Hi everyone, I am 30F and was dating a man 31M since December. We are the same ethnicity (from same middle eastern country, but both non religious) but we both grew up in the US. This was my first time dating someone from the same background as me. He is finishing up his medical residency and I just graduated with a science PhD.
We met on the apps, and everything was wonderful since the beginning. We connected on so many things and have a lot in common. Despite our busy schedules, we consistently would see each other about once a week and our communication was great. He was the one who asked me if I wanted kids in the future and spoke about things we could do together in the future. He will be leaving to a town that’s a one hour flight away starting in July for his fellowship, and I got my first post PhD job in the city where we both currently live. We discussed long distance and he said it wouldn’t be a problem and that we were basically doing long distance already (we live about an hour drive away from each other currently). He said he’ll do his best to come down and visit me as often as he can, and everything seemed great. When he felt my tone was off over text (this only happened once last week) he called me to make sure I wasn’t upset with him. He repeatedly told me that I make him very happy, we were in love
I got completely blindsided last night as he called me to break up with me because his parents don’t approve of me because I’m not a physician or a lawyer. He is an only child and always spoke very highly of his parents – they seem very close and he talks to them on the phone every night and he visits them often. He said he’s been trying everything he could but they gave him an ultimatum and at the end of the day he thinks he can’t be happy long term if his family isn’t happy. I feel he was genuine in this – he was bawling on the phone during our conversation and could barely get his words out. He told me he didn’t tell me about it sooner because he didn’t want to taint the relationship and wanted me to be my authentic self. But I had no idea they felt this way, I never even met them. I thought they would have liked that he’s dating someone with the same background. And I’m a highly educated person, just not a medical doctor
My question is, how do I get over this? Part of me wants to tell him that even if he finds a doctor or a lawyer, his parents are never going to be happy. They’ll just find something else to nitpick about. And secondly, his relationship with his family is now tainted because of this and he will have resentment towards them
Another part of me thinks he’s not worth these words and I should walk away