I [25F] agreed to a secret relationship with my serious boyfriend [45M], but now I'm having a hard time with it. How can I get over this?

I [25F] met my boyfriend [45M] two years ago; he was a teacher in my field and a superior of mine in multiple work contexts. I am a completely broke grad student and he runs a multi-million dollar venture fund.

We started dating a few months ago in very challenging circumstances. He had a stalker trying to ruin his life; threatening his family, forcing him to leave a job, filing false police & cps reports, etc. I am in the middle of a high-conflict custody battle with the father of my three-year-old. We agreed that if we were going to keep seeing each other, it should stay secret -- so as not to provoke any more craziness from his ex, so as not to introduce any new elements into my custody dispute, and because his ex-wife (who he co-parents with) was asking him not to bring any new people around until his storm passed.

However, I was laid off due to COVID and was forced to move out of my house one month into the relationship. I was in a panic and had nowhere to go - he invited me to move in, as long as we kept it under wraps. So, I did, and at first it was so great. We're a wonderful match, and living together was a delight. We wouldn't have chosen it so soon, but I truly didn't have options. Making the best of it, things got more serious.

We are both single parents and, seeing our compatibility, talked about getting married and blending our families. We both want to move out of the city, and we are currently looking at houses for when his lease is up -- it is very clearly "our house", "our finances", etc.

Now that things have become so serious, I can't stand the extreme secrecy. He has me use a fake name with his son and everyone else who comes to the house, and I have to hide in the bedroom when his ex-wife comes by to pick up his son. We have many mutual friends, but he makes excuses so they can't come over so they don't see us together.

It made sense and I was completely onboard when we were casually dating, but now that we're intending to build a life together I want some kind of security, some other people around us knowing about us -- we don't have to be completely public yet and can wait until we're set up in our new place as agreed, but the lengths he goes to to avoid anyone knowing about me at all is beginning to feel hurtful.

For example, a female friend he was sexual with just before me is often trying to hang out with him or come spend the night, etc. She is generally aware he is seeing someone, but she does not know that I live with him nor that we are exclusive. I'll hear him speaking to her about what's going on at the house but very conspicuously avoid mentioning me, his girlfriend, and it is beginning to make me uncomfortable.

Similarly, a group of his best male friends (who are also friends of mine) invited him to Mexico and are often calling, trying to cajole him into joining. He won't because he doesn't want them to see us together -- I don't understand it because I know those friends are not a risk and wouldn't do anything damaging with the knowledge of our relationship. Even when a friend asked him directly if we were together, he went out of his way to emphatically deny and downplay our relationship.

When these things happen and I express that it feels like unnecessarily hurtful overkill to be SOOO secretive, he responds that we had a very clear context of secrecy and that if I'm not OK with it anymore then I am not in the relationship he agreed to. He insists that the secrecy is only to protect our relationship because he values it so much, and when I imply that there might be something else going on I'm betraying that I don't trust him -- and he can't be with someone who doesn't trust him. I am totally isolated and totally financially dependent on him and I do trust him, but I just want to feel a little more secure, and having other people know about us would help me with that -- he does NOT understand at all why anyone else knowing matters, and I'm having a hard time articulating it.

TL;DR Boyfriend and I agreed to secrecy due to turmoil in both of our personal lives. However, his idea of secrecy seems like overkill to me, and as we get more serious it's hard for me to deal with.

Submitted February 06, 2021 at 11:18PM by throwRAIll_Ad2411 https://ift.tt/3js81fj