kingkong Posted August 12, 2016 Posted August 12, 2016 (edited) I am a 32 year old male, chinese american living on the east coast. I moved to the US when I was five, and I am well educated (PhD level). I started dating a caucasian american girl in February, and things have gotten pretty serious. She lives about 2 hours away from me, but we visit each other almost every weekend and we text each other all the time. Although it has only been a few months, we love each other very much. I already feel that she is the "one" but would like to wait until we have some co-habitation experience before deciding to break out the ring. One issue is that our relationships with our families are very different. She lives far away from her single mom, and they speak to each other once or twice a month. I live about 2 hours away from my parents, and I call them once every day or two. I haven't had many relationship experiences, and my parents are very protective of me. My mom, for example, insists that she will only meet with my girlfriend after one year to make sure I won't make any rash decisions. While it worries me that my mom doesn't trust my judgement, I can understand she is doing that because of my lack of experience. My mom also gets upset that I don't visit her as often now because I have prioritized my girlfriend more highly. I've been trying to coordinate things so that they can meet earlier before one year. In the mean time, my girl friend is worried that she will have a lot of trouble with my mom. She has a lot of relationship baggage, including having to end one relationship due to an unreceptive mom. My girlfriend tells me she is holding back some of her love towards me because she's not sure it'll work out due to my parents. This does upset me a little because I've already decided to go all in - but it also motivates me to make sure my parents will be more receptive. My girlfriend, who is a long time loveshack lurker, wants me to post on here to get some advice. Do you think our relationship can work out? How can I speed things up in a good way between my mom and my girlfriend? Thank you for your time! Edited August 12, 2016 by kingkong
smackie9 Posted August 12, 2016 Posted August 12, 2016 I don't understand why everyone is getting so up tight about this already. You only have been dating for two months....give it a break, and revisit the situation at 6 months. The real problem is, everyone has already formed an opinion of each other even tho they have never met. It's retarded. The only way to get this moving along is to change everyone's opinion, and to teach them to be more open minded. And this starts with you....you need to be positive and be encouraging to both. 2
Jejangles Posted August 12, 2016 Posted August 12, 2016 I understand your girlfriend's point of view, because I was in a similar position. My boyfriend is originally from another country / culture, and his mom lives overseas. She had expectations about how he would meet his partner and what his partner would look like, and for the first few months that we were dating, he worried about what her response to me would be. I won't lie, it felt like a heavy weight on an otherwise great relationship. I was just trying to get to know him and decide if we could work together, and yet I was having to worry about family in another place, with traditions completely different to my own, and it held me back in my feelings for him. In fact, I also told him that I could not be all the way "in" on our relationship until I had met his mom and knew how she would respond to me, as well as how I would respond to her. In the end, his mom came over to our country about 5 months into our relationship, I met her, and it went far better than either of us could have expected. She did have some initial concerns, but I think meeting me and seeing I was not a scary person made things go a lot more smoothly than they could have. Our relationship has also definitely moved on since then as well, because we both know we have family support for it and so we can just get on with getting to know each other even better and deciding if we have a future. I definitely allowed myself to fall for my boyfriend a lot more once that barrier was removed. All that to say, it depends on the situation, but for us it worked better to have his mom meet me fairly early on. Speculating about how his mom would react, and how we would get along, was damaging to our relationship. It was better to just have me meet her and then get her on board with our relationship. 2
Author kingkong Posted August 12, 2016 Author Posted August 12, 2016 I don't understand why everyone is getting so up tight about this already. You only have been dating for two months....give it a break, and revisit the situation at 6 months. The real problem is, everyone has already formed an opinion of each other even tho they have never met. It's retarded. The only way to get this moving along is to change everyone's opinion, and to teach them to be more open minded. And this starts with you....you need to be positive and be encouraging to both. Thank you for your advice. I agree that I need to be positive and encouraging, since I am the only bridge between them for now.
Author kingkong Posted August 12, 2016 Author Posted August 12, 2016 I understand your girlfriend's point of view, because I was in a similar position. My boyfriend is originally from another country / culture, and his mom lives overseas. She had expectations about how he would meet his partner and what his partner would look like, and for the first few months that we were dating, he worried about what her response to me would be. I won't lie, it felt like a heavy weight on an otherwise great relationship. I was just trying to get to know him and decide if we could work together, and yet I was having to worry about family in another place, with traditions completely different to my own, and it held me back in my feelings for him. In fact, I also told him that I could not be all the way "in" on our relationship until I had met his mom and knew how she would respond to me, as well as how I would respond to her. In the end, his mom came over to our country about 5 months into our relationship, I met her, and it went far better than either of us could have expected. She did have some initial concerns, but I think meeting me and seeing I was not a scary person made things go a lot more smoothly than they could have. Our relationship has also definitely moved on since then as well, because we both know we have family support for it and so we can just get on with getting to know each other even better and deciding if we have a future. I definitely allowed myself to fall for my boyfriend a lot more once that barrier was removed. All that to say, it depends on the situation, but for us it worked better to have his mom meet me fairly early on. Speculating about how his mom would react, and how we would get along, was damaging to our relationship. It was better to just have me meet her and then get her on board with our relationship. Thank you for sharing your parallel and positive experience, which encourages me greatly. I hope it works out well for you and your boyfriend.
Gaeta Posted August 12, 2016 Posted August 12, 2016 Well, depends on how motivated you are in making this work. Are you willing to stand by your girlfriend in case of problems? I am familiar enough with Chinese family dynamic to know there will be tensions. Many Chinese mothers are merciless with their daughter in law, add to that a daughter in law from another culture. Is your girlfriend ready for that?
Recommended Posts