Submitted 10 months ago by bagbadback@feddit.org to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
It shouldn’t upset you. If it was some dumb high school drama shit that would be one thing, but she’s witholding the relationship from her family for a reason and you have nothing to gain by them knowing about it. It’s not affecting you or your relationship with her, that’s her business on her time. If you don’t like it, break up and date someone else but that’d be a pretty selfish dick move on your part.
Well it clearly is affecting their relationship otherwise OP wouldn’t be posting. They are currently having to live on edge and hide their relationship, that will have negativr effects, can’t go into the family home, maybe evenfear of being recognized in public. Its not a dick move to leave the relationship, its self preservation and can hve mental effects continuing on such a path.
His self importance is effecting the relationship. Teens have been abandoned by their families for far less, she’s protecting herself and dealing with his selfishness.
I have/had a good friend who is a devout Muslim, was born in Egypt but moved to the US when he was very young. His father was from there, his mother was American, white, and I’m not totally clear whether or not she converted but was definitely not Muslim when they met. From what I understand his father got a lot of shit from his family over that.
Over the years, my friend butted heads with dad a lot. At one point his dad wanted to move the family to Egypt, basically because he never fully adjusted to life in the US. My friend stood up to him, because all of his younger siblings had only ever lived here, they had friends and lives here and it would be kind of shitty to uproot all of that, so he kicked my friend out of the house, and wouldn’t let him see his siblings for probably over a year.
So that was always a threat he kept dangling over my friends head- Fall in line or I’ll move the family back to Egypt and cut you off from your siblings.
He also disapproved of any sort of american style dating, and forced my friend to break up with several girlfriends, even if they were Muslim.
One day my friend just totally ghosted all of us. Unfriended everyone on Facebook, leaving pretty much only people with middle Eastern names, stopped replying to calls or texts, etc. a couple of us went to his house to check on him, and did actually make contact with him there but he refused to answer any questions, basically just leaving it at her wasn’t going to be friends with any of us anymore.
We know at that point he’d been seeing a girl he’d been keeping secret from his dad, she later reached out to us because he also ghosted her.
We’re pretty sure what happened is that his father found out that he was dating her and had another blow-up, threatening to kick him out and cut him off from his siblings for good.
Not every Muslim family is the same of course, some wouldn’t have any issues with this sort of situation, in some it will cause varying degrees of family drama, in some it can even get physically abusive, and in a small handful of cases we might even be talking about honor killings.
Where you have different cultures and religions coming into play, this kind of thing can get complicated, it’s not always so simple as “it’s a free country” although it should be.
Don’t get involved in her family drama. Just don’t.
Do you have a plan to move out with her when she tells them if it comes to that? Have you thought it through? Is this what you really want? Is this what she really wants? Don’t fuck her whole life just because you’re upset.
She’s underage. I take her Muslim background is different from yours. And every family is an environment unique and different from other families. No matter that it’s a free country and all that, it’s her family, she lives with them, she has to endure the consequences of disclosing the relationship. Not you.
Try and ask her the real reason why she might be reluctant. “Because they’re muslim” is not a really strong argument; “because they are fundamentalist and they might extrange me as daughter or prevent me fron leaving the house if they found out” is a very practical explaination on this compromise she decided to take.
Families are complicated and sometimes shitty, but it’s her family and navigating around you and them could be difficult (she might love her parents and want to maintain a relationship with them, or she hates them but relies on their financial support, both options are valid)
Understand that women in muslim families often have little freedom and that marriage with non-muslims is traditionally prohibited for them, if her family sees a problem with you, she could get beaten for that, locked inside the house, etc. It’s not something to mess around with.
She could also be murdered.
You may live in the west, be fairly liberal and think all that religious stuff is old gen but often different cultures don’t live by western standards and stick to their archaic rules. I dated a girl for a few years from a different culture, she was too scared to tell her dad and said she would get disowned by her family… so what to do… anyway didnt end well as i wanted to settle. A year later after we broke up she was dating someone from her culture, she calls me crying and says shes pregnant and wish she had just not given a fuck about what her family thought, fuked me up quite bad tbh like.
Try get a feel of the her familly, if you think you will never get accepted, then better to walk now, you’ll find someone else.
Muslim extremists murder or maim girls who have “shamed the family” in the west too.
Is she the oldest child?
And maybe she is scared that her family will kick her out. Having to do school without a family network can be very hard. Common advice for gay teens with homophobic parents is to wait with coming out until you have moved out.
And yes, you love her and you’ll support her but then she will be very dependent on you and your relationship will become lopsided. You don’t want that. You want her to be with you because she loves you. So please be patient with the person you love.
I can understand her hesitation if her parents are on the conservative side.
You live in a free country but until she is 18 the parents have a lot to say. Even after the age of 18 and moved away from home she has to consider their wishes or risk having her family refusing to have any contact.
If she knows the backlash will be insane and she still has to live there, totally understandable. Make sure you’re aligned on where to go with this in the future. If she truly wants to choose a life with you she may have to break with her family at some point. You can’t expect her to be ready for that at this time, but you also shouldn’t be strung along if she never sees an actual future with you. Good relationships require honesty on both sides and great communication.
What about this situation is causing you to be upset?
I understand your pain. I (37m) and my husband (43m) are in a loving relationship for about 15 years now. Due to the cultural differences of my husband’s family, he has not declared our relationship to his family (living in his home country). They probably know we’re more than roommates. They like me. But nothing is outspoken. (His homecountry also has a 7y prison sentence for same sex relations)
Like peer comments mentioned. It’s their decision how and when to communicate to their family. It’s not easy, but if you truly love your significant other, you’ll find a way to accept.
You actually don’t get that they are muslim, at best they won’t be happy that she is seeing someone and that someone isn’t muslim. At worst this can go into honor killing territory. In general it’s best not to be involved.
Honour killing is such a rare thing, I find what you are saying blatantly racist tbh. Do you know how many Muslims there are in the world?
And yet, she is obviously afraid.
I’ve just stated that it’s a possibility, and at worst. These things really happen, if rarely, point was it’s better not to force an issue if other party is unwilling.
At best, they will be upset
At worst, they will murder
Jesus fucking christ.
First off, at worst, anyone is going to murder anyone. You clearly have never dated someone and met their father who was on the edge of murder.
Second, at best they won’t be happy? So according to you, every single muslim hates their child dating someone who isn’t muslim and won’t be happy? Guess I better tell that to literally every muslim I’ve dated whose parents didn’t give a solitary shit and were actively supportive of their gay kid. Or my friends who’ve dated/married muslims and were accepted into the families while being Jewish or Atheist or Protestant.
What is this racist garbage?
I don’t think anyone who mentions that honor killings are a thing is saying that. Honor killings have been recognized by amnesty international as being a distinct threat to women worldwide that is present in America as well specific to Muslim majority countries in the Middle East and Asia.
I think any child has the potential of being killed by their angry parents, it’s happened very frequently from people of all backgrounds, but it’s ok to admit that a Muslim girl who doesn’t want to introduce you to her parents could be motivated by the fear of death or abuse in a very specific way. And i think it’s ok to tell this kid that this is a possible additional pressure based on her culture.
But it’s fair to say this has happened like a half dozen times in the US in two decades. That might feel like a lot, but considering the sheer number of Muslims who live in this country, that might as not happen at all.
I can keep both of these ideas in my head at the same time and not have a weird, knee-jerk meltdown in the comments!
The fact that the girlfriend doesn’t want to tell her family is kind of a hint that they won’t be happy about the relationship. So being upset is kind of the best outcome in this situation.
It’s nice that you and also I have met nice muslims who encouraged their kids do love whoever they want. In this specific scenario I would trust the girlfriend though, because she knows her family better than us.
First, religion is not a race. Second, I’m from place where muslims (very secular ones at it) are significant minority. Third, I’ve been in the situation outlined, and heard of similar from people in this situation.
Also there were at least two religiously minded honor killings that I know of one involved tatar (muslim) family, another cyhan (christian) family.
What is this racist bullshit?
Not engaging with any other part of your comment, but is Islam a race, now? I thought it was a religion.
Respect her and her needs. If she doesn’t want, there are good reasons for that.
She is underage, so that also counts maybe?
Maybe she is protecting you, or herself… Can you tell?
I get that they’re Muslim, but come on, we live in the West and it’s a free country.
Unfortunately, that isn’t up to you to decide for them.
Be careful, try to respect a (probably) different culture. You will not be able to change them.
Try to find out what is possible to do and tell, and what is good to do and tell. It’s going to take some time (we cannot know how long).
If you behave respectful now, it will earn you their respect and this makes both of you a happier life.
Spacehooks@reddthat.com 10 months ago
Ok lots of good advice and comments but let me simplify this for you a bit more.
If you trust your partner let them handle their family, trust what they say about them. If you cant, it ups the chance of break up because she is already stressed.
Unless you suspect you are the other dude or in danger stay out of it no matter how curious you are. There is literally a community full of stories like this and it always back fires when people get involved too early.
DrSoap@lemmy.world 10 months ago
This is exactly the right advice for this situation.