My boyfriend is handicapped and his life is controlled by his grandmother. I don’t know if I should continue dating him or not
Question:
I have been dating this man from church for about half a year now. Our original getting together was through his uncle inviting me over to meet him. I have to mention that he is the victim of a drunk driver over a decade ago. Because of this, he is physically and mentally handicapped. He is pretty much all there mentally, but not enough to be completely on his own. We are both in our forties.
Up until two weeks ago, his uncle defended me with his grandma. Now he won't step in for anything and his grandma won't let him see me. It was the uncle who warned me two weeks into dating my boyfriend that grandma was a very mean person (mental) and has been her entire life. He told me that she was and is still verbally abusive to him, all of his siblings, and their spouses. He had told my boyfriend that he shouldn't try to have a girlfriend until grandma dies. Grandma is in her eighties. She told me that she hates gringos. She is always ruining our dates.
One evening, I picked him up to go over to my brothers. We were watching a movie when 20 minutes into the movie his uncle called (with grandma screaming in the background) telling me that I had to bring him home because God told her we were having sex. For some reason, this woman believes we are always having sex, when in fact this has never taken place.
His uncle told me that one time when I was over, she had told him that she was going to pick on me intentionally. He told me that he stopped her from doing any such thing. The list of this woman's antics and abuses goes on and on.
The final straw for me was when I was on my way over to their home, I was in an accident. His uncle dropped me off at urgent care and told me he would come back and pick me up after my boyfriend's appointment. He never came back and my cell phone was dead. I was told that grandma forbade him to get me, no one even knew the extent of my injuries, and it was her car. Grandma gets paid by the state to take care of my boyfriend. He gets paid Social Security for being disabled, of which grandma only gives him $20 a week. His uncle told me that when grandma dies, he will be the caregiver. The thing is, I really like my boyfriend, and he is head over heels in love with me. Not only is he unable to have a life with these people, but he is also the victim of their greediness. I can't take grandma anymore, but I am afraid of what this may do to my boyfriend if I break up with him because of them. I need some Christian counsel. Because I am at the point I just want to walk away because of them, but I'm afraid how it is going to affect my boyfriend.
Answer:
Both the grandmother and the uncle have financial reasons for you not to marry this man. Once you do, you'll be responsible for his care. I gather the uncle doesn't mind, but the grandmother likes to have control. What is shameful is that people are allowing this woman to push them around.
The only way you are going to have a life with this man is if he decides to ignore his grandmother. He has to deal with her, not you. The grandmother cannot forbid him from seeing you if he wants to do so. Thus, you need to sit down with him and his uncle, without the grandmother. Tell them both that you love him and would like to continue dating him, but not if it means jumping to the grandmother's whims. That means that if you and he are out on a date and the grandmother insists that he returns without just reason, you will state the expected time of return and then hang up. You are letting the uncle know because he is going to be taking the brunt of the grandmother's fury. If this is not acceptable to the two men, then you need to move on because you aren't interested in having the grandmother controlling your life.
Then listen to their response and if your boyfriend doesn't want to lose you, he and his uncle will work on a way that keeps the grandmother out of the relationship. It will be hard on both of them, and they have too long of a history of letting the grandmother control their lives. I can't predict how it will go, but I can say that you need to get this straighten out now.
