Dating, especially when you’re young, can be quite an eye-opening experience.

You get to see an intimate view of how another person sees the world – and in many cases, thanks to different upbringings and life experiences, this can be very different to your own world view.

Some couples can quite easily make this work, with compromises alongside an understanding that there will be times when they encounter a difference of opinion.

But for the couple in this story, the differences of opinion are so deeply engrained that there is no room for compromise. Instead, she just backs down, agreeing to her boyfriend’s family’s weird approaches.

Now though, she’s had enough.

Read on to find out why.

Am I overreacting when my boyfriend is saying he can’t go to dinner with my family before he even asks his parents?

My boyfriend (22, male) and I (20, female) both live with our parents, and for some reason my boyfriend has always had a curfew. I don’t really have one, I can hang out as long as I don’t stay out really late (10:30-12am).

Both of my parents are older (sixties and seventies) and are both retired, while my boyfriend’s parents are both in their forties.

Whenever my boyfriend and I hang out, he has to ask his parents first.

Whenever we do hang out, he needs to be back home no later than 8pm, or earlier if his dad is complaining or has had a bad day.

Yikes! Let’s see how this situation is causing trouble for the couple.

My boyfriend was told last Christmas that he couldn’t spend Christmas with me because they had to pack up to move, because they decided to start packing two weeks before they were told to leave.

Right now his parents are out of town, and he planned to see a movie with a friend and his brother a few days ago, but didn’t end up seeing it because his dad was in a bad mood.

So my boyfriend just decided to hold off to see the movie until they (his parents) were out of town. He assumed his dad would have an issue with him seeing the movie, since my boyfriend wasn’t home that week and barely saw them due to work and college.

My bf saw the movie last night with a work friend and stayed out until around 11pm. Yet when it comes him hanging out with me, it seems like every weekday and even weekends, 8pm is too late. Like he will say no to hanging out even if it’s like 6pm, because he needs to be home for 8pm.

So she decided to confront the issue once and for all.

I told my boyfriend that there had to be a bigger issue than what was being told, because how is it that he can hangout with friends on a Saturday and stay out until 11pm, but when it comes to me and him, he needs to be back for 8 or before 8, because that’s when his parents lay down?

He wanted to hang out when he gets off work today (4:30pm) and hang out downtown (a twenty minute drive to my house and back, plus paying to park and then taking him home).

I got told from my parents that we would be having dinner with the rest of my family and would go for 7pm, so leave the house at 6:30pm.

I told my boyfriend that I wanted him to be there to meet the rest of the family, but he automatically said “:/ we’ll see.”

Let’s see how she reacted to that.

I asked what the face was for and he said that it would be late, without even asking his parents to see what they would say.

He then went on to say how he also needs to be up so early tomorrow even though when roles were reversed a while back, we hung out and the next morning I had to wake up at 5:30am, sometimes earlier.

I just told him that there really is no point in hanging out if he can’t do dinner, because I’m not about to spend $30 on gas just to get downtown, and then another however much to park, just for like an hour or so before I have to take him home.

It just seems like whenever I wanna do something important (like dinner with family and introducing him to the rest of them) it’s “too late” but when it’s something else with someone else, it seems fine.

And that wasn’t the only reason she was getting annoyed.

I told him that it’s just starting to look weird to my parents, since I stopped inviting my boyfriend to dinners, and this is the first time they’ve actually invited him to come but it’s always that he can’t because 8pm is too late.

However, he and I have dinner alone together and all of a sudden 8pm or earlier isn’t too late.

I’m honestly getting a little fed up.

AIO?

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It’s clear that something odd is going on here.

Either he has super controlling parents, or he is using them as an excuse to get out of the things he doesn’t want to do.

And given the double standards it seems like sadly, it could be the latter.

Let’s see what the Reddit community made of this.

This person was quite clear about the problem here.

While others thought that she’d be better off with someone else.

Meanwhile, this Redditor thought there could be something fishy going on.

It really feels like this guy could be lying to his girlfriend – either there’s someone else, or he wants to hang out with other people more than he wants to hang out with her.

Otherwise, if the 8pm curfew is actually the case, at 22 years of age this adult man needs to move out. Unless of course he is so traumatised by two decades of heavily controlling parents, that he can’t see the problem for what it is.

Either way, she needs to advocate for what she wants. And this clearly isn’t it.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a young woman who didn’t expect closing her door to study to lead to a sibling blowout.