I (26f) have been dating my boyfriend (26m) for two years now, however I have an issue with how he communicates with his family. To give some background, his family gossips a lot about each other. I did not grow up in that type of household nor were we super close with our extended family to the point where we would ever gossip with them about other family members. I have heard his mom talk poorly about her sister in law because she feels she pulled her brother away from being close with the family. She also gossips with my boyfriend quite frequently about her other children. She has told my boyfriend she fears her daughter is getting too old and too accomplished in her job and will have trouble finding a man to date/marry and then asked my boyfriend not to share that with his sister. She talks about how his younger sisters are different from her older kids (in a negative way, they were raised different from the older siblings and have a different dad) and that she trusts her older kids more and tells them more information (gossip). These are just a few of MANY examples. From my perspective, it seems that they all compete for mom’s attention and want to be her favorite which I find odd since almost all the kids are in their twenties now. My boyfriend has even asked me multiple times, “from an outsider’s perspective, who do you think is in charge of the family?” And when I don’t give an answer naming someone, he will ask “okay but who in the family do you think is the most feared?” I find these questions very offputting, but know that he wants me to say his mom. Why does it matter? Why would anyone want to be feared by their family and who in their right mind would find that to be a good trait?
This leads to my main issue. My boyfriend shared something about my personal financial situation that I asked him to keep private. I specifically asked him to not tell his mom. Granted I was crying when I was given this financial news from the IRS regarding a mess up on my taxes from several years ago (anyone who has had to deal with them knows how stressful it can be) and on top of that I am also in the process of leaving my job and finding a new one. The financial issue was not a huge amount of $ and clear steps were given on how to resolve it, but still stressful. He wanted to bring the issue to his parents to help us handle it but I said I would prefer to handle it on my own and follow the directions given to me on the paperwork and call an accountant. I do not want his whole family knowing my private business and to be honest don’t trust his mom to keep anything private what so ever. He was bothered that I wouldn’t want their help.
After arguing about it again the next day, I just gave in and said okay you handle it how you want to because I was tired of arguing. He then told me that he already told his parents. He seemed to have no problem with completely betraying my trust which I voiced that it was not okay that he did that. He went onto say there are some situations that if he does not know how to handle then he will go to his parents and he did not want to see me suffering (crying/stressed). He also said his mom tells her mom everything and he wants to have that kind of relationship with his mom regarding our marriage when we do get married. The problem is I do not trust her not to gossip with others. I don’t think he understands that if someone is gossiping with you, they are almost certainly gossiping about you and your private business with other family member too.
Now I don’t know if I can trust him with some private information when I do want to share it in the future. He agreed (reluctantly and I’m not sure sincerely) that he should have gotten my okay to tell them my personal information.
How can I trust him again? Do I give him another chance and if he breaks my trust again that’s it?