Dad doesn’t like my bf

[LadyInPink67]

26 here. Been with my bf for 5 years now. Good (peaceful) relationship.

I come from a high achieving family. Dad worked on Wall Street, high pay. My sisters and brothers are all lawyers and engineers. Not going to disclose my job here but I’m also a young professional working in healthcare. Decent pay in my age group. Own about half of my home (mortgage). Everyone in my family is on medium to high income.

My bf and his family- not as high achieving and low to middle income. I love being high achieving, I have very ambitions goals and sometimes I do find talking to them (his family) a bit awkward. However I love my bf to bits and I don’t care about it. I like that he isn’t as high achieving as me bc he’s very supportive and chill! Yin and Yang kind of thing and opposites attract.

however, it’s been ongoing that my dad is not a big fan of him. My dad is very strict and is now no longer tolerant to my relationship. He said to me I’m “f’ing dumb” and a “loser”. He wants me to break up with him.

He wants me to have a partner with similar background or career.

I don’t need anyone to be mean on here because I have already gotten so much grief from weekly moaning/ lecturing me from my dad.

how do I navigate this? I feel like I have to pick and I don’t wanna. If one day I have to pick, I will pick my bf, but in an ideal world, I don’t wanna pick.

be kind, I have been depressed about this in the past but now gotten past it and in a good place but I feel like it is going into a direction that requires a lot of mental energy and stress…

Do you live at home? Why do you need your dad’s approval of your relationship? Or is he seeing something in your boyfriend that worries him about your well-being?

Did I understad this right? Your father said to you that you are "f'ing dumb" and a "loser"? I think that's horrible!
Do you and your father have an otherwise good relationship?
Does he say mean things to other family members too?

What does the rest of the family think about your boyfriend?

You seem to love your boyfriend very much, and he seems like a nice person.

1. Ignore your Dad for now.

2. Focus on your partner.
   Is he supportive of you and your career?
   Has he shown any resentment towards you being a higher achiever?
   How does his family treat you?
   Do you see a long term future with him?
   If you plan to marry and have children, do his morals, ethics and religion match yours?

You could marry somebody who is a higher achiever and he could be the worst partner to you and a crap father to your children.
Do want to be stuck in a loveless marriage with lots of money just to please your Dad?

You’re mid-twenties, your Dad’s say-so on your life ran out years ago.

Your 26? Working with your own home?
It's not up to your dad who your boyfriend is, who you have a long term relationship with, have children with or marry.

He's entitled to an opinion- but not to continue to lecture you.

You are not a child- he is not the boss of you!

No, I have my own place.

I guess I don’t need his approval. But his blessing yes. I don’t want to cut ties with him…

He’s worried about my future won’t be as ambitious with him in the picture.

If you defy him, will he cut ties with you?

I think this is one of those situations where as hard as it might be, you have to decide what YOU want for your future. You can’t change who your boyfriend is, and you can’t change your dad’s stance, all you can do is control your own life.

Part of me wishes I had listened when my parents expressed concerns about my serious boyfriend and eventual husband when I was your age. I just told them they didn’t know the real man, but the truth was, they weren’t blinded by love and could see the fundamental flaw.

I would advise you to step back for a moment and ask yourself if you boyfriend is a man with a strong work ethic who happens to not earn much in his career or if he is a bit feckless and therefore doesn’t achieve. If it is the first, then ignore your parent. A man doesn’t need a degree or a large paycheck to be a good life partner and father to your children. If it is the later, then seriously think about a lifetime of carrying around someone who drags you down.

What do YOU want? In the nicest possible way OP this is YOUR life, not your Dads life. He doesn't get to dictate who you love and build a future with. If you love your BF, are happy with him and want a future with him then you ignore your Dad and do what makes you happy. If your Dad can't accept this then you have to be prepared that he will maybe cut ties with you and you need to find a way to be okay with that.

I bet a million pounds if you were a male doctor, dating a slightly less ambitious woman, he's shut up.

If you want kids, someone has to sacrifice career if you want to avoid a lot of childcare. would your BF do this? If so, great!

Just tell your dad it's your life, you won't discuss it again, and if he calls you names you will just quietly walk away/out/hang up. No discussion.

Your father may be an ambitious and succesful person who used to work on Wall Street with a high pay.
Your father is also a person who is telling his own daughter that he thinks she is "f'ing dumb" and a "loser". That is such unkind behaviour.

I am going to try and see it from the perspective of your father. Presumably he has provided well, worked hard and helped you perhaps with the deposit for your house? What he sees is a non successful man, latched on to his high earning, high achieving daughter, likely to cocklodge, while she bank rolls his life and lives in a house he can't afford without much effort.
I have a very bright and ambitious teenage daughter, and I would not want this for her.

This ☝🏻 rich men don’t always make kind men.

Your dad might be successful financially and respected in his career but that counts for nothing if you believe wealth and career status defines a person. Your dad’s focus is on the superficial things in life, he’s shallow.

In the end, when we’re old and nearing our death, no one gives a shit how much money we earned or our status professionally. They care about the way we treated others, whether we were warm and had good souls. There are no pockets in shrouds, we’re all equal then.

Your dad isn’t better than anyone else. In fact, as a person, his traits are the worse kind. He’s a snob and focuses on what others think and that’s not a positive attribute. All he should care about is whether you BF treats you well!!

👆This 100%.

No he didn’t help with deposit, all mine. Don’t want to owe him anything. But he guided me how to do it.

my bf stood by me in all mental state and helped me with 75% of renovations so I didn’t have to pay and put it on the house. He helped paid for some renovations.

So your boyfriend has physically, financially and emotionally supported you and your Dad doesn’t believe he’s good enough because his wage isn’t impressive?

You might not want to cut ties with your Dad but he sounds like a dick.

It's your life.

The high achieving bit might come back to bite you because your boyfriend will be content working at a normal working class job and after a while your drive and ambition will make you feel that he is lazy which he is not just he does not have the drive towards ambition. Your boyfriend sounds like a worker with work ethic but on a practical level. Your family sound highly educated and more white collar jobs and will have to learn that having a trade job has demand, self employment written all over it and a good level of money in its earnings but sometimes harder to get the money from clients on occasions. He has drive to get out of bed and work and do the things that your family probably pay for without thinking. Also having children in the future may have some divergence in thinking as regards education. He is not like your Dad at all so your Dad cannot contenance him. Your Dad does not appreciate a manual tradesperson. It seems your father wants to have a big say on a lot of your life as he helped/supported you but a point comes and "no woman can have two masters" maybe at times he made you cry to make you go his direction. You may have to draw a boundary with your Dad to stop disparaging your boyfriend and that will be a hard behaviour for you to do if your Dad likes to dominate.

Op what I can say is that I hope none of my children ever bring home a male that talks to younger or any female relatives that way.

you said you didn’t borrow any money off your dad. That could be telling of how much safety and trust there is with your dad.

Your father has very poor communication skills and seems like a bully...however please review the post by Ponderingwindow.

Issues usually emerge later down the line, if a couple have different ambitions and aspirations. Are you going to feel ok if you have children and want them to have similar aspirations to you and your bf and his family don't agree?

Will you be happy to support your own maternity leave and perhaps go back to work earlier because you are the higher wage earner?

Dating is very different to long term marriage and you have to be very clear with your bf that your values align. These can often change in early 30s.

"Peaceful" is one of the best things you can say about a relationship and it should be treasured.

Your dad is a rude, controlling sexist. That's the long and short of it. Rude to insult you. Controlling to imagine he should have any say whatsoever in your choice of partner. Sexist because he would never tell your brothers they were losers for marrying a nice but lower-earning woman.

I think you need a bit of backbone. You're a 26-year-old adult who's worked hard to achieve good things and you're rightly proud of that. That kind of high achieving is all "colouring within the lines" and doing what you're expected to do. Now it's time for you to stand up for yourself in a way you're not necessarily expected to do.

In your position I would tell my dad to go fuck himself. There isn't a chance I'd let anyone speak to me in the way he spoke to you and there isn't a chance I'd bother finding "nice" language to say so. If he wants to dish it out he can take it back.

Don't let yourself be disrespected by anyone.

(And don't let yourself be patronised by snobby advice along the lines of "your parents might know best".)

You gotta find some backbone.

'Dad, let me make this very clear. Do not ever speak about my partner that way again'

You can add 'He is a good person. A KIND person. A SUPPORTIVE person. And I love him. I will not tolerate your nasty attitude towards someone I love who doesn't deserve it in the slightest. So never, ever speak about him like that again. I do hope we are clear. Its disrespectful and I won't stand for it. If you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything'

And don't be slow to add:

'Clearly, money doesn't buy class, frankly, you owe me an appology'.

I suspect this is just about how your dad feels. About status. I feel quite confident of that because if it was about you there’d be no verbal abuse.

Sounds like your father is being controlling. Ignore him and get on with your life.