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My Boyfriend’s Father is nastily disapproving of me because I’m British.

17 replies

smendo · 08/12/2018 19:04

Hello, my name is Sonya, I’m 29 and I recently moved to an island of Spain for work but I unexpectedly fell in love with a colleague from here who I have known for 5 years but only dated for 1 1/2 of them.
It has been a whirl wind romance like you see in the films. He makes me feel so good about myself and loves holding me it’s something I have never felt before and being a divorcee this is amazing! However after only 6 months of living together his father made it very clear I wasn’t good enough. He told his son he could have me as a girlfriend but not a wife. I was devastated.
I have a bachelors degree, I’m pretty (not blowing my own trumpet) I’m kind. The first thing his mother told him when she met me 5 years ago was that I was so smiley! - that’s another thing I should mention the rest of his family really like me. His sister right the way through to his grandmother and none of his family speak English!
Originally they are all from Greece and moved here for a better life so as Greek families are they are very close and for me who is from a single parent home I have had to adjust.
So not only have I moved to a new country and started to learn spainish but when they are all together they only speak Greek so to prove myself I have been learning that too!
I have worked so hard to turn the other cheek to the fathers cruelty and because he thinks I don’t understand he even says it in front of me. I can see in my boyfriend how much it hurts him as he is in the middle and his father treats him like dirt. He isn’t a warm man anyway but my goodness he goes days ignoring him to make him feel small and my boyfriend is like an abused puppy sitting at his abusers feet!
It’s like nothing I have ever known.
I have flown thousands of miles away from my family and I’m here alone but my mother wishes nothing but the best for me and accepted I had to do this for myself.
I understand that their culture is different and they put family before everything but he is asking his son to give up happiness with me to make himself happy.
Last week his father told him ‘she won’t be good for our family as British girls don’t respect marriage, they are dirty, they party and can’t cook.’ He is a clear misogynist and I think also dislikes that I have a career.
My boyfriend is caught in a hard place and I have never asked him to choose and I never will. But this is unbareable for me, I’m am not somebody who likes conflict and I am a strong willed woman. I have taken to just ignoring him like he does me for my own mental health.
I don’t know what to do as I deeply love my boyfriend and him me. He is fighting to keep me but he won’t speak up for me and tell his father enough, she isn’t going anywhere as he’s terrified his dad will turn his back on him and make his family do them same.
It’s all so horrible and confusing.
I did tell my boyfriend if you do what he is asking and you give me up you will never forgive him or yourself. This will also not be the only thing he will ask you to give up on, this is the first but not the last! As he controls my boyfriend’s money as stupidly when he was younger to make sure he saved money he asked his mother to have access. So any time we decide to go anywhere he has to ask for access and he gets a huge speech like he’s 15 yrs old.
Which leads me into another hurdle my boyfriend, his mother and father are saving for a house together. At first I thought this was quite nice as my mother is getting older and one day she will move here and live with me however this has only tied up his money even more. We can’t even buy a TV together let alone save for our own future together! As the father doesn’t want me around so doesn’t let him spend the money without a huge argument. I desperately want to get him away from them so he can live his own life. I can see he wants it too he’s just so afraid.
I don’t believe I should give up on this for a backwards thinking man that ultimately doesn’t see the world outside his own.

Thank you if you kept reading, I appreciate your time and wisdom on this!

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Ratbagratty · 08/12/2018 19:07

I'm afraid it isn't up to you, your bf had to want to get away and take control of his own life, probably starting with finances. You can support him, but you cannot do it for him.