Mom found condoms snooping in my (21F) bag, thinks she can control my sexual relationship with boyfriend (21M)

TL/DR: Religious, Asian mom found condoms. She’s fine with me (21F) still being in a relationship with my boyfriend (21M), but with conditions on the nature of our sexual relationship. Boyfriend is uncomfortable around mom. Not sure how to bridge the gap. What should I do?

A lot has gone down, and I honestly just need to hear some advice about how to proceed. :( This is my first Reddit post, and idk how long these can be, but y’all need to know the whole story because it’s fucked up LOL. I’ve been dating my boyfriend for nearly 7 months now. For context, I still live with my mom and I am financially dependent on her due to college. Boyfriend works & lives alone with roommates.

So back in mid-June, my mom used my car (without asking) to pick up my younger brother & a couple of his friends to drop them off at the mall. When she came home, she threw my bag at me (which I left in the car from the previous night), and told me to explain to her why I had condoms. She was fuming. She found them snooping through my bag, and yelled at me like hell. She cried and screamed at me for “giving yourself up so easily” and called me indecent. Mom is religious and Asian, so you can imagine how that dynamic plays into it. She believes in waiting until marriage for penetrative sex specifically, so this reaction was expected I guess. She then started demanding to know when we started having sex. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her we’ve been intimate together pretty much since our third date, so I just lied and told her we had been having sex since late March. She blew up and refused to even look at me after berating me and telling me I’m throwing my life away and everything she’s worked for. She kept muttering things like “you’re never seeing him again” or “how could he do this to you.” She said I have never disrespected her like this before.

I highly respect and love my mom, so all of this was difficult to take in. I hate that she found out this way, and the guilt still eats me alive, but I do have several gripes. First of all, mom invaded my privacy by taking my car and going through my bags for no reason, but I had no time to process this because of everything else going on. Secondly, she was telling me that I’m being reckless with my body and my life, but she found CONDOMS, meaning my boyfriend and I were actively practicing safer sex. Thirdly, she was assuming that my boyfriend was forcing himself on me, as if I didn’t have a say in the matter and he was “tainting” me. I kept trying to tell her that he wasn’t forcing himself on me, and everything that had happened between us was consensual, but she wouldn’t have it. And finally, she still views me as a child. I understand that I still rely on her financially, and she won’t let me get a job because she wants to provide for my entire college career (it’s complicated). But I’m not dumb. I’m an incoming senior in college, and I’ve maintained a strict 4.0. I rarely party, I never drink, don’t do drugs. I’m good with money, never stay out past midnight. She sets ridiculously high standards for me, and I’ve been on top of them my whole life. As a 21 year old, why can’t I just have this one thing with my boyfriend without her putting me down and saying I’m irresponsible? Haven’t I proven that I’m smart enough to know what I’m doing?

Anyway, she refused to look at me or speak to me for 3 whole days after the initial confrontation. I explained what was happening to my boyfriend over the phone, and was basically having mental breakdowns every day. Boyfriend assured me that he wasn’t going to leave me and wanted to work things out with me. At this point, my boyfriend and I had been dating for about 5 months. My mom has known about our relationship from the beginning, and was very open and welcoming initially. I had him meet her and we’ve all hung out several times; all of their interactions were positive. I was pretty close with my mom, so I shared a lot of things about him and our relationship with her, but obviously I never shared the sexual aspect of it. After 3 days of no contact with mom, I decided to write her a letter defending myself and my relationship, as well as letting her know that I deeply love and respect her opinions, but I was not asking her permission to stay in the relationship because that’s my decision to make. Mom took another day after reading the letter to finally speak to me. She once again yelled at me, telling me that “his penis should never be inside you, not until you’re married” and that “if you get those urges, you should just touch each other.”

I was absolutely appalled that she thought she could place conditions on what my boyfriend and I do intimately. So even though my mom was explaining to me that she wants my boyfriend and I to work out (albeit with her insane proposed conditions on our sex life), I had to bite my tongue and just cry in private. I did not want to stop having sex with my boyfriend simply because my mom thinks she can control us. That isn’t fair to my wishes or to his. I told my boyfriend everything my mom said to me, and he was upset of course. He said he’s seriously uncomfortable with how my mom treats me like a child and how she involved herself in our sex life.

Fast forward to 2 months later (present time), my mom has not seen boyfriend since this whole situation began. I have still being going on dates with boyfriend, but not bringing him around her. I finally wanted to slowly break the ice and invite him over to my apartment to bake cupcakes with me and watch a show or something. My mom would be home, but I assured him I’d get her to just stay in her room while we hung out. My boyfriend texted saying he was down, but in his words he said he doesn’t “really want to interact with her at all though so if she comes out I’m running LOL🏃🏻‍♀️.” I’m sure he meant that in a funny way, but it actually really hurt to read and I couldn’t respond. It finally hit me that my boyfriend is uncomfortable with the thought of even seeing my mom. That broke my heart because the last thing I wanted was for him to feel unwelcome in my family. I really don’t know what to do. I feel like I’m at a stand still. I’ve been trying my best to set more boundaries with my mom, but it’s so hard. I want my mom and my boyfriend to get along, or at least be civil, but I absolutely don’t want to force my boyfriend to talk to her when I know he’s opposed to it. I wish I had been more careful about hiding the condoms. Now my mom is more protective than ever. I hate this so much. I love my boyfriend, I love my mom, and I just want it to work out, but I don’t know how to bridge the gap.

Does anyone have any advice about what I should do? 😭

Submitted July 24, 2022 at 11:07PM by sleepyriver_runs https://ift.tt/Imid2U3