What to do? :(

[Ang2310]

Im a 20 years old girl. Since almost two years im in a long distance relationship with a moroccan guy. Lately i feel so confused, depressed and im looking for some advice from people who are or were in similar situation. Please help.

We met each other in internet. He used to live in my country before i got to know him, but he had to come back home because of family problems. He visited me already so many times but i have never come to him. Also i have never invited him to my house to meet my family. All because im a catholic and hes a muslim. My family is very conservative and intolerant when it goes about me and relationships with people from other cultures.

Lately i realised he is my true love. We built up a beautiful relation despite living so far away.

Im between parents and my love. Now he is about to come to me again, but he wanted to finally visit him. I know it cant work like this. I was planning to go to my boyfriend, but its hard to stand against family. My parents are afraid of kidnapping me in his arabic country, what is weird. They dont know him and said they dont want to.

I have nobody to talk about it and feel so lonely. Please give me some advice... 😔

[justsomeone]

I'm kind of in a similar situation.

My boyfriend comes from a muslim family as well (he has grown up in Europe, though).
My whole family has met him and they all accept and like him. Our problem is rather that his family doesn't accept me. My boyfriend is certain they would like me if they just got to know me, but the frustrating thing is that they're not at all willing to. They don't even know what I look like.

When he told them about me, they reacted really, really negatively. My boyfriend was not expecting the reaction to be as bad as it turned out to be and he was almost forced to break up with me because it affected their health. So with that in mind... I hope I'm not making you feel worse, but I just have to ask you: what do your boyfriend's parents think about you? Has he told them? If he hasn't, you might face problems there too...

When it comes to your parents...
I'm sad to hear your family isn't open to people of other cultures. It shouldn't have to be like that.
But I do understand why they worry, though. They don't know your boyfriend, and you're planning to go to a foreign country by yourself. This is something they would have worried about even if he was from a Western country, because he could be anyone! And if something bad was to happen, you'd be all by yourself in a country where everything is foreign. How would you get help? How would you communicate?

My sister is your age, and she also met her boyfriend on the internet two years ago (he's from Argentina though). He visited her for a week during winter and half a year later, she visited him for a month. I know for a fact that my parents would never have been fine with it if she had visited him first. The reason why they were okay with her visiting him during summer was because they had met and gotten to know him (they even started texting with his family!) and so they saw for themselves that he was a good guy. My sister is actually living in Argentina now. So yeah... I think that should be your first step. Try to make your boyfriend and parents meet in your own country and work on them getting along. If they start to like him, then they might be more okay with you visiting him. If not, well... then at least you tried.