My boyfriend and I have been together for three and a half years and have had this particular issue consistently.
I believe relationship problems and arguments should stay between the couple. (Unless it’s very serious of course)
I believe by telling or ranting to your parents about your relationship problems doesn’t help, it gives you biased opinions, turns people against your partner as you’re not fairly representing their side, and causes mistrust between couples and a lack of real communication on the problem.
My boyfriend agrees with this so we made a boundary that we would not go to our parents with our fights, problems or negative aspects of our relationship. Rather we would try to keep it between us until we could resolve it, or we would go to one our trusted friends for help or advice.
These boundaries have worked great so far and I feel have improved our trust in each other.
Recently my boyfriend told me he feels isolated from his parents. He admits that the boundary we have set in place about not telling them about our relationship problems has contributed to his feeling of isolation. But he also said he agrees with our boundaries and wants to keep them.
I do not want to change these boundaries either as they have worked great so far, and also I know his parents do not like me and have even said so, meaning any advice he gets from them is going to be very biased against me (he’s also an only child and the only son in his whole family so theres that too). But I am not sure what to do with this situation regarding our boundaries and him feeling isolated from his parents partially because of our relationship. Any advice or similar experiences shared would be greatly appreciated.
Tl;dr My boyfriend feels isolated from his parents because of a boundary we made. The boundary works great and he wants to keep it, but doesn’t know how to not feel isolated.
7 comments
There is a difference between telling everyone your issues and going to someone for advice which to me sounds like that’s what he is needing. Sometimes an outside opinion can help.
How is it that not sharing your relationship problems with them is isolating? Is this something he truly feels on his own or something his parents have said to him?
Do you think he would be receptive to therapy? Because he really sounds like he needs help understanding that getting biased input from people who don’t like their spouse isn’t healthy. Do his parents share their issues with him? I think not.
I don’t think he truly feels isolated, it sounds more like he feels guilty or like a bad son for not doing what they want and a unbiased 3rd party might be best to help him process how he’s feeling
I partially agree with you – at least about the part where it’s often best to leave parents out of “couples problems”.
But a lot of that agreement comes from the part where I am your parents’ age. I know that talking to a friend about issues will get me some good context and advice … because my friends have been through shit.
At your age, your trusted friends aren’t going to be of any real help. None of you have had experience that is going to be of great help. Your parents are *amazing* resources for questions of how to move from childhood into adulthood, including moving from childhood to adulthood in your relationships.
I think your boundary is one of those that makes sense on paper but not in practice in all instances. IT also states you don’t trust each other to filter out bad advice. Ideally your parents wouldn’t only be getting the bad. They should be getting a view of all of it. Not saying all just if you have open communication they shouldn’t have a only biased towards the bad view.
There is also does he have an equal support network with out his parents. If not you’ve created an imbalance.
If his parents DO NOT LIKE YOU and he wants to express issues to them, WHICH WILL RESULT HIS PARENTS TELLING HIM THAT THE RELATIONSHIP IS NOT GOOD FOR HIM. AND THAT THEY WILL SAY “See I told you she wasn’t a good girl. I was right all along. You should have listened to me when I warned you about her”.
I SAY GIVE YOUR BF BACK TO HIS PARENTS.
This relationship will turn sour eventually, and he will think you are PURPOSELY ISOLATING HIM IN EVERYTHING. HE DOESN’T UNDERSTAND THAT BOUNDARIES ARE HEALTHY AND IF HE WASN’T RAISED WITH ANY BOUNDARIES THATS A SIGN OF FAMILY DYSFUNCTION.
He is not used to having boundaries. He’s used to telling his parents everything and God knows what type unhealthy relationship his parents have.
Be with someone WHO AGREES WITH YOU 💯 PERCENT AND IS NOT EMOTIONALLY AFFECTED BY BOUNDARIES.
Your bf needs to find friends to talk to. He needs to stop being a little boy and running off to his parents.
Many only children have a different relationship with their parents than those of us with many siblings. Have you been able to ask your partner what exactly is isolating about it? Does he feel like anything less than 100% disclosure is withholding from them? Does he feel like anything less than 100% sharing feels ingenuine or feels like dishonesty with them? Is he ised to sharing almost everything in his life with them? What does he think will bridge the gap? Is he spending less time with them because of your relationship and you need to ramp up time with some double dates and family outings together?
Like some have already said, advice from parents is often wise and useful… but it takes a balanced partner (to not divulge too much or complain too often) and it takes balanced parents (to take things in stride, not read too much into the sharing, remain impartial and not get too involved). Because my parents are good examples for a long-term relationship and they know my tendencies well (good and bad), they are absolutely the first people I would go to for advice if I needed it… but I know I would do my best to handle almost everything on my own and only go to them when absolutely needed, being careful to not continually nag about and put down my partner… and I know my parents would handle the information responsibly. If someone doesn’t have someone wise and impartial and balanced in their life who can give advice without getting fully involved, then it would be difficult to imagine that it can be done successfully. But it can. I think there just has to be checks and balances in place where one partner isn’t going to someone else for every single little thing.
Bottom line: I think you need to ask your boyfriend to be more specific about what he thinks is causing the isolation feeling and to share that with you… and you need to carefully consider who is suppprt system is, what he wants to share that he hasn’t been sharing, etc…. and try to come to a compromise. This may mean that you have to slightly adjust the boundary but keep the core sentiment of what you agreed upon.