I have been with my boyfriend now for about two years and we have been living together in my own flat for a year, which is actually only one room made for one person.
He is at university studying film but had taken a placement year to get experience and got a job where i lived, so started living in my place to save himself petrol on traveling, and also because we did fit so well together.
He is perfect for me and a love him immensely and i know he feels the same but something happened recently that I am now worried about our future.
We are both over 20 years old and I am in my final year of nursing training (doing my dissertation this year etc etc) and i have dealt with both my work and our relationship like a mature and caring adult because our relationship is important to me.
Our next year we had planned together (and ironed out all of our worries about it too) to move in together properly, but seeing as he has to go back to uni for his final year, and the hospital in that town is a bad hospital, we chose to go to the city near to the town (this bigger city happens to be Birmingham that we decided on as the hospital is good for my career and we could live together so he could travel in to uni.)
I had even offered to help cover his petrol costs as i don't drive yet and realized that we should go halves as a partnership so half rent, half food, half petrol, and i am fine with this as i will be the income earner at this point and will even probably be paying more than him, which we had agreed (this is just details...)
His father has turned around and said that he doesn't give his consent for us to live together, that his last year of education is most important and that he should be in the uni town, not 50 minutes away inn Birmingham (which i agree about the education and have actually always helped my boyfriend with this, not only supporting him but also helping him actually do work and motivating him as we both help each other in this way, we work extremely well as a sensible couple) but his father sat across the dinner table and said it was a stupid idea, crushed any romance our of the relationship, completely insulted me by disregarding the fact that his son has been living with me for a year already when i am doing MY final year, and we have coped....
i am never going to ever get in the way of my partners education and i do actually push him further as much as i can because i think he is brilliant, and for his parents to sit there and demean our relationship, involve themselves, and then sit there and also ask why I'm not becoming a doctor or owning a hospital... like being a nurse is a bad thing??
I can understand it is a fair way to commute but he would already be traveling over an hour everyday to get to his job this year if he didn't live with me in my flat currently, and people have to commute to jobs when they're adults anyway... i don't quite understand how this is a huge reason to make a point? It also is not for very long, only about six months, but wherever i get a job i will have to stay for a year due to contracts probably, and he will want to live with me halfway through the year if he isn't already!
I am also compromising still as i could go for a job in any hospital but wanted to be close to him for his final year, and his dad has said why cant we be apart for that time and travel to see each other, but i will be working shifts, and i i go where i want to i will be three hours away which i think would disrupt my partner even more so we either never see each other or it becomes a huge strain and drain on finances. But i had agreed to work together with my partner to be together this next year!!
The thing is, if my partner does what his parents say, it will now actually look like he has been pushed into doing 'as he is told' at such an age and this is also not something i want as a quality for a man in my life.!
I don't think they realized that I may be the sole income earner for a good few years while my partner gets established for a start, and that .... we made a life decision as adults between us and his father has sat there and made it very difficult to continue how harmoniously our relationship was going.
My parents think it is disgusting. When they had a problem with the plan, they suggested ideas, they didn't make a huge statement about it, and they also waited until my boyfriend had left to speak to me about it because it is not their place to meddle in my relationship, being an adult... which i love my parents dearly for... but now even they don't know what to do...
My boyfriend was very embarrassed and said he had already spoken to his parents and that his dad brought that up without him knowing he would... but I'm starting to wonder if this is the case or whether he had some worries and left his dad to overreact at me about it?
How are we meant to do what we need to do as a couple with his dads non-conviction behind it?
I feel insulted, upset, and if that had been my parents the first thing i would have done is been extremely angry at them when I got home, but he is an only child (i have siblings and my parents are not just parents but also friends) and i was worried about this happening as his parents can be a bit..... not exactly coddling but always asking where you're going, why... when where and this sort of thing... They do seem to cling to him a little... :/
They actually were lovely with me before and I adored his parents, but this has changed a lot...
I just... don't know what to do. I feel like everything has changed and there is a reaction chain of problems that is going to happen now that his parents have done this.
My life has never been easy and this was sincerely the one thing that was perfect in it and I'm very scared it is changing beyond what I can fix.
Parents can ruin relationships and I know this.
Any advice?
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