Basically – my girlfriends mum doesn’t like me. My girlfriend and I met in University and we both had bad partners at the time, so we both ended up breaking up with them and fell in love with each other. From the start this was met with huge disapproval from her family who adored her ex boyfriend, despite their relationship being extremely dysfunctional from what I’ve seen and heard.
I’m not sure why her family dislikes me, but at the start they thought my girlfriend was just having a breakdown and being impulsive. It’s been 7 months now and nothing has changed.
A while back her mum vented to my girlfriend about how she thinks I’m controlling because of the times I’ve been in the same room while she has been on a phone call to her, despite it being MY room that my girlfriend is staying in. Plus I am literally always doing my own thing and not listening when they’re calling. No offence to her mum but I genuinely don’t care about their conversations unless it directly affects my GF like an emergency or something. She said that I was disrespectful because I said she was being unfair when she constantly criticised me.
I ended up sending a very lengthy message, basically apologising that she sees me this way but all of her assumptions are untrue and I would never do anything to try to hurt her daughter. She accepted it and for a while I thought it was a fresh start, but it turns out it wasn’t.
Her mum refuses to come up to visit our house because “she can’t be bothered being around arguments” – my girlfriend and I have our occasional fight, yeah, but nothing crazy. I believe this to be an excuse to not come over while I’m here. My girlfriend really wanted her mum to come up so I messaged her and said “hey, just so you know I’ll be visiting my parents this Sunday for a couple nights if you would rather come over then. [GF] was really looking forward to seeing you.” She basically responded with no.
Later I come to find out she was saying shit about not wanting to reply “because that’ll start a conversation” and just a load of other really petty shit. My GF isn’t sure why she dislikes me either – but the options range from she probably dislikes me because she liked her ex too much, because I’m my GFs first homosexual relationship or because she truly believes I’m abusive or something.
I’m not really sure how to handle this because I would love a good relationship with her parents. I love this girl and recently this has been impacting our relationship, there’s been several times my GF felt she was choosing me vs her mother because of situations she puts her in (such as refusing to come over).
What can I do? Should I hold my ground or try to be more likeable, and how?!
Edit: her only family member who likes me is her step dad who raised her from when she was a kid. He agrees her mum is being petty as fuck and believes it’s the homosexual part. He said her family generally is fucked up and very controlling of partners, and he was outcasted too and still is. Her mum insists she doesn’t have a problem with my gender at all and knew GF was bisexual before we dated a
2 comments
Nothing you can do. My in-laws hated me. Father in-law didn’t speak to me for a decade.
They got over it. Just be a good partner and give her family space. Nobody has to like you.
Homophobia is always a struggle when dealing with family, all you can do is be the best partner you can to your girlfriend.
If you’re having occasional fights, you could work on conflict resolution skills and deescalation techniques to turn would be fights into productive conversations.