility to tell them that I will be cutting them off (and I stand by this). He has been upset with me for days now (not wanting to talk and ignoring me) because I told him that his relationship with his family should not affect my relationship (which is very little) with his family.
Again, I understand where he is coming from but I feel like he does not understand the situation he has put me in and how it also affects me. It could be also the way I was taught idk. I think he has issues on forgiving people and very stuck to the past.
I want to bring this conversation up again and try to get a resolution but I also stand by what I think. I want to get other people’s opinion/advice on how to resolve our issue here. We are both stubborn people but are willing to compromise or have a plan of action. I just am not sure what the compromise is.
I want to thank everyone who has gotten this far and appreciate any advice 🙂