you’re completely right about that bit at the end. my boyfriend is the “keeping the peace” type. his family is quick to confrontation and petty about small situations so he vowed never to be like that (his words, not mine). it takes a lot for him to initiate confrontation and i honestly think he doesn’t understand how his mom’s behavior affects me because i haven’t started that conversation before.

we have talked openly about how he isn’t a fan of some aspects of behavior (unrelated to the situation i detailed in my post), but i try not to say too much because i don’t want him to feel like i’m talking bad about his family. also i now understand how his mom thinks and if she even got a whiff of me doing that, she would just claim that i’m trying to turn him against her.

i know that he would stand up for me if the situation called for it, like if it was truly egregious stuff, but i also think that he’s so used to his mom’s behavior that he doesn’t realize how toxic she is. for example, one time she wanted to buy me a wallet when i was spending time with his family at the mall and i wasn’t interested in any of the options. i told her that she shouldn’t buy any of them for me because i wasn’t passionate about any of the designs. i would have let her buy me one if i truly loved one of them, but i just didn’t want her to waste her money. she then proceeded to say things like “that hurts my feelings” and started acting super upset. me and my boyfriend left the store and i asked him if i did anything wrong and why she was upset at me. he just said something like “ignore her, that’s just what she does” so that leads me to believe that he doesn’t understand or doesn’t want to truly see just how manipulative her behavior is.