My girlfriend's family is ruining our relationship?

Jlawson118

So me and my girlfriend will make a year in a matter of a few day and I love her to bits. Yet things have been a little messy over these last few months. We're both 20 and met at university.

She's Bulgarian, and the first week we got together, she opened up to me that she was broke. She had come over to England in hope she'd find work to finance her living and things, but she hadn't managed to find a job. She was skinny as she wasn't eating just to scrimp every bit of money together to pay rent. And when asking her mum back home for a little more help, all she did was tell her own daughter she looked like a drug addict. And refused to help. I offered to pay her week's rent but she refused it.

Eventually she did help her for a week, and then my girlfriend was given a bursary for good grades from university. Though she couldn't afford to go home, and me and my family took her in for Christmas, her mum and dad were truly grateful and so I pretty much forgot about the initial trouble from her mother.

However, it was around a month later, I discovered that the house she was living in over here was highly unsafe. She was being followed by some old man around the kitchen or to the toilet or shower, then her mattress was mouldy, there was live plug sockets in the shower room, as well as being bullied around by her landlord, so my parents invited her in to live with us. She didn't want to at first but even she realised it'd be safer.

And she was happier being around a family. But then later on, her mum didn't like it, she had goes at her about finding a job and was really shouting at her and abusing her. It got to a point where I caught my girlfriend trying to drown herself in the bath. She was heartbroken. After that, she lost her grandfather and godfather in the space of a week and it all just broke her. She became distant, her mum continued being abusive but there's too much to explain here.

It kicked off over the summer more than anything. I was invited to stay with her and her family for the duration of the summer. At first it was nice, we were working for their family business and I was helping out as a way to pay them back for allowing me to stay. But then after so long, her mother was kicking off, forcing my girlfriend to work over 14 hours a day without a break and not letting me help. Then after that, my girlfriend was reporting back to me that her mum was saying things about me and my family, and demanding she moved out of mine when she goes back.

My girlfriend stood up for herself, arguing that she was happy at mine and actually felt safe and secure, but then her mum started blackmailing her, threatening to cut of all contact between her and her dad if she doesn't do what she's told. (Her mum and dad are still married but he's a truck driver and due to travelling all over, he's barely at home) as well as threatening to make her leave university, but she phoned her dad up, and he told her it's her life and she's welcome to do what she wants and feels is best, although once he came home, he stuck up for his wife, and turned against his daughter. So she came to me and pretty much told me she's always wanted to move out, even before they said anything, which I know is a lie. They blackmailed her and it was successful. The thing is, I look back now and all of a summer was her mum, dad and sister all this one little family, my girlfriend was cast out completely. They're just abusing and slaving her and she couldn't see that.

My family, myself and even her friends tried to convince her to come home early with me, but she wouldn't do. She was working her backside off and all she got back was abuse from her family. There was no love there whatsoever. At the end of the day, my family loved and treat her like their own when her own family couldn't. She was forced to work, I wasn't even allowed to take her out for dates or anything, not even on her birthday or not even for mine (our birthdays are 8 days apart from each other)

Anyway, we were apart for a month as I went home. I went home two weeks before I was supposed to as I just couldn't stand it any more.

But she came back and she became this completely different girl. She's so distant, so angry, just not herself. I just literally looked up to think about what to type, and I saw a photo of us both hung up on the wall, taken the first day we got there in the Summer and we're both smiling. We were happy. Regardless of any of the fallouts we'd had prior to that, we were happy.

I'm seeing her just shut herself out to play games or watch things all of the time. She's become so lazy and she has no real enthusiasm for university any more, or if I offer to take her out. My entire family are heartbroken at this change in her. She's highly depressed, that's obvious. And her mum is just controlling her life. They've recently been in touch with her forcing her to move out again and I can tell she doesn't want to. Yet from all the abuse her mum gave towards my family, even my girlfriend has turned on us all slightly.

This week alone, she's been lovely, back to her normal self just about, although for this past two or three months, I've been highly depressed. I miss the girl I fell in love with. I've spent an entire year with her and we've been through everything together, it breaks my heart for her to be like this. I just can't let go of a girl I've become so attached to over this time, yet I sit here and wonder if we have a future, I'm doubting we do but I guess I'm holding on hoping she'll change back, but then her mum will always have that control. And she just forgives her mum every time, she tells me to forget all the abuse she hurled about me and my family and that her mum isn't a bad person. They're offering to pay for her to go home at Christmas. I feel it's a ploy to keep her over there for good.

I'm sorry to have waffled, but that isn't even the half of it. I just want everything to go back to normal..any advice?

FBaby

The only way forward is for you two to talk. It sounds like you are doing a lot of observing and drawing conclusions from what you see. That's fine, but very often can lead you to wrong observations that lead you in the wrong direction.

Instead, you need to listen and really listen. She might tell you things you might think is not true because it's not what you want to hear. Don't let your own assessment of the situation cloud your judgement. Encourage her to talk and to tell you exactly why she is depressed, why she can't cut her family off, why she wants to stay a minute and go the next. She might not be as happy staying with your family as you think, even if you are all lovely to her.

Maybe she'll turn around and feel fully supported and doing what she needs to do to find herself again, or maybe there is more to her than you can see and she will move on.

Primrose

It sounds as if both of you are becoming badly depressed and at times like this it's difficult to make a clear judgement on the best way forward. Perhaps you need to recognise that no matter what your girlfriend thinks about her family and her homeland it will always have a strong pull on her and you know how the saying goes "Blood is thicker than water".


At the moment I suspect she is being pulled between two different forces. Even if she chooses you and the UK eventually you should recognise you may always have this "elephant in the room" between you and you would need a very strong relationship indeed to be able to overcome it long term.


I suggest you both sit down and talk, talk, talk. Don't put her under pressure, however much you would like a future with her. She is still young (you both are) and she particularly needs time and space to work out how she moves forward. There are obviously cultural differences at play here deep down which form a huge part of her being and if you come from a strong family relationship you may be under-estimating your ability to overcome the emotional and cultural problems you girlfriend is facing, pulling her in two different directions.


it might help if you could both get some relationship counselling. Having a neutral person question you both might break the log jam here and show you a way forward. Just remember, the decisions you make over this might shape the rest of your life so be very hard with yourself on the way you make them, and don't under estimate your ability to convince yourself you're making the right decision simply because of your current emotions.

PS. While you think on the surface she may be back to her normal self, don't be deceived. She is probably still fighting this emotional battle between two dividing issues but perhaps has merely "parked it" while she concentrates on getting through university. She appears to come from a pretty tough environment at home. Maybe staying in a safe environment with you and your family is the temporary choice she has made to get herself through this stage in her life while she waits to see how things pan out for her. I am not suggesting you are all being used but simply that at this stage of your lives it may be too early to try and set your relationship in concrete when your family backgrounds seem very different. This appears to be her first stab at living an independent life away from her family. It is onviously testing her resilience to the full. Don't under estimate the strain this is putting on her.

Getting her degree will obviously influence her future so perhaps you both need to focus on that as a priority and give time a chance for her to start thinking things through for herself. She needs to absorb and learn from all these new relationship dynamics and putting her under pressure, even nicely and well intended , is perhaps having the same effect on her as her own family is doing, but from the opposite perspective.

paddy's_mum

Primrose wrote: »

putting her under pressure, even nicely and well intended , is perhaps having the same effect on her as her own family is doing, but from the opposite perspective.

I feel desperately sorry for this girl. Twenty years old and being metaphorically yanked from pillar to post. Back off and if need be, be her friend not her boyfriend and give the poor girl a chance to rest and look at things in a less frantic light.

She must feel like the bone being fought over by a pack of yowling, scrabbling dogs! :mad:

Primrose

Yes, and do try to bear in mind that in the past year she has lost two influencial people in her life who have died. These are probably the first two deaths she has experienced in her young adult lift so two anchors have been rather brutally ripped away. Now she's in a strange country away from her family, even though they sound a quarrelsome bunch, so that's quite a lot for a 20 year old to be taking on board.

As Paddy's Mum has suggested, back off from the romantic angle as much as you can in the current circumstance and try to be her friend. It sounds as if she badly needs one who can be objective and not put any further pressure on her.

Proxima_Centauri

Different culture, different language. (I am assuming you don't speak Bulgarian?).

Jlawson118

FBaby wrote: »

The only way forward is for you two to talk. It sounds like you are doing a lot of observing and drawing conclusions from what you see. That's fine, but very often can lead you to wrong observations that lead you in the wrong direction.

Instead, you need to listen and really listen. She might tell you things you might think is not true because it's not what you want to hear. Don't let your own assessment of the situation cloud your judgement. Encourage her to talk and to tell you exactly why she is depressed, why she can't cut her family off, why she wants to stay a minute and go the next. She might not be as happy staying with your family as you think, even if you are all lovely to her.

Maybe she'll turn around and feel fully supported and doing what she needs to do to find herself again, or maybe there is more to her than you can see and she will move on.

She always has been happy staying at mine though, and this isn't me jumping to conclusions. She was super lonely being on her own and once she was with a family, she was happy and felt more at home. My family used to spoil her rotten because she was a major part of us all.

Though when this first occurred, she cried in my arms that she didn't want to move out, saying she felt happy and safe, unlike before when she had all the trouble going on, at least she can feel warm and welcome from my family. But it wasn't until her mum started threatening all this stuff to her about her dad and cutting her off, well she got scared. I was watching her be brainwashed all summer over many things, she got scared and I'd find her sat in a corner of one of the rooms in the house so that her mum couldn't find her and she'd be crying her eyes out so scared.
This is how I know she doesn't want to move out.

Her mum threatened her again over Skype a few weeks ago, and I said to her "All this about moving out really wasn't your idea like you make out was it?" And she cried and admitted it was all her mum saying what she did.

And I by far, don't want to split her up from her family. But it breaks my heart to watch them use her and pretty much cast her out of their family. I might not speak their language but I can easily see a girl who is used and abused by them.

They have like a guest house, once I'd gone home, they forced her to sleep in their bar as they rented her room out to guests just to make money.

Jlawson118

paddy's_mum wrote: »

I feel desperately sorry for this girl. Twenty years old and being metaphorically yanked from pillar to post. Back off and if need be, be her friend not her boyfriend and give the poor girl a chance to rest and look at things in a less frantic light.

She must feel like the bone being fought over by a pack of yowling, scrabbling dogs! :mad:

Primrose wrote: »

Yes, and do try to bear in mind that in the past year she has lost two influencial people in her life who have died. These are probably the first two deaths she has experienced in her young adult lift so two anchors have been rather brutally ripped away. Now she's in a strange country away from her family, even though they sound a quarrelsome bunch, so that's quite a lot for a 20 year old to be taking on board.

As Paddy's Mum has suggested, back off from the romantic angle as much as you can in the current circumstance and try to be her friend. It sounds as if she badly needs one who can be objective and not put any further pressure on her.

I just want to add that I know she is being thrown from pillar to post and I'll admit that I guess don't help with that. I do just back off and try to show her love but then if we fall out, all we end up doing is arguing and I'll remind her what her family did and she gets angry. She'll admit her mother's behaviour is out of order but she just has this "What can I do?" Kind of attitude, and that's what gets me upset. All I want is for her to take control of her own life. She's 20 and she doesn't have a say in what she can and can't do.

I'll admit that we have had different upbringings. Though I did have a strict upbringing, but the day I turned 18 was the day my family, my mum especially, backed off. My family guide me, they tell me what they feel is right or wrong but they let me experience it myself and learn from my own mistakes.

But her mother stands there and tells her she can't live with us otherwise me and my step-dad will rape her. Or she calls me and my mum mentally ill.
The worst one was that she said my grandad raped my mum and then she had me.

Primrose

It would seem to me that actually both your girlfriend and her mother are quite emotionally damaged in their respective ways. I wonder if her mother has been sexually abused at some point in her earlier life and this is reflecting her unhealthy behaviour now,

You on the other hand seem to have come from a very well balanced and supportive family. I wonder if it is possible for the pair of you to cross such a great emotional divide. My thought is that if you had both been ten years older you would both have had more experience of dealing with such opposing views and had more experience at how to deal with them. As it is you are both starting out at the school of difficult experiences and all this is totally uncharted territory. It,s not surprising that you're both struggling in your different ways to deal with it.

Your parents seems level headed people. What advice, if any, have they given you on this issue?. After all, they know your girlfriend and we don't.

FBaby

How do you explain then that being so far away, if she is so scared of her mother, she remains in contact with her? Is her mum financing her studies and giving up money to live on?

I can understand being manipulated out of guilt but I don't understand why she would be so scared as you seem to think she is, yet keeping in regular contact with her mother, staying for months back home, and feeling miserable even though she is miles away from her and being treated like a princess by you and your mum.

That's why I am wondering if there is more to it but unfortunately you haven't been able to ascertain what that is, just blaming her mum for all her negative feelings.

LKRDN_Morgan

The girl has issues. Probably can't deal with such a full on relationship with you at the same time as dealing with her abusive and quite frankly weird family.

Be her friend. Forget the relationship stuff for now.