This 24-year-old woman and her boyfriend, who is 26, have been dating for nearly two years now. She also has a disability that is not visible to the bare eye.
“And because I’m young and look relatively healthy, some people find it hard to believe that I’m actually disabled,” she said.
Since she suffers from chronic pain, she uses a walking cane and wears both leg and knee braces.
Yet, her boyfriend’s mom, Linda, has still always been skeptical about her health condition. In fact, when they first met, Linda even made some really rude remarks about how “young people these days are always looking for an excuse to be lazy.”
At the time, she just brushed her boyfriend’s mom off and didn’t think Linda intended to be hurtful. But, as she and her boyfriend’s relationship has continued, his mom’s comments have only gotten worse.
For instance, whenever she attends family gatherings, Linda always has to point out how she looks “healthy” and question why she needs certain accommodations.
Once, Linda even said, “You don’t look like you need that cane. Are you sure you’re not just using it for attention?” Another time, Linda claimed that she was too young to be so tired constantly.
Her boyfriend’s mom has also told her to just take off her leg braces since she was “obviously” just wearing them to make people feel sorry for her.
According to her, her boyfriend has repeatedly tried to stand up for her and explain her diagnosis to his mom. Regardless, Linda never listens, and just the other day, she finally hit her breaking point.
Nina – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only
It all began when she attended another family dinner, and Lisa flat-out accused her of faking her disability in order to both get sympathy and get out of doing chores. So, she immediately left.
“I was humiliated and decided then and there that I wouldn’t attend any more gatherings at her house until she apologized and changed her attitude,” she recalled.
Thankfully, her boyfriend has been supportive of her decision and understands why she doesn’t want to go back to his mom’s house.
Nonetheless, his entire family thinks that she’s overreacting. Her boyfriend even agrees with them a bit, too.
“They believe that ‘family is family’ and I should just suck it up and deal with Linda’s ignorance. They say it’s just her way of trying to ‘understand’ me better,” she vented.
So now, she’s unsure if leaving the family dinner and refusing to go back to Linda’s house is really so unreasonable or not.
How would you feel if your partner’s family treated you like that? Did she have a right to leave the dinner?
You can read the original post on Reddit here.
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