Girlfriend and her family relationship problems

[bz42]

About a year ago, I moved across the country to live with my girlfriend. My girlfriend's mother had 4 kids with her original husband. It goes like this...

 

Oldest (Boy) 28 years old

2nd Oldest (Girl) 26 years old

3rd Oldest (My Girlfriend) 24 years old

Youngest (Boy) 22 years old

 

My girlfriend's mother and her original husband then got divorced.

 

She then had another kid with her second husband.

 

(Girl) 13 years old

 

Another divorce.

 

She then married again, and had another kid.

 

(Boy) 8 years old

 

First, I'll start off with some facts about her mother.

 

She does not work, does not have friends, and for the most part is still a stay at home mom. Currently, the people living in the "nest" are as follows.

 

Girlfriend's mom and stepdad, 2nd oldest (Girl) 26 years old, youngest (Boy) 22 years old, (Girl) 13 years old, and (Boy) 8 years old.

 

The oldest has moved out with his girlfriend, and my girlfriend moved out and lives with me.

 

My problem is pretty simple, yet complex. Her mother is not transferring to me the responsibilities of caring, and protecting for her daughter. All of her kids have been raised sheltered. None of her kids are learning survival skills, how to be independent, and their emotional growth has been stunted severely.

 

Another problem is that since my girlfriend's mom does not have any friends and is not even happily married to her current husband (he is a doctor, and provides for her and all of her children) and without him they would all be homeless, she sees my girlfriend as "her best friend". Even though we moved out, my girlfriend will literally be at her mom's house like...every day to every other day.

 

An example...My girlfriend and I wake up to my cousin calling me and she said hey, I'm on the west coast and we're only a few hours away. I leave tomorrow so let's meet up (since I haven't seen one member of my family for almost 6 months at this point). So I tell my girlfriend about it and she agrees that we should take the couple hour drive to go see my cousin. Well it doesn't fly so easy with the mother. This was a Sunday, and apparently her mom had made plans with my girlfriend. When I say plans, I mean dragging her daughter along with her to do unmeaningful things like...going to the grocery store, going to the pet store, and for the main event going to look at houses! So we get to her mom's house and the first thing her mom says to us is, "So what are you guys doing today?" (When she already knew that I wanted to go see my cousin), she just wanted to make it be known out loud. My girlfriend quickly responds by saying, "Oh we were going to go meet up with his cousin because she is in town."

 

Let me tell you...immediately after this was said the face on her mother told me everything I needed to know. She had this upset, guilt-trip looking face worn. We both noticed right away, except when my girlfriend saw that her mother was upset, she immediately countered her previous statement by saying, "But we can't go, because it's too short notice" to please her mother and basically pick either her mother's happiness or my happiness.

 

As any of you would feel just like I did. I was immediately crushed and hurt. I could not believe that my girlfriend had chosen to spend time with her mother doing unmeaningful things today, when she literally has been doing that for so long, every other day and sacrifice my "ONE" chance (my family is never on the west coast) to see even just one member of my family.

 

This day, I was so pissed I can't start to explain.

 

My response to these actions were, "Dude, you hang out with your mom every day, and you're not even doing anything meaningful...You're going to look at houses. This is something that is not time sensitive to you. You could go tomorrow or the next day or the following Sunday. You're mom doesn't even work, and she always has available free time. My cousin is leaving tomorrow and I want to see her and I want you to meet her.

 

This created a big fight, and what ended up happening was her mom took her for like 3 hours and came home with a bunch of walmart bags. I was stuck just "hanging" out at her mom's house.

 

 

 

Now, that one example should kind of sum of everything I am trying to tell you guys. That was about 6 months ago, and my girlfriend super resents me because I have been trying to fix this mother-daughter super weird attachment the entire time. This is still going on til this day and she is always either picking me or her mother. Let me mind you she is picking her mother about 88% of the time at the least.

 

I love this girl, I want to marry and advance our stage of life with each other. But with this childish/needy behavior from her mom, I don't see it getting there. Honestly I only see it getting worse once we are married and have kids. The other thing is, my girlfriend doesn't see it. She only sees me as the "bad guy". The one who is always talking **** about her family. When only I love and care about her enough to even bring something like this up.

 

I have seen 1 member of my family in the past year. My girlfriend has seen all of the members of her family about 250 times in the past year.

 

Still to this day, this is happening and I really just want to move out of this city and deem her daughter unreachable to her mother. I am 22 (younger than my girlfriend) and I am happy being independent and my own self. I tried to get her to do the same thing so we could advance to the next stage of life.

 

Note: My girlfriend is half mexican, and half spanish.

 

Her mom is mexican. Her dad is spanish.

She talks with her dad when they "need to", like every other week or so. And she sees her dad like once a month or so. This is the same for all of the original 4 kids. My girlfriend once said out loud, "I wish they were all like my dad, and just didn't give a f***". That really made me happy because somewhere deep down she realizes it too.

 

WHAT DO I DO?

 

Sitting and talking with her only brings frustration and resentment.

[Radu]

Untill her mother dies off, she will never be free.

 

She will never leave the nest unless she sees her biological clock ticking and it's mandatory that she does this for kids, but she will be back to her mom.

As for her mom, ppl like her do not die off early because they use and transfer stress to others.

In fact, her mom is probably one of the most healthy ppl you know, despite having had that many kids.

 

Leave, there is no choice ... and in the future do not allow anyone else to separate yourself from your family, and be weary of clan-like families.

[CarboniteCammy]

I can tell you right now that this is a battle you will lose if you try to make your girlfriend pick between her mom and you.

 

The only one that can change that relationship is your girlfriend, and if she doesn't want to then you have to take what she's willing to give you, or end the relationship and find someone who doesn't have that type of relationship with their mother.

 

How old is your relationship, anyway?

 

Remember, this is all about perception, and if her mom makes you seem like the interloper, you'll have a hard road ahead of you.

 

My suggestion is to try to get on your girlfriend's mother's good side. Help her out. Become one of the clan. Then, once everyone perceives you as a non-threatening, perhaps even helpful, entity, then you'll have a leg to stand on when you try to talk to your girlfriend.

 

If the mother likes you, she might be a whole lot nicer about having to sacrifice time with her daughter.