My (22F) SO (25M) of 3 years' parents (F/M 50's/60's) who threatened to disown him have now asked that he pays back his last year of college from 2 years ago

TL;DR His parent's have made it very clear that they did not like me but said that they would try to repair the relationship and accept our decision to live together. Now out of the blue they have asked that he pays back his last year of college which had never been agreed upon in the first place and we are conflicted.

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Hello Reddit,

My boyfriend graduated from college with an engineering degree two years ago and has a great job in a company. His parents have always been a little bit of helicopter parents and his mother leans heavily on him for support. He was raised catholic (I am non-religious) and we've been living together for about 2 years now. Recently we told them that we were living together (June 2018) and it set off a chain of events that just kept spiralling out of control. (A note, I am about a year away from graduating as well)

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A long story short it started with them threatening to disown him, showing up at our door unannounced demanding to see him, guilting him by saying that he was causing and harming his father's cancer, claimed the fact that I was depressed and had cut in high school would mean I'd cut our children and was an unfit parent, asked him multiple times "why he didn't break up with me and date a nice catholic girl," and it culminated in them telling him that he has to pay back his college education because they did not pay it with the intent that he'd break their rule of living together ect. This was in September, and finally in November they came around and (to our knowledge) we thought it had gotten better. This was almost 6 months of hell that really I mean in my opinion did not officially end, but their "closure" was the following.

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They said "Son, you are an adult and you are able to make your own decisions, although we don't agree with them we love you."

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It to me seemed like they had finally dropped it, everything seemed to be normal, they agreed that they needed to work on their relationship with him and then they'd work on their relationship with me. Keep in mind they pretty much ruined my opinion and respect for them as I had to be the one to comfort him. It got to the point that he was near suicidal and so broken, stressed, and just sad and it broke my heart to see him like that. He was so hopeful that things had changed and he visited with them and reestablished contact. According to him they aren't the type to apologize and they still think that they are right - I was skeptical of this newfound contact but kept it myself. The mother has been sending him gifts and even got me a Christmas gift (with the excuse that she "doesn't know me or what I like" even though we spent 7 weeks together supporting his dad as he went through chemo, so the jury is still out on that one).

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This week he gets a text out of the blue from his mother. I'm paraphrasing but essentially it was "blah blah blah I've been fighting with your dad for a while about this but you are going to have to pay us back for your last year of college." This was a state school but still is about to the tune of 16K or more. This had never been discussed or agreed upon - and I find it hard to believe that two years later they just had a change of heart? The rest of the text was about money stuff but it boiled down to "now that you have a job you need to pay us." I find this odd because:

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a) It's so out of the blue, almost no context, and it had not been discussed for a while

b) He had just told them in December that we are planning on getting engaged this year

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Keep in mind these people are well off, they just closed their construction business and still have a very profitable self run business that does VERY well. They just spent the last month and a half in Hawaii I don't think they are strapped for the money. Additionally keep in mind they are total hypocrites who had a daughter out of wedlock that they secretly adopted out and did not tell their parents about her for 20 years!

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Long story short we are at loss. This was so out of the blue that we do wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that they do not like me (could be a race issue). And on that, what do we do? I don't think that he should pay them back, the money was given as a gift and it had never been agreed that he would be paying back the last year. Additionally his brother is also taking an extra 1.5 years and to the best of our knowledge they are paying for it. Now in all honesty the sum isn't a game changer, it's a lot of money (pretty much one year's rent) but if absolutely needed in a few years we definitely could pay it off especially once I am able to start working full time BUT when it comes down to it I feel like since it was never agreed upon going into and after his final year and that's a lot of money we could be putting towards our savings and our life instead of paying off a vendetta. Additionally I'm not really so sure that this isn't a way to get back at him and it could just be another jab at him to try and reel him back in with the fact that everything has strings.

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So reddit, what do you think? Should we agree to pay it back? Is this just another step in the vicious cycle? And honestly, what do we do? Short of cutting them out of our life (which is not an option at this point) I don't really know what to do with them or even how to approach it. As for my SO I worry about him and his psyche as this to me feels like the whole issue is starting again under a new guise. Any advice is welcome.

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TL;DR His parent's have made it very clear that they did not like me but said that they would try to repair the relationship and accept our decision to live together. Now out of the blue they have asked that he pays back his last year of college which had never been agreed upon in the first place and we are conflicted.

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Submitted February 25, 2019 at 03:16PM by Totallynotthebanana https://ift.tt/2EclS5m