Ugh. I don’t want to write this post but here I am. My boyfriend is an amazing guy, but grew up in a super religious household. He’s 27, lives on his own, and his father constantly makes remarks about him spending the night at my house. His father has incredibly strict standards and beliefs on premarital sex, to the point where it’s had lasting impacts on my boyfriend’s sex life (lots of trauma, guilt, shame surrounding sex). We’ve worked through a lot of it. When his father first found out my boyfriend was spending the night at my place he tried to have my boyfriend excommunicate himself from their church—which my boyfriend hasn’t attended in years. His father is relatively kind to my face, but behind my back will make comments to my boyfriend basically implying that I’m a whore. I’m a 30-year-old grown woman with a graduate degree, a great job, I pay all of my own bills, I take care of myself. Any father would be pleased to have me as a daughter-in-law. I’ve gone to church with his parents, prayed with them before dinner, read religious books his mother sent me. They’re ultimately kind people and I have tried to remain open-minded.

I was never close to my biological father. My stepfather, who was like a Dad to me, passed suddenly this October. Due to my job and prior to that, being abroad or away at graduate school, I haven’t been home for Thanksgiving in years. My boyfriend invited me to his parents’ house, along with his two other brothers, one of their girlfriends, and some family friends.

All was well until tonight when his father made some off-hand comment about him staying with me for the holiday. We’re semi-long distance due to work obligations at the moment. It made me feel shitty, and I basically commented “Babe your parents are great people but it’s hard for me to be around people who basically think I’m a whore.” He basically didn’t have a thoughtful response. He acknowledged the shittiness of the situation and apologized, but I got angry. For one, there’s a double-standard. The parents adore his brother’s girlfriend, and are delusional enough to believe that they’re both virgins despite recently returning from a vacation together. I feel like I’m competing against an impossible standard because his parents are aware we’ve had sex and clearly hold it against me. I told my boyfriend I’m not really comfortable spending Thanksgiving with his father, especially when I know he doesn’t like me, views me as promiscuous, and I am overall just sensitive about the fact that I just lost my own father, who if he were alive, would probably lose his shit over this man’s treatment and behavior towards me. Am I wrong for deciding not to go? His mom and brothers are incredibly sweet but I’d rather not play passive-aggressive niceties or burden him with my “whore” presence on my one day off 🙃