The state of your finances is, for the most part, a personal thing. Generally speaking, most people don’t make their earnings public knowledge, and they’re under no obligation to do so, except to the tax man.
Imagine one woman’s surprise then, when her boyfriend’s entitled parents demanded to see a copy of her bank statements. This was just one thing in a long list of atrocious behavior towards her, so she turned to Reddit for advice on what to do.
More info: Reddit
Your personal finances are your business, but for one woman, her BF’s parents had other ideas
Image credits: gpointstudio / Freepik (not the actual photo)
Woman earns more than her boyfriend, but his paranoid parents never trusted her source of income
Image credits: wayhomestudio / Freepik (not the actual photo)
Boyfriend’s parents accused her of hiding how she made her money and demanded to see her bank statements
Image credits: Mikhail Nilov / Pexels (not the actual photo)
Woman’s boyfriend said maybe it would just be easier to comply, but she thought it was risking a major violation of her privacy
Image credits: Alexander Mils / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
While admitting it wasn’t her boyfriend’s fault he was born into a crazy family, she said his parents were driving her crazy and asked the Reddit community for advice
Image credits: annoyedthrw
After talking to her boyfriend about it, things really went south when he brought his folks home and ended up siding with them
OP begins her story by telling the community that she’s been together with her boyfriend for 3 years, two of which they’ve lived together. She goes on to say that her boyfriend has always been very close to his family, who don’t live very far away, and that he regularly goes to see them, something she didn’t find odd at first.
She adds that, since they moved in together, there have been several red flags when it comes to his parents. For example, even though there’s a laundromat half a block away from their apartment, her boyfriend insists on taking his laundry home to get it washed - a half-hour commute either way.
Something else that seemed a little off is that he shares a bank account with his folks, who pore over his finances and even gave him grief for spending too much money on pizza. Things really got odd when OP got a promotion and, suspecting she wasn’t being honest with them, they called her place of work to verify that OP’s story was legit.
OP mentions that she earns more than her boyfriend, but when she asked him if they could move to a better neighborhood, he got extremely upset, which OP chalked up to patriarchal insecurity. When he spoke to his parents about it, they immediately accused OP of hiding ‘sources of income’ that she earned through dubious means.
Now her boyfriend’s paranoid parents have taken it up a notch and actually demanded that OP share her bank statements with them. This is a step too far for OP, but her boyfriend is suggesting she just do it to put an end to the drama. OP’s extremely uncomfortable with this and asked the Reddit community for advice.
In an update to her original post two days later, OP came back to share that she’d had a long talk with her boyfriend about boundaries and he’d agreed to talk to his parents about it, but things only got worse when he got back home - with his parents in tow.
They immediately accused OP of a range of horrible things, like trying to isolate their son and control him, and acting ‘guilty’ by trying to ‘hide’ her finances from them. Then the dad got in OP’s face about ‘abusing’ their son before going on to claim she was dealing in illegal substances, among other nefarious activities.
Things got even crazier when her boyfriend actually started siding with his parents, finally deciding to end things with OP because he couldn’t be with someone who doesn’t get along with his parents. Adding insult to injury, the parents told OP they were going to call the cops on her. She concluded by wondering if that would jeopardize her job.
Image credits: benzoix / Freepik (not the actual photo)
It sounds like OP’s now ex-boyfriend’s parents had zero idea about boundaries. While this might have been fine for their son, OP was justified to be insulted by their over-the-top demands. After all, it would have constituted a major violation of her privacy.
It’s been said that you can choose your partner, but you can’t choose their family. So, how should you respond if your partner’s parents don’t like you and are too controlling?
In his article for Confident Man, author Graham Stoney writes that a man with a controlling mother often doesn’t grow up, doesn’t individuate during adolescence, and often remains under his mother’s proverbial thumb.
Stoney adds that a boy who has failed to adequately differentiate from his mother can end up in a situation where he’s basically just a boy in a man’s body - he’s been held back emotionally, so he’s underdeveloped, and still feeling a lot of fear, which is running the whole control dynamic with his mom.
In her post for Society 19, Meghan Killian puts forward a list of 5 suggestions for dealing with a partner’s difficult parents.
Some of the best include staying calm, making it clear to the parents how much you care about their child, engaging with them sincerely and not just out of obligation, and talking to your boyfriend about how much your relationship with his parents matters to you, so you can work out any issues together. Considering how OP’s story ended, it’s doubtful whether any of this would have worked.
Bored Panda reached out to psychologist Dr. Jordan Fiorillo Scotti of Wild Heart Psychology to get her take on the disastrous situation, under the disclaimer that she's not treating either of these people as a psychologist and is going on the facts as presented in the Reddit post.
When we asked her what she thought of OP's predicament prior to her boyfriend deciding to end things, she had this to say, "This situation is a ticking time bomb. Unfortunately, the boyfriend was raised in a family with excessively loose boundaries. This may have worked for their family to this point - that is, they may not have even realized this wasn’t typical or healthy - until he began dating his girlfriend and the family was subject to her expectations of boundaries."
Fiorillo Scotti goes on to say, "Presumably, now they are aware that there is a mismatch between what she feels comfortable with and what they are used to, but they don’t seem to be adjusting their behavior accordingly."
She added that the boyfriend is attempting to play the middleman, trying to keep each side happy, but both parties will have to change in order to find common ground.
"It is possible that she could relax her boundaries, and they could shore up theirs and everyone could learn to coexist without hurting, confusing, and infuriating the other. But a realistic path to that happy ending seems highly improbable.", she says.
Had the couple managed to stay together, Fiorillo Scotti would have offered them this piece of advice, "Honestly, I’d advise this couple to move on. I believe that decision would likely lead to happier futures for both parties than staying together and trying to make this work under the present conditions. This woman is young enough to move on and find someone else and this man needs time to work on boundaries with his family so that his next relationship isn’t doomed."
She added, "That being said, if they insist on trying, I’d recommend couples counseling for the couple and family therapy for the boyfriend and his family."
Fiorillo Scotti said she would focus the family therapy on the underlying reasons why the parents feel most comfortable with such lax boundaries, exploring and practicing firmer boundaries, and making peace with the rationale for such a dramatic, difficult change in their way of life: that their son wants to start being with this woman and this situation won’t work for her.
"These parents love their son and want him to be happy and a skilled therapist can help them see why this endeavor is worth the work. Couples therapy should focus on clarifying the boundaries that each desire within their partnership (as they likely don’t match, since most of us develop boundary expectations from our families of origin) and discussing hard limits on the role of extended family members.", Fiorillo Scott concludes.
What would you have done if you’d found yourself in OP’s shoes? Do you think her ex-boyfriend’s parents were out of line? Let us know your opinion in the comments!
Redditors in the comments slammed the dysfunctional family, with most agreeing the boyfriend should've grown a spine and imposed some hard boundaries
