For context, we’ve seeing each other for about 6 months now, and everything has been going well, all things considered.
The problem here is I feel like her parents are a little too involved. Like whenever we get into an argument and we’re talking it out, she always brings up “even my mom said…” “I told my dad and he said…” and it’s kinda getting to the point where I feel like I’ll never 100% be on the right side of any argument bc she runs it by her parents and they give her pointers and where it’s both sided and now she has ammo to come at me. I’ll give an example..
So she lost her job over the summer, but thankfully I’m financially well off to where I could cover things. I’ve paid for a trip, every other weekend out is on me and eating out as well, and we do go out a fair amount and I took this upon myself bc this time last summer I was in an cheating, abusive relationship and we had two different definitions of fun and I feel like I had to suppress mine for her, so this summer, there’s no excuses , I wanna make up for lost times with my partner. While she has come off appreciative, she picks expensive restaurants, gets expensive drinks, appetizers and desserts when we eat out which run up the tab. Im not mad at that bc I can afford it, but when I come over, shes kinda selfish about her food, like she’ll make comments like she doesn’t want me to get into the habit of eating her food and stuff like that. Often times she’ll ask me to accompany her to the grocery store only to guilt me into paying for thr whole cart when I picked up $10 worth of stuff. I called her out on being selfish with her food and she apologized, but when we were talking it out, she pulled out the “I told my mom and she said..” card and pretty much shared the blame. This is only one example, but there are many more. It’s getting to the point where it’s beginning to upset me. Not a deal breaker yet but def beginning to upset me, but idk how to go about it without sounding controlling. Any advice or comments would be cool, thank you
TL;dr: gf pretty much tells her parents every detail of our relationship and it feels like they give her pointers and ammo to always share the blame even when she’s at fault
Comments
Have you ever had the conversation with her that it isn’t fair for her to air your disagreements to her parents? I mean you don’t do that with your parents do you? That would be a dealbreaker for me. I mean, give her a chance to knock that off, but you really don’t wanna have a lifetime with someone complaining about you to their parents every day.
It sounds like you spend a lot of money on her, willingly. For her to get stingy with her food at her house is really unattractive. I can’t imagine saying to a partner, “hey I don’t want you to get used to eating all my food.” I mean, what if you said to her “I don’t want you to get used to picking the most expensive things on the menu all the time?” She’d probably lose her mind.
She does sound stingy and she sounds like she might be using you. Trying to guilt you into paying for the whole card of groceries isn’t what you want to see in a partner.
It does sound like you are comparing her to your former terrible partner, and I’m sure she’s much better, but that doesn’t mean she has your best interest at heart. She needs to show a little bit more care.
I’m very curious to know what her parents told her to say in response to you calling her out on being stingy with her food at home? How could they possibly defend that with all you spend on her? Maybe you should start keeping a tally… Wait, she’d probably report that too.
No it’s not bad! Your relationship should be between you and her.
People can vent about things to whoever they want, but not every discussion or argument needs to be someone else’s business. And just letting you know that this likely won’t change.
My brother dated someone like this. She told her parents all the ugly parts of their relationship (they really weren’t good together). Naturally her parents didn’t like my brother because she told them all the bad things he did and never what she did. She always wanted to involve parents like wanting to text my mom that my brother did xyz whatever. She was very jealous and cheated on my brother once or twice. One time in one of her many move outs, she sent her parents to get her things from my parents house and my mom told her dad something she had said. And he said that she had told them something completely different.
Anyway, they were on and off for years and she always got her mom involved.
It’s totally fine if it does become a deal breaker for you. But if it’s bothering you, you should tell your gf nicely “I know you’re really close to your parents, but I would like our relationship to stay between us. I know they’re the people you vent to and talk to, but I would like to be able to talk and work things out between just the two of us without your parents input. And I just don’t want you to paint a picture of me to your parents that you can’t unpaint.”