“I am 20 years old and my girlfriend is 19. She has very controlling parents. They won’t let her out, at all, and she has to lie to them, telling them that she’s going to work just to hang out with me. I don’t get to see her a lot and she’s been working a lot these days. She closes every day and ends at around 11 pm and now her parents have told her she has to quit. She has no choice, but because she doesn’t have the income required to go to college and pay for rent elsewhere. She’s so distressed because she wants to have a life, too. She doesn’t know what to do. I’m sending this in place of her because she would never go online to ask for advice. What can she do?”–Appreciative boyfriend
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Dear Boyfriend,
She can quit school, get a job to pay for her rent and live her life as she chooses…but I’m not recommending this as the best. She has a really big choice to make and she needs to look at the consequences of this. When parents support an adult child, paying for their school and their expenses, the parents expect to have a say in the child’s choices. This can include dating choices.
While I recommend parents allow adult children to handle their own choices, the parents’ financial involvement does give them some right to have a say-so in your girlfriend’s choices.
I agree that this is a very difficult situation and I understand that your position is not good. Some cultures make it difficult for children to act against their parents’ wishes, particularly girls. This is sad and unfortunate. If your girlfriend is being sent to college, she’s better off than some girls. She doesn’t have great options, though.
She can strike out on her own–paying her own tuition and working her way through college–or she can abide by her parents’ decree and not date. You’ve already tried the sneaking around option and apparently they’re on to you.
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Fear can be gripping and controlling and facing it, bare-knuckle, isn’t any fun. This is just what needs to happen though, if we’re going to learn what we need to learn. Many individuals find creative ways to side-step their fears. Some go to great lengths, marrying, divorcing, going to school (forever) or not going to college, at all.
You may be afraid to end a relationship or afraid to venture out and declare yourself as interested in someone. Fear is a powerful thing.
The fear of failure motivates some people to give up all endeavors. They don’t try anything because they might fail at it. Fear can range from being a twinge that dogs you to being a raging, roaring beast, in control of your life. When Winston Churchill made his famous speech, saying “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself” he was part-right. Obviously, there’s a lot of really scary stuff out there, but when we allow fear to controll our lives, determining what we do and who we do it with, we’ve already thrown in the towel. At that moment, we’re convinced that we’re weaklings and that we have no power.
The emotion can be really, really strong, but it’s not true that you have no power. Ever. Even if you’re tied up at the time. (I hope you’re not tied up.) Even in the face of terrifying consequences, we have choices. Sometimes those choices are in how we handle the bad situations; sometimes we can avoid the scary stuff altogether.
Ask yourself what scares you the most–could be relationship loss, personal failure, loss of freedom (being told what to do ALL the time) or you could have a fear of instability (what if you can’t count on home and job?). We all have dark corners and the desire to avoide these can be strong.
But you’re stronger. You are. You can face the issues dogging you and you can learn what you need to learn. You’re capable, even though you might not feel that way.