So i recently started dating this girl who, to be honest, it’s the first time I’ve ever truly felt connected to in so many ways that no one else has come even close to. I’m a very deep person in the sense that i feel most emotions very deeply and questions most of the things around me and have never had a relationship where i can have those “intellectual” conversations of the world around us and how we experience it, but with her it’s like we get each other, she has the same questions and we have similar views on a variety of different outlooks and on the things we see differently she has so many new opinions that I’ve never heard of that inspire me to think in me ways. Anyways she’s unique, smart, and very beautiful all i could ever ask for but her parents are extremely strict, they came from Syria and are Druze. They have told her from a young age that she can’t be with anyone outside their religion or she will be disowned. We’re both still in college but go to different ones and the only way we can see each other is when I go visit her which we can only hang out on campus or if we go out to some venues which she has to come up with a lie that she’s going with her friends to see me. They track her, refuse to let her learn how to drive, and barely even let her have friends. She doesn’t even agree with their religion or religion in general but lives in constant fear of what will happen if she gets caught. She often talks about how she feels like she’s in a cage and it saddens me so much that there’s not much I could do to help her out except be there for her when I can. I want to help her but hate discouraging her to go against them even if I do especially since she could lose her family and part of me feels selfish to even suggest telling them to see how they would react like maybe it will help or maybe they will truly disown her. I feel like they’re robbing her of her youth and life experiences and we’ve talked about so many things we’d like to do together one day and so many places I’d love to show her. i know we’re young but I’d like to believe that the connection we have means something and to be honest i am in love with her. Sorry if I’ve gone on super long but what advice do you guys have ? Are we doomed? Or is there hope?
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TL;DR! – my girlfriends extremely religious parents won’t let her have a normal relationship because they control every aspect of her life
3 comments
That sucks, man. Parents can be such buzzkills sometimes. But love knows no boundaries so don’t give up on your girl just yet! Maybe you guys should try to sneak around more and get her some driving lessons behind their backs. Just be careful not to get caught though, trust me I know from experience. Hang in there!
Hi there. Are you me from 5 years ago?
I’m gonna be honest- this isn’t your fight. You can support her in her decision, but it’s *her decision*.
My ideal scenario for you two is to talk to a counsellor together if you’re as serious as you say, and ask them for guidance, or even to just help give you a better idea of the full scenario. I don’t know much about religions, but I know some are very serious when it comes to following tradition, and people have been disowned. It’s rough, but it’s ultimately their call.
5 years ago, I dated and started a very serious relationship with the girl who first got me help for mental health in highschool. Hit it off in every way you can imagine. Same games, movies, physical chemistry- whole nine yards. Just one problem:
She didn’t want her parents to know about us, because she was terrified of what they’d say. (To be fair, she was about to become a doctor and I was working in television) When we told them, they were not happy to say the least. Wasn’t a yelling match, but they were more upset that she didn’t speak up sooner. They also openly said they don’t approve. Oh well.
5 years later, I ended it permanently. Her parents are awful to her, and gaslight her constantly. They started to openly hate me and talk shit about me, and refused to let us live together because, get this, she rented their second house from them. And she signed papers stating she can’t sublet.
What’s worse? She was okay with it.
It took me 5 years of working my ass off and hundreds and hundreds of dollars in couples counselling to realize I gave her far more chances than she deserved. I gave her every opportunity to stand up to them, be her own person, and support her all the way. She never did it.
We broke up for a number of reasons, but that was by far the largest problem. She did what her parents said and wasn’t her own person. She preferred a gilded cage than fly and explore life.
I like the air.
Look, if you two are serious, and I mean *really* serious, then this is a calculated risk. The possibility of her family abandoning her is very real. Think about what would happen if she told them and they did disown her, and she was with you, but it didn’t work out. She will have burned a very large and old bridge.
BUT, you can absolutely make the argument that her being free from, as she said herself, a cage, then that in itself is a huge moment of growth. But at the end of the day, only she can make the call on this, not you. The best you can do is explain how you feel, and try to be objective about how this could go either way. But I implore you to seek a school counselor to get better, trained advice over this.
**TLDR**: If you’re serious, go to a school counselor together and see what they think. Take this seriously, and make sure that you’re 100% ready to commit to potentially being with her after her parents disown her and trying to be there emotionally to support her in a rough time. At the end of the day however, ifs her decision, and you need to be okay with that.
Until she chooses to live a life outside of their influence there is nothing you can do. And while she’s financialy reliant on them that is very unlikely to happen and potentially unsafe. Sorry this is a difficult situation.