Partner not understanding why I can't tell my family about her

[Sasani]

Hi, first time poster. I really would like to have outside point of views.

My family is very religious and lives in A very small village in Pakistan. I have been with the woman of my life for 9 years but... I am also a woman! My family already is not happy that "my friend" is black but if they knew she is my partner they would never ever talk to me again. Lucky I am not in Pakistan because they would have killed me.

My partner's family is super cool and understanding. At first she was super she was super understanding too. I told my family we were roommates, but now we bought a house together, whenever my mom comes over she goes to her parents and I pretend I live alone..

I know it must be horrible for her. But I have no choice. She wants to move forward with our future. I will never tell my parents and siblings. My partner says she waited more than enough. She is OK with me not telling them but wants me to go home instead of my parents coming. She told me she will no longer leave the house. I find that very unfair. It's just a month now and then.

We want to get married, however last night we argued like crazy. Dilemma: Either I visit them or she leaves me.

What do you think. Sorry for any mistakes.

She told me she will no longer leave the house. I find that very unfair. It's just a month now and then.

Sorry but this is massively U - you've said that your Mum visits 4 or 5 times a year but if she's visiting for one month at a time that's 4/5 months, nearly half the year that she's having to live at her parents so your Mum can visit. That's ridiculous.

Honestly, she sounds like an amazingly supportive Partner - she isn't even asking you to tell them about her and she understands why that would be an issue for you. She's simply telling you that she won't be leaving her house for months out of the year anymore which is more than fair.

You said she was fine with it pre covid - it sounds like she accepted it because she understood but she's telling you now that she isn't fine with it, she's allowed to change her mind and she's being honest with you about it.

You say your life wouldn't be in danger if you told your family but then have said after that "they would marry me off or kill me" - I'm not sure what you mean by them killing you if your life isn't in danger - metaphorically?

You say you don't have a choice but assuming your life isn't in danger as you've said, you absolutely do have a choice and have made yours. You say if you told them they'd force you to marry a man - they can't do that, they can try persuade you but they absolutely cannot force you. You have choices, you're choosing not to tell them (I can understand why but it isn't really fair to then say that your Partner is being unfair because you don't have a choice).

You need to decide if visiting your mum somewhere else or having your partner stay with you is more important as you can't have both

Oh OP, I’m so sorry for this situation. Families can impose the most horrible expectations on us and it’s clear you’re pulled in several directions. Your family are unfair to you and in turn you’re unfair to your partner. I don’t think your partner’s expectations are entirely fair either. It’s not easy to turn your back on your whole family and certainly not easy to act in a way that will cause them to turn their backs on you. This is the reality of homophobia.

I don’t have any advice but you really can’t keep expecting your partner to leave her own home. I hope you can find a way forward.

You aren't being fair to say she should give up her family too. That in one of your pp came across super selfish and unkind. Her family haven't done anything wrong.

On the other hand can completely understand there's no option on you ever telling your family.

Pay rent on a second house or buy one and let your parents come there. Asking someone to leave for a month 4 or 5 times a year is fucking ridiculous.
I understand you can't tell your parents.

Find someone to marry you who is perhaps facing a similar battle and use inseminatonation for children if you chose to have them? Or just keep making excuses for why you don't have any.

A cover lover could also pay towards this second home.

I think a second home is your only chance of saving the relationship. You seem very surprised she's suddenly setting lots of boundaries.
She's 10 years older now than when you started this.

She's presumably paid towards a home that she has to leave for almost half the year. Lockdown changed everyone and lots won't go back to their old life.

Tell your mum you've moved and book an air bnb for the month. You are wrong to ask this of her.

Good luck. Although you're being selfish in some parts it sounds like you truly love one another.

At some you need something to change because as you said they will force you back to Pakistan to marry.

PinaColada123456

She has not been doing this for 10 years. About 5. She was "my friend" before that. Why are you being so harsh? I understand I AM THE ONE posting on a public forum, but calling me a sociopath? I am not. Can't you understand my family will never accept that I am a lesbian? They already strugglef to accept that I was "friend" with a Black woman. My partner is lucky she has a family that both accepts her sexuality and my ethnicity. It's not my case.

@YoBeaches

It is for you to decide who you share your sexual orientation with. It's your choice. If someone wants to force you to do this then their motives might not be healthy for you.

That's not what the OPs Partner is doing though - she hasn't asked her to tell her parents she's a lesbian or about her. She has simply said that she isn't happy anymore to leave her home for 4/5 months of the year. I don't believe for a second that you would be happy having to move out of a home (that she's presumably paying for) for nearly half of the year, for 10 years

Sorry x-posted, 5 years

Ah, only 5 years of having to leave her own home for 5 months of the year. That’s ok then.
It’s her home. Do you pay the full mortgage in the months she’s not allowed to live in it?

From your gf’s pov your relationship with your mother is being maintained at her and her futures expense.

This says it all. I can understand how stressful this must be, and thank goodness I have never had to experience anything remotely like this, but at some stage you will have to make a choice. You simply can't carry on like this and I agree that you are asking too much of your gf. If it were me I would have ditched my family years ago, but I realise that you think that is not an option. However, if you don't do something about this situation you may well find your gf moves on with her life, leaving you behind. I also can't see how on earth you will ever be able to get married if this situation isn't resolved. You won't be the first person faced with this choice over the years, and you won't be the last, but you need to do something.

You cannot expect your partner to leave her home to accommodate your lies. You cannot expect her to be complicit in your lies. She has told you she has had enough. Either you accept this and cut ties to your family or you chose family over a relationship. It’s not a fun choice but you can’t coerce your partner to act as she wish, that would be abusive.

You need to end your relationship, you can't keep treating her like this

The OP is abusive asking her girlfriend move out 9f their jointly owned home for almost half of the year. It is nit just her home.she has not even moved out for half of the mothers visits or only let her mother come for eg 2 weeks 3 times a year. Everything is all about her. If she wants to carry on the charade she should rent or buy another place for her mother to stay in. Nobody who truly loved someone would treat them like OP treats her girlfriend. Let the girlfriend go find someone who treats her better, buy out her share of the house and then you can let your mother visit as long as she wants. You realise you are also being financially abusive to your girlfriend letting her contribute to a household she can't always use and therefore financially contributing towards your racist, homophobic parent. Words fail me.

Surely OP you just have to ask yourself do you want to go back to Pakistan and marry/ have sex with/ be raped by a man? If the answer is no you will have to stand up to your family at sometime or allow it to happen. Your choice if you decide to stand up to your family is will it be before or after you lose your girlfriend

Can't you understand my family will never accept that I am a lesbian?

No, no they won’t, with or without your girlfriend.

In all honesty I don’t think you’ve got much choice long term but to disappear from your families radar precisely because of everything you’ve detailed. You’re delaying the inevitable.

At this point in time you have the choice to do that alone or with your girlfriends, and hopefully her families, support. It’s a risk, your relationship might not make it, but you would still be free to be who you actually are. Choosing otherwise is accepting that at some point you will be but in a position you either can’t escape or are forced to make the same choice but on your own and in potentially more complicated circumstances.

You love your mother, of course you do, but she doesn’t love you because she doesn’t know you and you know enough to know that if she did she’d actively support making you deeply unhappy.

You’re asking her to leave her home multiple times a year as if she’s something shameful. Yes, she might have put up with this early on as you say, but she’s getting older and she doesn’t want to keep this up. It’s incredibly unfair and personally I wouldn’t do it if my husband wanted me to. You’re asking her to keep doing this for the rest of her life. Just keep hiding away because your mother is more important. You say you love her but you aren’t showing it very well. Putting I LOVE HER in all caps doesn’t change what you’re putting her through in real life.

If you need to keep this up, then you need to be the one bearing the costs and effort. Book an apartment or something and use that when your mother visits. Stop making your family her problem.

You're not selfish @Sasani. The problem is you've posted on a forum with very little understanding and empathy of the faith and cultural backgrounds of others.

I come from a very similar background. Have effectively been disowned by swathes of my family for making a very non traditional choice in life and as suchhave intense empathy for the situation the OP finds herself in.

But those intensely difficult circumstances do not give the OP carte Blanche to dictate the terms of what her partner should put up with. Period.
Or come on here hand wringing at ‘woe is me.’

The OP has known for years that she is living on borrowed time. The pressure on her to get married/ have children will intensify significantly. The OP also knows that a lot of the south Asian community can be exceptionally racist. She knew what she was getting into (trust me) when entering this relationship and she made that choice. She has continued to make that choice for 10 years. On her terms entirely.

That’s not fair or acceptable. Nowhere has the OP on this board shown even a sign of contrition or indeed empathy of what it must be like to be this Op’s partner. Not even a sliver of self awareness or empathy, towards the woman she supposedly loves. It’s all about her, her family, her challenges, how unfair the situation is….

That’s why she’s getting a hard time. From myself included. She needs to grow up and make a choice. This hasn’t happened overnight, trust me. She has known, since the age of 18, for 10 years that this was going to come to a head.

Stop hand wringing OP. It’s hard, I get it. But you have known this for years. You have known what you wanted/ didn’t want. What was your plan in light of that?

You are abusing your partner. Don't marry her. Let her go.

You have to make a choice. Your life is a lie. It is no way to live. You will have to cut ties with your family like I had to do if you wish to live your life honestly and with dignity, and to be content with your girlfriend. Whether or not your relationship survives this, is not the issue; it is you living your authentic life without hiding. You may have to take out an injunction against your family to give you safety, because there is always a nut job in an extended family from this cultural and religious background (I know from experience), take steps -let the local police know; let neighbours and the local community know so they can look out for you. You need to take steps to live your life without regrets, nobody can do this but you. Even though it seems hard, you can do it. You have come to the realisation that something has to give and you now have a difficult journey ahead , but its so freeing.

You also know by the way, that at anytime, if you visit Pakistan, your family could very easily force you into a marriage and prevent you from leaving. It’s not difficult if that is what your family wishes.

What is your plan?

Forgetting your dp for a minute, what's your long-term plan with your parents? Ten years from now how will you explain why you haven't married a man? It seems to me that you have no option but to cut contact for your own sake, nevermind your dp.

And to agree with everyone else, while you clearly love her, you've been treating her very badly. She must love you very much to have tolerated it for so long, but clearly she respects herself too much to let it continue.

Op said this about her mother .....loves the city and to be away from her duties. She wants me to get married bladibla,she is so proud of me that I managed to buy a house in France. It would break her heart if she knew the truth....

So she enjoys showing off the house to her mother that she did Not Buy by herself whilst her dirty little secret has to hide away and financially contri use to the lie....

There's sadly no compromise here OP, you either have to choose the woman you love and want to spend the rest of your life with in freedom or you have to choose the repressive culture of the other woman you love, the one who, simply by age, will not be with you for the latter part of your life.

What is acceptable to a person at 18 or 23 is not going to be acceptable at 28.

At 28 your partner will be starting to think ahead to being 38 and 48 and is realising that if she stays with you then she will still be expected then to move out of her home (that you expect her to pay for for all the year) for half the year. Why would anyone accept that?

Realistically your relationship with your family is on borrowed time. You are not going to marry a man. They will try and force you. You will resist. Hopefully they won’t kill you / abduct you and force you to marry someone but they might. If they can’t force you then at some point they will disown you and you may have to go into hiding to remain safe.

The only question is whether you go into hiding now with your partner or in a few years on your own.

And if you want to keep her please stop the “if I can’t have my family you shouldn’t have yours either”. You can’t have your family because if you admit to them who you are then they will kill you. Hers are lovely. Why should she give that up? She has already sacrificed so much for you. Do not try and force her to sacrifice yet more. For two reasons:- 1 If you genuinely love her then doing something that makes her unhappy would be unacceptable to her so you would never want that. 2. She may decide that you are not worth the loss of her family and then you will lose her.

I realise that your situation is awful. But you have a partner who loves you (arguably too much considering what she has put up with until now) and inlaws who seem to genuinely care about you. Don’t wreck that for a few short years with your family before they disown you.

Of course it's an issue for your partner. She is hidden away like a shameful secret. It must hurt her so deeply that you can't admit to your family that you love her.

Asking her to move out for a month 314 times a year must be absolutely heartbreaking for her.

It sounds like you have a choice to make. It's either your partner or your family. And that's a sad sad situation to be in, I don't envy you at all.

If you choose your family then you need to let her go so she can find someone who loves her enough to shout it from the rooftops!

You want her to cut contact with her family if you have to cut contact with yours? Wow. That's so fucked up and selfish and infantile that I really feel bad for your partner.