I’m in a weird place right now. The relationship I have with my parents is fragile at best; my father was physically abusive to me in my teens and my mother a hardcore enabler, which led me to run away from home at 18. Just before then, I met my now boyfriend of two years. As he knew me at the worst time in my life, he has helped me through a rather precarious time and has basically “seen it all”. For this reason, I trust him implicitly. He also came from a similar situation as me, but has a way better relationship with his family who have actually made the effort to fix their problems.

Now, I’m 20, so I’ve been with BF for two years now, and my parents still refuse to meet him (note that they have each met him once, and to me it was a nice meeting), talk about him or listen about him. If I am ever over at their house for dinner (happens about once a week and I mainly go to see our dog and my little brother) and they ask what I am doing afterwards, I cannot help but be honest and say that I am seeing my BF. This results in a bunch of yelling or snide comments from my father. He has even disallowed my brother from giving me a ride over to his place (my brother, though he hasn’t met often with BF bc of my parents, doesn’t see the issue they have with him) if it is late. Once I had no money and no bus pass, and so I begged for ride due to the fact that the walk was an hour and pretty sketchy, he still said no. Maybe I was being entitled, but that made me believe that my father valued this grudge over my safety.

This issue is really frustrating for me because I guess I want the traditional way of my BF getting to know my father, even though he is a man of many faults. I don’t “get” why they don’t like him. When I ran away from home, I lived with my BF’s family for awhile until I could stand on my own, and they welcomed me with open arms. Whenever I ask why they don't like BF, my parents respond “he and his family haven’t tried to get to know us”, and they also felt like his parents should have reached out to them when I was living there (I had told BF’s mother that I didn’t want to talk to them because I was terrified of my father). As a result they don’t like his family. My BF has tried to get in touch with my parents multiple times to meet but they just ignore him. This leaves me wanting to pull my hair out because they complain about how he never makes an effort…when he clearly has.

Even though we are very young (both 20), I know he is the one and he has brought up marriage multiple times. We want the same things in life and he is far from a bum. He is currently in a very competitive computer science and mathematics dual degree (in which he is excelling) and he’s looking to do a PhD in Math later. I’m laying this all out because I just don’t get why my parents continue to vilify him. He has never laid a hand on me (unlike my father), has never emotionally abused me and is overall a wonderful person and captain.

I mainly worry for the future, BF says that they will come around eventually, and overall does not seem overly concerned (he does not like how they have treated me and thinks not being too involved with them is good for me) but I can just imagine my wedding day, in which no one will walk me down the aisle and my entire side of the family will refuse to attend. I feel alone sometimes, despite having someone as incredible as my bf, mainly because I don’t know anyone close to me who has parents like mine.

So after all of that, here are my main questions:

1) If you have similar parents to me, how did it affect your relationship with you SO? Did it make having a RPW-type relationship with your SO more difficult?

2) Were you able to get your parents to come around? How?

3) Is this a “serious” issue, or do you think it will go away eventually?

4) If you were a guy, would you see this situation as a major red flag?