tl;dr: My girlfriend wants to break up because she can’t handle my parents not accepting her and thinks me not having them in our life will hurt family life for our future kids.
Get ready for a long story.
I (22M) have been together with my girlfriend (20F) since May.
I knew from the getgo that this relationship would jeopardize my relationship with my family relationship. You see, I’m orthodox Jewish. My community holds an edict which forbids us from marrying either someone with intentions of converting to Judaism, or children of converts. I founds out shortly after meeting her that she was the daughter of a convert.
Backtrack a year ago. My brother was dating a convert and my parents told him to either break up or they will never speak to him again. He asked me that say for advice. I sat there for a while quiet, thinking. I then told him if it were me, I would have married her because love is love. He broke up with her.
So now when I found this out, I made a decision to stay with her. She’s everything I want in a woman. She’s independent, she’s sweet, caring, has traits of someone I’d think would be a good mother.
Our relationship has been good for the most part, with rough patches, like any other relationship. But our relationship took a turn for the worst in October. (FYI my parents wasn’t aware I was dating as I didn’t want to have the conversation until I was ready financially and mentally.) When I returned from vacation, they told me they found out everything. They knew she was a convert, they mentioned how she “wasn’t Jewish”, how I’m embarrassing the family making this decision, and how I must break up with her or they won’t consider me their son and will never speak to me again.
I told my girlfriend this and made a promise that I won’t leave her because of this and that I’m committed to marrying her. Problem is she’s a very indecisive person. Some days she’d be willing to marry me despite the issues, other days she wouldn’t. She always asked me what my parents were saying and if there were any news. I never downplayed it, just tried to avoid the conversation with my parents as I am trying to financially become independent and didn’t want to be put on the streets if I didn’t have to be.
Last night, my brother calls her and tells her that my parents are crazy and that her and I must break up or else they’ll unleash hell. This set her off. She was sad, crying and eventually told me she couldn’t handle my family and that I’d be ruining the life of our kids. (My community doesn’t accept converts, so my kids wouldn’t be allowed into any Jewish private schools opened by our community because they wouldn’t be considered Jewish in their eyes). I told her I respect her decision, but I explained that even with this situation and the fact that I’d be willing to give all of that up to be with her and make sacrifices for my future family and kids. She said she can’t handle my family and can’t break us apart.
I got home and told my parents I want to marry her. My girlfriend heard the conversation. They were calling her a wh_re, disrespectful and disgusting and controlling and told me if I don’t break up with her they’ll show me hell.
She was upset and said she would never marry into a family like that and that she can’t handle my family hating her for the rest of our life together. She also said life would be hard for our kids without grandparents who hate them for no reason. I tried to explain that wouldn’t matter and I wouldn’t plan to live within the community. I plan to raise my kids orthodox Jewish, but in a different area where it’d be accepted.
But what do I do now? Do I let her go? Am I wrong? Something I could say to help her see my perspective and show her it’s something she can handle? Advice is greatly appreciated.
4 comments
Let go of everything you fear to lose
Your girlfriend is absolutely right. Your family is an absolute nightmare. Your brother and you are spineless losers who cannot make decisions for yourselves. You should be ashamed of calling yourself grown men. I’m lumping you in the same category as him because if you had anything remotely resembling a spine, you would’ve cut your family off the moment they called her names. If someone did that to my partner, I would never speak to them again unless they grovelled at his feet and he chose to forgive them. If your gf has an ounce of common sense, she’ll leave you. She does not deserve this abuse. She can and should find an actual adult that can be an equal partner to her.
If your current girlfriend wasn’t in the picture, do you want to stay in your ultra-insulated community or do you want to leave and join the larger, still very insulated, community? If you break up, which would you want to do, stay or leave?
She is right. She cannot be responsible for breaking you away from your family and community. That’s not on her, that’s on you and you alone. You can’t leave for someone else, you have to leave for you because it’s what you want.
And on top of that, your family tracked her down and threatened her. No one is going to be ok with dealing with that from their in-laws. If you want a relationship with her, or anyone else, you need to either get control of your family or cut them off so they don’t have any means to know or access whoever you’re in a relationship with. You can’t allow your family to threaten someone for being in a relationship with you and just get away with it without even any pushback or consequences from you.
It’s time to decide which community you’ll be a part of as an adult with adult relationship because your family is making it clear that you must choose. If you choose your parents, stick to their rules because you have no right to drag anyone else into this mess.
She’s right. She can’t be responsible for shouldering the burden of dealing with them. So you have to be strong in your boundaries and actively stand up for her and be ok with the possibility of all the manipulation religious families put kids who stray through. Including low contact or cutting them off. Are they speaking about your and your relationship or her off the cuff? Say you won’t stand for it and leave or cut the call. Some get better over time and come around but managing that is your job.