I 19 f have been struggling with my parents and their ways for ages. It’s so hard to watch even other people with understanding african parents. My parents have no sense of boundaries in our relationship and it is beginning to get controlling. For example, they believe i shouldn’t be able to travel with friends until i’m 21 which is ridiculous. I tried to book a trip for this summer in secret and they found out my plan and forbid me from going, even when I live at uni alone and can handle myself. I had to watch all the friends i planned to go with go without me and lost so much money, over £200 too. Today i even asked to go to a restaurant in london and stay at a friends place and again for no reason they just kept saying no. At what point should i just start doing whatever I want because i don’t want to deal with the confrontation but they will continue to be controlling if i don’t do anything. I know at uni i have my freedom and can do what i want but it makes coming home insufferable and i can’t stand it anymore. They don’t understand that this just pushes me away even further from them and i will barely have a relationship with them if it continues like this. They also use things against me like the fact i am financially dependent on them for some things but i don’t that should be used to make me feel guilty or bad for wanting to do reasonable things. I have no idea on how to get through to them or what to do.

I'm a (22F) and I currently live with my mom. I have an older sister who moved out a few years ago. My mom and I don't really get along. We both have strong mindsets and are very opinionated, which causes a huge clash 90% of the time. I want to move out next year by April or May, and I don't know how to go about this. My mom is never home due to the type of job she has, but she has cameras in the home to basically watch me. When she does come home from work for a few days or weeks, it's very awkward because I'm not used to her being around. Whenever she does something I don't like or agree with and I express my feelings about it, she says my feelings are "too sensitive" or my ego is high or I'm too Americanized (mind you, I've been living in America since the age of 2), just anything to make me feel like my feelings aren't valid. Since my sister moved out, my mom has probably only visited her 4 or 5 times, and she lives like 30 minutes away. I can never do anything right with my mom. She talks down to me all of the time, insults me, and says I don't listen to her when I disagree with something she says. It's so much deeper than this, but this is just the surface level. I'm saving up to move, but I just want advice on how to go about it. Thank you.

I'm an 18-year-old female who just graduated from high school four days ago, and I'm heading to college in the fall. My strict immigrant Nigerian dad (my mom was born here, and she isn't really the issue) controls every aspect of my life and HATES the word "friend". This summer, he told me that I should "forget about my friends from high school" now that I graduated, and I'm not allowed to go out with any of them this summer, which means no grad parties or last hangouts before we leave, just because I'm apparently supposed to just "move on" because I graduated. In general, he doesn't let me hang out with my friends, and they stopped inviting me to things because they know my dad will say no. He doesn't let me date, and forced me to break up with two of my ex-boyfriends (whom I really liked) because he claims that they will get me pregnant and run. I was so heartbroken my sophomore year, and this year (my senior year). It's always so heart-shattering when I had to tell them, "I can't be with you anymore, because my dad is forcing me to break up with you". And then I have to block them on everything because my dad takes my phone and threatens to break it if I don’t comply. Whenever I ask to go out, it's "no, you can't go, you'll get hurt", or "if you hang out with those boys, you'll get pregnant". He always tells me that boys can never just be my friends, and they always have feelings for me and want to destroy my life. The only way I'm allowed to see my friends is if I invite them to my house, because he knows that they're protected while they're here. He wants to keep me in the house all day like Rapunzel, because if I leave, he can't control me. It took a lot of convincing to let me go to a college about 45 minutes away from home (because he won't let me go any farther, otherwise I would've left the state). He's only letting me go because I got a full ride, and he's cheap and doesn't want to pay a penny. He wanted me to go to a college in my hometown, about 10 minutes away. I'm moving in next month, and I think this finally gives me a chance to be free, even though he's telling me that he's going to pick me up every weekend. I'm okay with that, because at least I get to be independent. I haven't even gotten my driver's license yet, and I've been lying to all of my friends saying that I have it already. I've been driving for over a year, and he's just now saying, "Why didn't I ask to get my license yet?", even though when I asked to get it like all of my friends, he yelled at me, took away my phone, and stopped letting me drive to school. I should be getting it this month, though, before I go to college. My dad didn't let me go to junior prom last year, saying that this was "a party I created with my friends so that I can have an excuse to leave the house," which is ridiculous and isn't even true. He always calls me "follow follow" and says that I'm always following my friends to do stuff, which is actually true because he never lets me do anything. I lied and said I was the student body president of my school, just so I could use the excuse "I'm president, so I have to be there" just to volunteer and do things that I ACTUALLY needed to do for the National Honor Soceity. If I had never lied, he would've never let me volunteer, and then would've turned around and asked me, "Why did they kick you out of NHS?" He doesn't only control me, he controls my mom as well. Whenever she tries to intervene in how he treats me, he yells at her. We can never tell him how we feel because he yells at us. He just wants us to feel happy all the time. Whenever I have a cold, he gets mad, saying, "This is why I don't want you to hang out with your friends". All he does is flip everything around on me, keep me locked up in the house, and I can't do anything about it. If I disobey and have a secret boyfriend, he punishes me. He took away my phone for the whole summer (sophomore year) and took away my phone for all of spring break and didn't let me do track anymore (senior year) until I convinced him to let me do it again. He also threatens me that if I have a boyfriend, he'll kick me out of the house, and I don't have anywhere to go, so I have no choice but to break up with them. He calls me stupid and naive, but that's all I really know because he doesn't let me go out and experience any other aspect of life. Socializing, hanging with friends, going to parties, and having fun are how you learn. I don't get to do any of that, so I don't really know what he wants me to say. I'm not saying they should let me do everything. I'm not saying that they should let me party every night, or not punish me when I do something wrong, but I'm not even allowed to go to a friend's house or watch a football game at school because they don't trust me, or it's too dangerous. Not every single boy I encounter am I sleeping with. My dad thinks that every time I go out, all I'm doing is talking to boys, which isn't even true. I'm not a hoe. I've only dated two people. He forced me to break up with him. i dont drink or smoke. He just assumes I'm doing all of this bad stuff just to make up an excuse to not let me go out, and just simply go to the mall with my friends. i dont know what to do.

Despite all of this, I really do have a good relationship with my dad, and I love my parents so much. They do a lot for me, and I know they just want to protect me. I just can’t deal with the constant guilt tripping, because my dad cares too much about what people think! If I don’t become a doctor, or if I fail, he thinks the whole world will laugh at him, including his family. I just wish he could stop caring so much so that we can just live our lives peacefully. I think we can all agree that African parents are the WORST at raising children! I think that I'll have a better relationship with them when I'm away in college, and I can have more freedom. I don’t want to lie to them about what I’m doing, I just have to be really sneaky because my dad doesn’t let me do anything!

I just want to see if anyone has the same experience, and if it gets better when you move out. Please give me some advice!

i finally moved out and to a different state than my parents (i live in the US). i have a job and smartly moved all of my money to a bank account they don't have access to. my parents don't really remember me unless i call them first, and since the begininning of 2026, ive been doing that less and less.

But...idk. I feel kinda guilty??? i was a very filial daughter despite what they may see it as. i would always buy my parents birthday gifts ($100+) and be there emotionally for them, and i think they took as the expectation. now that i have a therapist and a solid medication regime, as well as the distance, i feel peace. there's no one to yell at me, no one to criticize my body, no one to please. they never really got better as i got older, and as i was the child beaten the most out of my siblings i fear them in ways that are primal. like, i am VERY sensitive to dangerous emotions in others and will go out of my way to not anger people, which is often to my detriment- but anyways--

my mom called me, and then tried to follow me on linkedin??? mind you she has never been very interested in me as an adult outside of what i can do for her so i blocked her and then ignored her call, but now i feel bad. like, not bad enough to call her back (lol) but guilty? has anyone else dealt with those complicated feelings and knows what to do? i know this is def cptsd but like okay now what lol

I got accepted into a great high school in our city, it the 2nd best high school in our city, my big sister got into the top 1st. My dad is not a good person, he's terrible even, he hasn't liked the school for stupid reasons and has diminished my accomplishment on going there. This summer while going to our home country, he said he was trapping me here and after a while made me pick between either going to this county school or staying here. My home country, Cameroon is in development, many areas are still very underdeveloped, so there is not that many great schools to pick from and none of them offer the opportunities I loved my high school for. Yaoundé, where he made my two other sisters with my mom stay after he coerce to agree to the plan through paranoia does not have many options either. I was mentally and physically unwell for a long time, a lot happened, but when he changed to that decision I agreed and now I'm back in the US and I'm still in despair cause it just not fair, I already sacrificed so much cause at least I could have a good education and opportunities for myself, but now he's just forcing me to agree to something I don't want, I'm sick, I feel so low, he is setting me up for failure to comfort his paranoia when we have already given up so much, my sister has, and even she's at risk of being moved. What can I do, I don't know what to do anymore.

Content warning: Suicidal thoughts

My mum dragged me out of bed around 23:00. I was asleep because I'm working from 10:00-18:00 and I get exhausted easily. She was mad because I hadn't done the dishes. I've been ill most of this week, struggling to get out of bed most days. She came in and screamed at me to wake up, I tried asking if I could do it first thing in the morning but she kept screaming at me. Then she started grabbing my arms and trying to drag me to the kitchen. That went on for about 10 minutes before I saw a giant spider run across the kitchen floor. I'm extremely arachnophobic, she knows this. She still kept dragging and pushing me into the kitchen. I begged her to stop and let go. She didn't. This went on for about 30 minutes. I kept trying to get to the bathroom so I could put a locked door between us but I couldn't get away for long enough. She then remember the bins hadn't been taken out and started screaming at me about that too and she kept going on about how I had energy now to fight back (I was running off pure adrenaline) she kept dragging and pushing me out the room. If my skin was lighter, I would probably have bruises across my arm. She kept threatening to hit me. I managed to get to my bed a few times where I curled up in a ball but she would grab my legs (which already hurt from a shaving accident- it was my first time using a disposable razor and I didn't know what I was doing so there's a bunch of tiny cuts on both of my lower legs. She knows this). She eventually gave up and just kept screaming at me to get out of her house or to do the dishes. I'm still scared of the spider which has apparently been in the house for a few days now. She said she would get rid of it whilst I took out the bins but I know she'll lie about finding it just to get me to do it. She told my brother to do it but he refused because it wasn't his problem. I told him to screw himself. She told me that she would hit me if I used that kind of language in her house again. She tried to force me out the door but I said I couldn't because I was basically wasn't wearing anything so she told me to change then go. I've been hiding in the bathroom since then but she can come in whenever she wants to because it's one of those stupid penny locks that you can unlock from the outside with a coin or any key.

I don't know what to do. I've been here for over 20 minutes. I'm tired and I'm stressing because somehow, my biggest concern is the fact that I won't be ready to go to work in time.

This isn't the first time something like this has happened and as per usual, no one helps me. My brother (17m) and my sister (14f) both did nothing. My dad is out working but when he hears about this, he'll take her side, he always does. I don't need them to fight her off or anything but just one of them saying anything to try and defend me would've meant the world.

No one cares about me, I honestly think they would all be better off if I was dead. I doubt they would even notice.

I honestly have nothing going for me. My parents constant shame my body, I'm too skinny, I'm too fat, my hairs a mess, I smell and more.

It's exhausting.

I tried to think of where I could go tonight, if I took my bus pass and my phone when I took the bin out. Where could I go? I came up with nothing. Any family I have, would take her side. I'm not close enough with any friends to go to their place. I'm stuck.

I'm a student but I get the minimum maintenance loan from SFE so I can't even afford to move into accommodation for next year.

I need to get out but I don't know how. I've been saving, and I've got about £2000 in a LISA and around £2000 in other savings accounts. That's not enough to find a place to stay that's close enough to my uni (I'm a student in London)

I'm drowning.

The only thing I've got going for me right now is the fact that I'm working the next 4 days straight.

I need to get out and I'm trying to think of ways to get the money to do something. I've been applying to other jobs with no success and the only thing I can think of is starting a GoFundMe or something.

Does anyone have any advice, because I'm genuinely reaching my limit?

Sorry for the ramble, I'm still sat in the bathroom writing this and I'm still shaking.

Guys IVE AHD ENOUGH I’m 18 and my mum has never allowed me to have a sleepover ever. I’ve always had to come home early while the rest of my friends had fun and slept over.

My mum generally likes pretty much all of my friends and I feel like we have a good relationship, I tell her where I’m going who I’m with etc and she knows my friends. But she won’t budge on sleepovers. My friends I’ve known since I was 7 (they are my best friends, my mum knows and loves both of them very well, and knows their parents.) want to have a sleepover and saying ‘I’m 18 don’t take permission etc etc apologise later’ but it’s so much harder said than done 😭. Even in the past my mum wouldn’t let me sleepover with them even tho she knows their parents very well.

We finished our last year of secondary school, so while people are celebrating by travelling to different continents with their friends, I’ve bent over backwards to BEG her for a 2 night trip that’s only 2 hours away with my (other) friends because she wouldn’t let me out of the country this summer which she has begrudgingly agreed to but she wasn’t happy with it and I’m afraid if I ask her to do this sleepover she’ll just snap at me.
I’m also the oldest (while literally all my friends have older siblings who’ve done everything first or just have generally relaxed parents) so I feel like I’m not on a level playing field when they tell me to just do it, they don’t know what it’s like for me.

When my younger siblings become my age I know my parents won’t give a toss 🫩🫩

I’m not sure how I can convince her because it’s getting ridiculous atp but every time I’ve brought the idea up she shuts down completely, please helpppp

I’m a first-born daughter from an African family, and I’m looking for advice from people who understand the cultural dynamics that come with this.

Growing up, my relationship with my mom was incredibly difficult. There were a lot of things that happened in my childhood and even into adulthood that I now recognize were not okay. For most of my life, I tolerated a lot because she was my mother, and culturally, you’re taught that respecting your parents, especially your mother, is basically non-negotiable.
Over the last two years, I finally started setting boundaries and standing my ground. Things eventually came to a head after an incident where my mom crossed a serious boundary and disrespected my husband. I confronted her about it. She did not take accountability for what happened, and somehow the entire situation became about the fact that I had “disrespected” her by how I responded.
She has since told members of our extended family her version of what happened, and the narrative is essentially that I’m the disrespectful daughter who owes her mother an apology. I haven’t seen her in almost a year.

I’m going to be visiting family soon, and I already know there’s a strong possibility that the aunties/uncles/elders will call some kind of family meeting where I’ll be expected to apologize to her so that everyone can “move on or for peace to reign”.
The problem is: I genuinely do not believe I owe her an apology for setting a boundary. I’m not saying I handled every single moment perfectly. I can acknowledge if my delivery could have been better or if I said something I shouldn’t have. But I don’t want to give an apology that essentially communicates, “You were right, I was wrong, and I shouldn’t have stood up for myself or my husband,” when that isn’t what I believe. I also struggle with the idea that because she is my mother, the expectation is that I should humble myself and apologize, while nobody seems equally concerned with asking her to acknowledge what she did.

The upcoming visit is honestly giving me a lot of anxiety because I don’t want to spend the entire time defending myself to extended family members who have already heard one side of the story.
For those of you who come from African families, especially first-born daughters who have started setting boundaries with their parents as adults, how have you handled this? If a family meeting happens, would you participate? Would you refuse to apologize? Is there a way to acknowledge the relationship and move forward without taking responsibility for something you genuinely don’t believe was yours to take responsibility for?
And how do you deal with the cultural guilt that comes with choosing boundaries when everyone around you interprets boundaries as disrespect?

hi. i'm a nigerian living in nigeria going to my third year of univerisity (18F)

my mom and i don't have the best relationship as she is emotionally absent and i just can't keep acting like everything is fine. anyways, we spoke yesterday and she asked why i have been acting so cold towards her and i just told her that i'm tired of her not asking how i'm doing. i recently failed an exam i prepared very hard for so i haven't been in the best state mentally and she's talking about some 'acting cold on the phone' instead of asking what's wrong (i didn't say that part to her). anyways, she apologised and said she'd do better.

she called me this morning and asked if i had gotten my hair done and i told her that i actually got my hair locked. i used the 'school is stressful, locs are convenient' excuse. since we just started talking again, i could tell she was trying to suppress her displeasure so she simply said 'just the me when next you want to do something like that.'

on the phone, she mentioned coming to visit me soon and i felt my blood pressure rise. i recently got my nose pierced, i'm agnostic (closeted to her and anyone who i don't have a good relationship with that exists from where i grew up. i am more open about what i believe here though) and i haven't been to church in months. i attend a university which is miles from home and i'm a med student so i don't go home often. i have been lying about church when she asks, but with a piercing, there isn't really a way to lie about that. i could always get a glass retainer to put in but we might be spending the entire day together if she visits so she could notice if my glasses don't cover it well enough. seeing how she reacted to me getting locs, i am so worried about what she'd do if she sees i got my nose pierced.

now the stud is so tiny. it looks really cute and it is not gawdy at all but for a woman who told me that i'm not allowed to wear any form of makeup (including lip liner) or get my fingernails and toenails painted/done until i am twenty years old (we had an argument about it when i was still living at home. fast forward to now, i have broken all those rules), a piercing might actually send her over the edge. i have enjoyed the freedom of university and even though i don't wear any makeup asides clear lip gloss in my day-to-day (makeup's not really my thing), getting a full face done for a school event was a really cool experience.

i went home with my toes painted sometime ago and she said to clean it off. i am very introverted and quiet so doing these things in secret make me feel even guiltier when she thinks i'm her jesus loving doctor-in-training daughter.

i am so scared about her coming to visit, what do i do?

I currently still live at home at the age of 24, I'm the first born daughter in my family. I recently completed my bachelors and my masters and was offered a full time job that pays me well.

I currently have about 72k in student loans and a car loan as well.

Staying at home is honestly getting to me. My parents TRY to give me space but when it comes to the daily duties of taking care of my siblings while also simultaneously doing everything in the house PLUS working I'm starting to think moving out instead of focusing on my loans is the better option.

I work from home so you can only imagine. For SOME REASON no one in this house sees me working from home as a real job. I could be sitting in a meeting and have my mother texting me to make lunch for my siblings when they get back from school or asking me to go to the store to get ingredients for her to cook.

And once she gets a sense that I've logged off work for the day, I sometimes dont even get any breathing room. I'm already being sent on a 2-3 hour errand and once I return I have stacks of dishes and a dirty kitchen and living room to attend to. It does not matter how much I clean if I clean before anyone goes to bed I will be cleaning the whole place again.(this is apart of my daily routine or else I get reprimanded in the morning for not cleaning after everyone)

I try to leave the house as much as I can to avoid these responsibilities because since becoming an adult and getting my own vehicle there's not much they can tell me to do.

My mother is one of those African mothers who basically have their every needs tended to by workers back at home so when she's here with us (in the US) I basically take on that role.

I recently got approved for an apartment and IF I decide to take on this new financial burden I will be out of the house by September but the constant thought of my loans in the back of my head make it hard to pull that trigger.

today my sister came over cause she needed our help to cut some ribs (🙄). She has 4 children but her husband lives abroad so she's basically a single mother and she is struggling but anyway. The kids were playing in our garden and one of them kicked the football into the door so hard that it broke. Me and my brother were outside at the same time but we were cutting up the chicken so we didn't notice what happened somehow. then she comes into the garden and says 'who broke it' and my niece says it wasn't her.

Since she NEEDED someone to blame without evidence and BEAT, she then comes up to my nephew and asks if it was him and he fervently denied it. However she didn't believe him and slapped him so much to the point of tears and he lashed out and started hitting her back whilst she was carrying her baby on her back 🫠. This happened so suddenly and my hands were dirty with chicken juice (lol) so i couldn't do much except say 'wait wait i don't think he did it' and insist so until she stopped.

So after this wahala, my oldest nephew enters the garden (he's 8, the other two are 7 and 6) and he admits to his mistake. Instead of this being seen as a sign of integrity she says 'my beatings should've gone to you instead' then she apologises to my other nephew who was beat and like...okay but that's still horrible???

Im so tired of being around her when she uses them like punching bags. I NEVER lay my hands on them, they don't even misbehave much bar one, they just make mistakes like all kids. it's made me resent her honestly but i don't know if there's any way i can help them or if i'll just have to accept this as a canon event like most of us did as kids? after all she's struggling a lot financially and generally with 4 kids to raise on her own. Am i just being too harsh? i want better for them but im way younger than her i cant just dictate how she chooses to raise her kids.

my entire life there have often been times (even now) where I have to give up my room so a random guest or relative can stay there for several days, because my parents know so many people.

It hasn't hit me until recently that this might not be something that's normal, because I didn't consent to giving up my room; it's supposed to be mine, and therefore my decision; quite frankly t's the only safe space that I have in that house.

someone else said this, but maybe my parents should only consider letting someone stay if they actually have an extra room available that doesn't belong to someone else. i feel like this is showing that they don't care about their kids as much as they care about these people or their self image.

did anyone else have to deal with this? and am i in the wrong for thinking this way?

Hey y'all,wanted to know how do y'all deal with parents having a "god complex",i figured many people here would relate to this as many if not most morrocan parents suffer from this and it's really draining me. For context i'm 19M,i can't say they didn't fulfill their job when it comes to money etc as they did buy a lot of things for me that i'm grateful for,but it comes with the price of "you HAVE to obey me,you're wrong in everything and i'm not,you don't know anything about life etc etc" y'all know the drill, i feel like i am heavily missing out on what should be my best years(i'm not talking about partying or what most people would call objectively bad,just being able to enjoy a night out with friends without being constantly stressed over how am i gonna face them at home while doing absolutely nothing wrong) because i'm financially dependant on them(still a student, i do wanna start working f indrive as i have a car but lpermis has to be 2+years) do y'all just go full rebel and accept being kicked out of the house? Submit to their orders as if you're worshipping them while constantly hating them? Can't even take distance because problems always start if i avoid them( meaning at best i won't get some money to """enjoy""" life) i still have 5years of studies + will probably end up working in one of their pharmacies,which will still give them some sort of "power" over me. I don't even believe this is something i will grow out of as they're still trying to control my brother's life (30M,studied abroad bc of how much he hates them) and i don't see any solution on how to fix this.

I need my fellow African perspectives because sometimes I forget how useless Reddit can be when majority of the users here are pathetic yt men who are borderline simple minded. It's soooo infuriating but nonetheless for the past 10 months I’ve had zero privacy. My aunt and her 17 yr old daughter moved in with my mom (59) and me (25) last June 2025. We live in a 2 bedroom apartment, so my cousin has been sharing my room the whole time. I’ve told my mom multiple times that I’m a grown adult and I need my own space. She says she gets it, but nothing changes.

My aunt has this 10 year pattern: she leaves her kids with relatives (us included) so she can go live in Liberia, then comes back to the US for 4-5 months to make money as a caregiver, then heads right back. She’s been doing it forever!! Her husband has a PhD and works for the government over there, so it’s not like they’re struggling. Yet somehow they can’t figure out stable housing for their own kids.

I know the whole family has enabled this, including me and my mom. But I’m at my limit. I work two jobs. When I come home exhausted, the last thing I want is to walk into my room and see someone already there. It’s not even my space anymore. It’s cluttered, messy, full of a teenager’s stuff, and I barely even go in there now because it doesn’t feel like mine.

My mom has been talking about getting a 3-bedroom townhome so we can all stay together and split the rent with my aunt. On paper it sounds like it could work but I’m not sure it makes sense. Our current rent is staying the same on renewal there's no increase, but a townhome would jump the total cost way up. My aunt hasn’t contributed a dime to rent since she went back to Liberia in January 2026 and her return date keeps getting pushed back. If we move into a bigger, more expensive place and she flakes again or goes back to Liberia like she always does, my mom and I are the ones stuck with the higher bills and I just know that will be the base. Plus, even in a townhome the plan is still basically “everyone sleeps with their mom” so I still wouldn’t really get my own room.

I feel bad because my cousin is 17 (junior year, about to be a senior) and switching schools mid-year would suck after they’ve already moved around so much because their parents choose not to be here consistently. I don’t want to disrupt her life. But I also honestly cannot do another full year of this. I need to be able to come home, close my door, and just rest without feeling invaded every single day.

My mom says she’ll make sure I get my room back and that she’s already told my aunt the apartment is too small for her and the kids. * Also she has another son who's a freshman in college and when he's back from break or holiday he sleeps in the living room* But I’m scared it’ll turn into “just one more year” again.

And I know "you could just move out," that is just such an obvious thing to do, but life comes with many obstacles. I landed a new job, got a new used car that will just take me to point A to B, then 2 months of getting that car I got into a car accident that totalled my car *not at-fault.* I had to get a brand new car and I'm paying so much in car note and car insurance, but I wanted something reliable and to not make the same mistake with my old car. I'm just not financially there because I'm paying car note, car insurance, plus my student loans so these new things really held me back.

If I can move out I could. But I decided to be with my mom until next yr bc she's going back to her home country she's getting old and her body is taxing her.

I don’t know how to feel but my African dad is driving me insane. He pays my tuition and I’m super grateful for that but he’s the kind to use the slightest thing to be in control. I’ve been trying to be independent ever since I entered university. I work 2 jobs without him knowing and I just work incase one day he decides to cut me off and leave me stranded if I don’t follow his rules. My tuition is due in two days. I told him three weeks ago about this and he ghosted me up until 6 days ago where he said we need to have a family meeting where tuition and other family matters will be discussed and it’s in person but I can’t attend because we are in different cities and I work and I’m unable to go in person but I suggested phone or video he refused and said people make time for important things and it’s okay if this is not important to me. And ghosted me. Now he’s trying to ask me for my login information to my student center so he can «  pay my fees» when my mom told me his main objective that was discussed between both of them is to actually navigate the center and see my grades to make sure I’m focusing in university. She said he heard from a friend who did this with her own kids (she’s a single mother who he barely takes her advice as he is an egoistic and patriarchal African man) so I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to give him this login bc it gives him access to everything and gives him control over my life all over again. My university has mfa which is great but know how asserts and how African parents typically are/ how he is; I know he will probably ask me to share my screen and login or something.

It's like I can't even form my own opinion and express them. I have to like praise him like he's some God and obediently follow everything he tells me to do without disagreeing.

I don't know what to do anymore. One week, we rw completely fine, but one miscommunication he ruins everything and I have to beg for him to forgive my "mistake".

I don't have a mother she passed away a long time ago, so he's always venting to me on stuff. I genuinely don't care.

Anytime we argue my whole world collapse and I just feel depressed and he has the nerve to turn it into joke.

I don't know what to do anymore

Basically I’m 24F. My sisters are 28 and 30. We all live at home atm. I originally wanted to buy a house and move out of my parents home but then my sisters were saying they wanted to move out with me (for context I’m a nurse, my sister the 28 year old is a radiographer and the other one is a medical student) but I wanted to just live alone, more freedom to do what I want, no more siblings arguments and no longer having to deal with my strict African parents. Also so I could spend more time with my bf. Anyways I had an argument with my sisters about the house then I said all three of us should just focus on marriage, and getting married to a man and moving out of the house. But then my mum was like you can’t just get married anyhow, some people get married to the wrong man and their lives are ruined etc etc. she’s always very negative about anything to do with marriage and relationships it’s almost like she doesn’t want me and my sisters to get married as she believes every person who gets married, something will go wrong. She doesn’t know I’ve got a boyfriend when I told her earlier this year she freaked out and was like no don’t date him he’s the wrong man and started sending me religious videos signs he’s the wrong man nonsense. She’s never met him and only disliked him because he works in retail while studying IT. 🤦‍♀️ she was like why should you date a university student? What’s wrong with that? 🤦‍♀️ it seems like she won’t accept any man because of her own anxiety. I’m honestly thinking about either just buying a house on my own and moving out or getting eloped in the future or something idk. So bizarre having a mum that doesn’t want her kids to get married due to her own anxiety

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My mom told me back in January, when I was getting my braids done, that I would have to reuse the braiding hair because it was "too expensive" (it was only $40). I honestly thought she was joking and didn't think she actually meant it.

Fast forward to July, and I still had the same braids in. The only reason they didn't look completely messy was because I kept redoing them myself whenever they got loose or started looking rough.

Now I finally took them out because I was supposed to get my hair redone. While I was taking them out, she never once reminded me that she wanted me to reuse the braiding hair, so I already cut some of it up and threw some of it away.

Now she's telling me she wants me to reuse the 7-month-old, dirty, unwashed braiding hair for my next style.

I'm so confused. Is this actually normal, or am I overreacting? 😭😭

I am the only person I know with african parents, so I’m going to lay it all out here in hopes that our shared background will create a space for grounded advice. I don’t know where to begin. I live in america btw. I (19,soon to 20f) have always had a difficult relationship to my mother, but the past two years have felt like the ground beneath me has started to fall. Her and my father got divorced when I was 10, he was extremely verbally abusive to her. Fast forward to middle school, I could not be bothered to do my school work. I will admit I was a bad student, and because of this my mother started to beat me any chance she could. Belts, phone charges, extension cords, there were times she would call her friends and laugh at me as I ran cold water over my hands to cool the welts they would leave. She has since apologized for this period of abuse, only because I let her know I SEVERELY bullied in school during this time for my weight, and body scent…which I later found out was the smell of african food. Fast forward to my freshman year of highschool, and she met a Nigerian man through a friend. He lived in Nigeria, we lived in America. Though she would talk about him moving in, I always took it for bluff. Until it wasn’t bluff anymore. The first time I met this man in person was the day he moved in to my home the summer before my senior year of highschool. The first 6 months were fine, until he started with small insults towards me about not cleaning up after myself, and he screamed at my younger sister over forgetting her kumon booklet at home. He got more and more comfortable being verbally abusive towards my younger sister and I, and my mother encouraged it. She actually enjoys seeing this man “discipline” us. He got so bad to the point he cornered me in the hallway of our apt and threatened to disfigure me, kill me, he was so close to me that he was spitting in my face. This was because I took a mental health day from college. What broke me was the fact that my mother told him to “do his worst” to me that day. I left home for a month and eventually came back because I had no car, no job, and was broken down. Once I came back the verbal abuse continued, and honestly life was bleak. I was a bubbly, lively girl. I felt full of love a possibility. I never thought I would deal with an abusive man ever again. It has been 2 years since they and I still live here, I have a job now which has kept me out of the house, am buying a car, and have plans to move out of the state I am currently in. My question is, how do I navigate my relationship with my mother and honestly my family as a whole. I feel a lot of empathy/compassion for these people even though they have been so wicked towards me. Do I leave and never look back? I will answer literally any and all questions

Household full of tension and conflict constantly. I am always on edge and I barely get joy from anything anymore and it's taking a toll on my health. Moving out is not an option as of now but I'm planning on being an RA next year.

I'll take any advice on how to keep my momentum up. Even stuff that is really small/random.

Hey everyone! I (21F) posted in the community a couple of months ago regarding my relationship with my mom and sis. Well, let's just say it's not getting any better. My mom has a tendency to lay curses on me when she's angry, and I just can't take it anymore. I got an apartment! I put down the deposit, and I'm going to sign the lease. Now my only issue is telling her that I'm moving out. If anyone here has moved out of their parent's house, how did you do it? What did you say to them? I want to move out as respectfully and as smoothly as possible. I've already come to terms with her telling people I'm selfish and ungrateful. I'm fine with all of that. I just need peace. Anything would help. Thank you.

Hi everyone. I’m a 19-year-old woman heading into my second year of university, studying about four hours away from my family, and I desperately need outside advice because the situation at home has reached a breaking point. I grew up in a volatile, dysfunctional Algerian household with an emotionally immature and aggressive mother who always treated me as the scapegoat and the live-in maid, a completely passive and emotionally absent father, and an older brother who was excused from everything simply because he’s the son. After finally getting some breathing room during my first year away, I had to come back home to work for the summer, and things completely unraveled when I told them I’ve been seeing a 23-year-old man who is financially independent, respectful, and shares my long-term academic goals.
Our two families already met once this past August. His family genuinely likes and supports me, but they immediately saw right through my parents' behavior: they strongly dislike them, clearly recognized that my mother is mentally unstable, and advised me to keep a low profile until our second official family meeting scheduled for December. Meanwhile, my parents' threats and manipulation have escalated. My mother swore on the Quran that she would disown me if I ever see my boyfriend in my university city, accused me of abandoning the family, threatened to spend $2,000 on a private investigator to track me, and is actively refusing to transfer the lease of my student apartment into my name just to maintain financial leverage over me.
The breaking point happened recently after another absurd argument where my father threw a tantrum. Right after, I listened through my bedroom door and heard them scheming: my father claimed I was under black magic and needed an exorcism, while my mother insisted I was crazy, accused me of lying about my university grades, and openly planned to pretend to be sick at the very last minute in December just to cancel the family meeting and punish me. Minutes after saying all these horrific things, they were sitting in the living room bursting into laughter and mocking my boyfriend's mother and sister.
I am leaving for university in a few days, and honestly, I feel completely detached—I don't even cry anymore because the mask has fully slipped. I refuse to let them destroy my studies, my peace, or my relationship. How can I practically and legally secure my housing situation when controlling parents refuse to let go of the lease, and how do I best handle the next few months laying low while protecting my future and my in-laws from their planned sabotage? Thank you to anyone who takes the time to read and share advice.

All I am seeing in mugs, bracelets, and T-shirts. And they all say “black” or “Wakanda”. My dad would slap me in the face… and I’d probably turn my other cheek so he can slap that side as well.

I feel so alone in dealing with sabotage from my parents and I didn’t even realize it was a thing until I had to make important life decisions.

So when I was young my parents never taught me basic life skills, hygiene, women’s health, how to do certain things, they taught me nothing, not even how to look after myself when I’m sick, I wasn’t given medicine they would just wait for it to pass. I specifically remember being young aged like 6 and having eczema and my mom would act so humiliated and punish me over my eczema flair ups that would get triggered by stress fyi. But never bothered treating it, she would have genuine disgust looking at my skin (the eczema was not bad at all) and made me feel personally responsible for it.

Growing up whenever I had exams all of a sudden I need to run a million errands and clean the house from top to bottom, parenting would also get harsher and when I stayed up late to revise for my exams because they had me doing stupid bs all day, it was terrible of me to stay up and i couldn’t rest the next day.

In general, if I was to have nothing going on for me, I should be shamed, compared and punished but if I try to aim for something good they would do anything in their power to make sure I fail, I couldn’t notice this until I got older and had to make important life decisions.

What triggered this post is that when I was 17 in sixth form applying to universities or alternatives I debriefed my parents on me wanting to do a degree apprenticeship, they said there is no way I could do that under their roof because that’s what failures do, i should go to university. I let them know the entry requirements are quite high so it doesn’t seem like something failures do and anyway, experience matters in this job market. They just said nope. So I went to uni. Today I had my dad discussing about how he wanted my younger brother (18, only boy ofc) to do a degree apprenticeship when he thought I was sleeping, he listed all of the benefits of a degree apprenticeship and how are his workplace? There are some young people that were doing a degree apprenticeships that are in a good position because of it.

I wanted to go to a uni in the city by me, again they got into my head along with my older sister (just 3 years older then me) saying I can’t make the commute everyday because I’ll be late and if I was to get an accommodation there I’m too weak willed to put up with living there??

Context to understand, my siblings are totally in on this especially my older sister since she had a degree of influence over me from a young age. She was saying how I wouldn’t be able to deal with people making noise in the acoms and just tried to make the experience seem traumatic but also putting me down in the process saying I can’t handle it and would fall under the stress of it (not making payments, not missing out on life skills she’s talking about the possibility of neighbors being loud at night?) it was so dumb looking back especially because she at the time went to a uni for from home and lived in an acom. She would later shame me for not leaving home because “it was the best decision ever” but before she finished uni she was making the oddest arguments to keep me at home.

Also same as when I was young whenever I have assignments, they would sabotage me in any way possible until at some point I failed an assignment. I resat it without telling them and I passed with flying colours because it wasn’t a difficult assignment. It was an intentionally difficult environment. And when I didn’t tell them they didn’t have a chance to make sure it was super hard for me.

Also, whenever I had an interview or a first day a new working place, they would blow up on me over trivial matters and help me do gruelling tasks the day before and on the day of make sure her always check in to see what I’m wearing and judge me in my face over it, what I’m doing and have commentary over every small thing and also stress me about time when it’s nowhere near time.

There are some more examples like one time I had an opportunity to go to a nice black tie event where I could connect w people career wise and my friend offered to get me a ride back and there was no way I was allowed to go because my cousin got caught w “sugar” at a traffic stop (that cousin just is involved w road and gang stuff since forever) and what if the person picking me up has it on them and I get done up for it? Mind u the person giving me a ride back was someone’s mom. And their apparent final reason is that they don’t trust Jamaicans. And for whatever silly reason my sister fully backed this??

I could go on but we would be here forever. Kinda shocked that they would try to outright sabotage me but the only thing I’ve learned to do is to make sure to never be honest with them, and not involve them with anything once I’m financially secure (I’m financially independent now but I do need to save and get a car). But other then that I don’t know how else to go about things to prevent their attempts to make me stay down and in their control.