Girlfriend’s (27f) Indian parents are extremely controlling and focused on status, I (30m) apparently am not up to par.

Throwaway as girlfriend knows my username. Looking for some guidance and I’ve never been in a relationship where the parents and culture tend to dictate who their children are able to be with. Parents are in medical field, and quite wealthy from what I’ve gathered. We’ve been dating for ~2 years, met the parents on multiple occasions, they loved me I was told. Very easy conversations, extremely friendly but also lots of prodding about my future plans in career / trajectory. Have been told multiple times by GF that parents value education highly... which is great. What isn’t great is that what they actually mean is that she needs to date someone from an Ivy League school (like her) and said her partner needs to be either a doctor or lawyer. They are very focused on status and prestige over most things.

I’ve spoken to many Indian coworkers about this and this seems to be pretty common in terms of parents either arranging who they should date or having an extreme amount of influence.

About me: I went to a great school (not Ivy League) graduated w business degree, and now work in high tech making 200k+, white male. Since I’m entirely new to this cultural dynamic, looking to see if this is even a viable relationship at this point.

Her parents have stated to her that she needs to date someone from her education level ie from Ivy League (even though she isn’t a doctor, lawyer or engineer). I basically have had to prove myself as a legitimate person, even though I don’t have a doctorate. Her parents have slowly been destroying our relationship and she now apparently has to convince her parents that I’m worthy.. even though I work at a top tech company and make a solid 200k+ income. I do not come from a wealthy background and have worked my ass off to get to where I am today. I view myself as successful knowing where I can from and humble beginning and yet I’m viewed by the parents as second class.

It seems like this is destined to fail. If the parents are solely looking for a wealthy doctor for their daughter since that’s all they know then is it even worth the effort in changing their regressive perspectives?

Tl;dr Indian parents focused on prestige and wealth are destroying relationship with GF since I’m not a worthy partner based on school attended and career.

Submitted January 28, 2019 at 10:18PM by throwaway-98-32 http://bit.ly/2CUIHtF