Member Since: February 23, 2021
Answers: 4
Last Update: February 24, 2021
Visitors: 577
|
| |
|
I’m 26 years old, my boyfriend is 28. We have been together for 2 years, recently we decided to make the big step of moving in together, he told me that his sister would move in too,she’s 17 about to be 18. At first I was fine with It bc in the other house they lived in before she was always in her room or she’d be with her dad who lives with his girlfriend. I also didn’t take the time to really think It through, i was just ready to get out of my toxic stepdads house. I’ve always known that my boyfriend and his sister are close, but I didn’t realize HOW close until I started living with them. I have noticed that they go into the bathroom with each other when one another showers or pees/poops. Private parts are covered when they do this, but still.. I find It odd. She cuddles with him on the couch and lays on his lap, anytime she hears his voice she comes out of her room and is always RIGHT there next to him. The only time my boyfriend and I get any privacy is when we’re back in our room and even then there’s only a thin wall separating us from his sister, so she can hear EVERYTHING. Even when my boyfriend takes me on dates he orders her something to go because he feels bad about leaving her at home. Don’t get me wrong, I love a man who is close with his family but they’re TOO close and it’s beginning to cause a lot of problems in our relationship. Another issue is he makes me pay half the rent, but she gets to live there for free. My boyfriends dad pays our electricity and water (he has a key and comes and goes sometimes) and my boyfriend considers that as her contribution to the house. She doesn’t work, anytime I bring up her getting a job It always starts an argument because she is still in highschool, but she’s out by 2pm, so she has time to get a part time job, so she can contribute to the house as well. She also doesn’t plan on working once she graduates, her dad told her as long as she studies she doesn’t need a job. I have been struggling with making money too through the pandemic, but to my boyfriend that doesn’t matter. I have to meet my half of the rent by the end of the month, which I have. I find ways to make money, but when I bring up her doing something too and us splitting the rent in thirds, it’s a huge argument. I told my boyfriend that if she can’t contribute or isn’t willing to work, she should live with her dad (they have a room for her at her dads)He shut me down immediately and we got in an argument about how he thinks I’m jealous of his sister, which isn’t the case at all. I just think if family is gonna be with us the finances should be split evenly. I have asked my boyfriend what his future plans are and if we’ll ever have a place of our own, he says in 10 years once this house is paid off we’ll get a home just the 2 of us.. in 10 years I will be 36, almost 40 years old. I don’t know if I can deal with this until then. He talks about marriage and kids with me one day, but I don’t wanna have kids with him until we are living by ourselves. Before I moved in I thought It would be a sense of independence and that our relationship would grow stronger, but it’s not. I feel trapped and like I’m losing my relationship because we can’t have any intimacy together in our home with his sister ALWAYS there between us. I can’t go back to my moms and I can’t afford a place on my own at the moment, so I’m stuck. I don’t know how else to go about this situation. Am I being unreasonable for wanting her to work and help out more? I wanna get how I feel across without my feelings being invalidated. I feel like the dad has put his kid on us and I don’t like that at all. HELP!! (link)
|
Hmmm. This is a deep and complex issue. I can't promise I'm an expert on this, but I will give my two sense, and some philosophical opinions. Feel free to not listen to me if I say something that feels wrong to you personally.
This relationship between the boyfriend and the sister is weird. You sense something's off, and potentially even wrong. There is definitely a dependency issue that your boyfriend may be feeding into, with his sister. She doesn't sound like an incredibly psychologically stable person. That is not her fault, and that needs to be looked at from, of course, a sympathetic lens, BUT BY PROFESSIONALS and her own family members, and not without an element of constructive criticism. By this, I mean, there is a difference between caring about someone and wanting them to live a healthier life, and improve, and just blindly accepting them saying they're 100 percent fine the way they are. The first one makes sense, the second one is causing more harm, when it comes to those who are not psychologically stable.
This sister problem, however, is 100 percent not your issue. You are right about that, and you are right to put your foot down. You speak from a place of clarity in how you assess the situation. It bothers you, it's unhealthy for you to be in this environment, and from what it seems, your boyfriend so far has not been able to really listen.
I don't have a super concrete plan, not knowing everything about your situation, but my one piece of advice is this: get out of that household. You can potentially still work on things with your boyfriend, but you will be more able to do that when you are in a healthier living environment, for yourself. If you have tried to tell your boyfriend where you are coming from but he doesn't understand and isn't being validating, you could number one: break up with him, or the second option, get space, get a better situation just for yourself, away from the stress this brother-sister relationship is causing. There, you can kind of have time to cool down and think over everything. It will also help you gain confidence in yourself.
Getting out is a better option than staying in a situation you don't feel comfortable with. Once you are out, you can better come up with strategies and take action for making your life the best one, and even potentially working with your boyfriend to improve things there. But if you stay in, it will feel less and less like a choice and more like a prison. You will begin to feel dis-empowered, and lose faith and trust in your self and the discomfort you are feeling. If you don't want this situation to become the new normal for perhaps a very long time in your life, then get out, even if you haven't thought absolutely everything through.
Get out even just for the short-term, for a break. Maybe start by staying at your parents or a friends for a few weeks, if those are viable options, though with Covid I get that may be difficult. But you must find a way to find your own space. There, you can look at whether this relationship in general is able to give you what you need, what you can do to improve it, and also what you are able to take and what you just can't settle with.
|
|
Rating: 5
| |
Great advice, thank you so much! As far as getting out I plan on doing so once I have a stable job again, right now all I’m doing is doordash because of COVID! Going back to my moms isn’t an option either due to the fact that it’s my stepdads house and he’s already has my old room occupied and all my friends are married with kids and full houses, so i just feel very stuck right now unfortunately :(
|
|