Stressing over everything and anything :(

[Thelastbullet55]

Hi there,

I am a 20 year old male from Sydney region. My girlfriend and I have recently moved to my dads place to study the HSC and we are struggling to cope with things going on in our lives and feel as if it is affecting our studying.

The relationship between my mum and I isn't very good. As she is from Indonesia she has a strong belief in Muslim religion and she constantly tries to force it onto me and I choose not to be religious. I have talked with her many times before and she never seems to understand that since I was born in Australia that I don't have to be Muslim. 

When I met my girlfriend last year (April), I felt the best I had felt in ages as I had recently grieved for my past girlfriend who passed away in the December (2011). We started dating in December (2012), one year later and I loved it. My mum, didn't. It was because she wasn't an Indonesian girl, she wasn't pretty or rich and because she liked to have a drink every once in a while. Meanwhile, my mum is drinking and smoking and other things and at the same time, telling me and my girlfriend (we're both 20) what we can and can't do (including drinking/smoking). 

She didn't want me to have a live-in girlfriend before I was married, but that's religion for her, not me. So, at first, I moved into her house and we went to TAFE together every day and we were doing really well but she has issues with her mum and her sister and they were always fighting and it started to hurt us both really bad. My mum hated that I lived with her and used to call me and my dad and abuse us because she claimed to be scared to sleep on her own. She's in her 40s.. 

Later on she decided my girlfriend should stay at our place once in a while, but she went to far by reading our private Facebook messages to each other and other people. She did it constantly, invading our privacy. My girlfriend stayed the first time and we fell asleep on the floor in the living room after watching a movie. When we woke up, mum was yelling at me because I had fallen asleep next to her. The second time she stayed there, we did the same. Again, mum was angry and said my girlfriend couldn't stay there anymore.

Then we transferred down to my dad's house in Wollongong region to be away from my mum as my parents are separated. But unfortunately we had to travel home every weekend because my mum decided to come down and be friendly with dad and ordered my girlfriend not to be there and I refused to make her go home alone. So my mum started to get even more angry and decided to have her family visit from Indonesia and have them stay at my dads house instead of her own. So my girlfriend couldn't be there for 3 weeks because it is a sin for me to have a girlfriend?

My mum then developed a habit of going though my bedroom and moving/throwing out personal belongings and my girlfriend now refuses to leave any of her stuff here and this is her home too. So we carry all our bags/stuff every weekend to and from the hosue because of mum.

After that we started TAFE there and she still kept coming on weekends which forces us to travel every weekend and it is stressful with trackwork. Now she has started staying there on Sunday nights too which means we have to travel all day Monday (still with bags) to get home and we are missing imporant classes. 

Besides being stressed from being behind in classes and having to attend tutorial support and do extra homework.. we also have to do a massive clean up of the house from top to bottom every friday and no one helps its mainly me doing all the work and luckily my girlfriend helps here and there but ITS NEVER GOOD ENOUGH for mum. She trashes my room with clean/dirty clothes and leaves notes saying "IM NOT YOUR HOUSE KEEPER" everywhere.. I never asked her to be. I clean up everything in the house and I don't understand how much cleaner it needs to be or how much cleaner she thinks she is making it but it never looks any different when I get back.

It has been months since I last spoke to mum and now I just feel her every movement is trying to break us up so she can have me back. And she has a place to live (with her friends), a car to get around.. and may I say my girlfriend spends her whole pay on her phone bill and travelling to and from every weekend.. i am lucky to get $50 each weekend and thats supposed to last me a week, but how? My dad is self employed and doesn't support me very much, I mean, I had a job but I couldn't hold it and study at the same time, it made my marks even worse. I just want to focus, you know? I have goals too! ..anyway, she has a house, a car and her whole paycheck goes home to indonesia. She gets all the money she wants from dad and I get jackshit. How does that help me? Especially when I am looking after two people. And I mean, why is dad even helping her if they are separated.

So my mum keeps telling dad that she is going back to Indonesia for a holiday this month, and never leaves. But apparently she is coming to live with dad for a while first which means me and my girlfriend either have to stay at her place and miss all of tafe or stay in a hotel somewhere near tafe which we cant afford and I don't know how dad will if he is so broke from giving mum money.

All of this is just so stressful not to mention my girlfriend is trying to grieve for her dad, we don't have friends of such that we can rely on or support us or anything like that. And we don't go out, like ever, or see any of our friends because we cant afford it let alone afford to go to and from sydney every weekend and go to tafe every day during the week. What do we do? our friends are really starting to treat us like dirt because we dont have time or money for them anymore. It's really bringing us down.

That's about all I can think of at the moment but since theres so much going on I don't actually remember if there's anything else I need to say. As for my girlfriends mum/sister, basically I think her sister gets most/all of the attention and everytime my girlfriend tries to talk to her mum she gets shut down because her mum is to busy with her sister who's 17 and should be able to look after herself but she won't go out or stay home alone so my girlfriend never gets time with her mum one on one. So I think she feels as though she has no one to talk to about personal things. Like, I have my dad, although he's never really good with advice.. LOL. But she feels like she has no one at all. So.. yeah.

Please help, we are so stressed and before any of you ask, yes we are ready for a relationship and yes we want to be together. It's the only thing that seems right here. I love her, she loves me. End of story. 🙂 

[vip]

Hello The last bullet wow wow wow what a story. My suggestion would be if you want to live together try and find a small apartment and be on your own with your girlfriend. You are adults both 20yrs I started dating my husband at 18 . I am from an italian background and my parents would never allow my boyfriend which is now my husband to sleep over ect. You probably have to respect their rules religion culture ect ect here. I know rent is not cheap maybe even another  suggestion is house sharing and renting a room that could be the key. While you are all together in this one house there will be arguments no privacy ect ect. Its not going to work like this. Ill be honest with you i have 1 son but when he is older i will not have him stay at my home with his girlfriend i would much rather them being on there own in there own place. Goodluck with it all wont be an easy fix here sorry.