By Baila Sebrow

By Baila Sebrow

Question

I’m dating a guy and our relationship is going great, but his parents hate me. I didn’t know about it until I spent a Shabbos with them.

His mother kept taking jabs at me. For example, she asked me what I do for a living, and when I told her that I am a teacher, she asked, “Does that even make a good living?” Then she walked away from me. She made other snide remarks every time she could. The most hurtful snub was during Havdallah. His family has a custom that his father gives a berachah to everyone who is present. There were other non-family members there too, and he gave each of them a berachah but refused to acknowledge me. It was such a slap in the face. He barely answered me when I tried to talk to him during Shabbos, but I never expected this.

My boyfriend and I are talking about getting engaged, but I’m worried that I will have in-law problems. I know so many people who have in-law problems when they get married, and I don’t want that to happen to me. I also know that some people get divorced because of such issues. I get along with everyone. How can I get his parents to like me?

Since I am writing to you anyway, there is something else that has been bothering me. My boyfriend used to have a small friend list on Facebook. Since we started dating, he began to increase it by friending people he doesn’t even know. Many of the new additions are people I am friends with, including single women. I asked him about it, and he told me that he thinks it’s cool to have a large friend list on Facebook. Am I overreacting here?

Response

With regard to your boyfriend’s parents, you cannot force anyone to like you. All you can do is be respectful, polite, and demonstrate that you are a good person who will treat their son well. His father was not only downright rude, but he embarrassed you. If you would not have mentioned that he barely answered you when you tried to speak to him during Shabbos, I would have been inclined to give him the benefit of doubt that what happened during Havdallah was an oversight. But from the way you presented it in your letter, your boyfriend’s father made sure that you understand that he does not welcome your presence, nor does he welcome your entrance into his family. And his mother sounds quite unkind as well. The question is whether or not your boyfriend acknowledges his parents’ spitefulness.

I have seen cases where in the beginning of the relationship, particularly before the wedding, the guy admonishes his parents for mistreating the girlfriend. But after the couple is married, he is not interested in playing referee anymore and will typically expect the wife to put up with it and continue visiting the family as though everything is wonderful. At times the couple makes an agreement that the spouse who is not being treated right does not have to visit, but that brings resentment too, and it only ends up inciting the in-laws even more. These issues place a tremendous burden on shalom bayis, and couples do get divorced over such matters.

I find it bizarre that his mother is so concerned about your profession and whether you make a good living. Why is this a concern for her? Does her son not have a job, or does he float around a lot from job to job, and she is hoping that he will find a woman who is willing to carry the financial burden in the marriage? You need to find out her reason for such interrogation about something that is none of her business. Either way, she does not sound like a nice lady. If you go ahead and marry your boyfriend, you are in for a bumpy ride with these folks. And if you think that their mannerisms have not rubbed off somehow on him, you would be fooling yourself.

However, you have even bigger problems with this guy, independent from the way his parents treat you. It appears to be that he is on the hunt for women, and he is using you to get to them! I am sorry if it’s hurtful to hear this, but it is better to find out now, rather than when it is too late. There are plenty of relationships such as you described where the woman finds out after the breakup that the guy she was committed to in a serious dating relationship was searching for and reaching out to women while they were supposedly discussing their future together. Do you know what these characters do in the end? They stay in the relationship until they find somebody else. After that, you will quickly become as unimportant to him as yesterday’s news.

Unless this guy has a job that requires a social media following, “friending” single women on Facebook or any other social media platform is not OK while in the midst of discussing an impending engagement. And from what you are saying, he is sending friend requests to women you are friends with on Facebook. He is actually quite cunning. There are women who are savvy enough not to accept friend requests from random men they don’t know. So these men first make sure to befriend a reputable person who is on Facebook, and when a woman sees that she shares a mutual friend with him, she will be more inclined to accept the friend request. Shortly thereafter, the guy casually sends a message, or he may like or comment on something the person posted, and the connection is established. Then comes the exchange of phone numbers, etc.

You might assume that if you confront him, he will either confirm or refute what I am saying. Rest assured that he is likely careful to delete any messages between him and anyone he does not want you to know about. For the most part, people who have nothing to hide keep messages on their phones and computers because they have a legitimate answer for anything that might appear questionable. I am willing to bet that his exchanges are devoid of compromising conversations, and he will use that to convince you of his faithfulness to you.

Look into his history. Has he been married before? Has he had previous serious relationships? What happened in each situation you can find out about? I know I am going to get major criticism for even suggesting this, but if you can fish for information from a former relationship, it will give you some clue into his psyche. Don’t take everything you hear at face value; however, if you hear of certain behaviors from his past that feel familiar, you can be assured that it is a pattern with him. That is what checking references should really be about. It should be all for establishing a positive or negative pattern in order to make a level-headed decision about the person. In this case, you want to make sure that he has not cheated in the same way before.

I need to put this out there just so I can play it fair. It could be that your boyfriend might feel insecure and have low self-esteem, and since you have many friends on Facebook, perhaps he wants to have what he perceives as popularity, too. If you are well-liked and socially recognized, and he is not, you might be his ticket to whatever glory he seeks. That is not always a bad thing, if he never contacts these women at all.

Reach out to the women he has recently friended from the time you have become serious in your relationship. Find out if he contacted them in any way. It might give you some sense of relief if he didn’t, but I am not entirely confident that it is kosher, because it is still possible that he wants to gain a social circle of friends to keep in his back pocket, so to speak, if your relationship with him ends, or if he feels that it needs to come to an end.

You may want to show him this letter you sent to me in anonymity, as well as my response, and listen to his reaction. Or you can just tell him that it bothers you that he is friending women for no reason, and that his excuse that he wants to increase his friend list does not sit well with you. If he dismisses your concerns, calls you paranoid or silly, and makes you out to be the bad one here, you will know exactly what he is up to. The honorable reaction from him should be that he quickly unfriends any woman he recently friended with whom he has no affiliation.

I’ll conclude by saying that I do not have a good feeling about this relationship. It is imperative that you both retain a couples’ therapist because I have a strong suspicion there is more to your story than the two issues you have shared with me. You are in a precarious situation, where you risk getting hurt either by marrying a guy while there are serious problems going on or being cast-off when you least expect it. Make it your business to get as much information as you can about your boyfriend, his extracurricular activities, and also how his parents have treated prior women his life. Add everything together and discuss that with the therapist for more clarity.

 

Baila Sebrow is president of Neshoma Advocates, communications and recruitment liaison for Sovri-Beth Israel, executive director of Teach Our Children, and a shadchanis and shidduch consultant. She can be reached at Bsebrow@aol.com. Baila also hosts The Definitive Rap podcast for vinnews.com, Israel News Talk Radio, WVIP 93.5 FM HD2, and talklinenetwork.com. Questions and comments for the Dating Forum can be submitted to 5townsforum@gmail.com. Read more of Baila Sebrow’s articles at 5TJT.com.

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