I live with my boyfriend, it’s our first year together.

He lived in the state above mine, we met online through a group. Steadily, we talked more and more and got to know each other. He asked me out, I accepted.

I visited him and he visited me multiple times after that point.

Eventually, we decided to move to the state his family lived in.
He started working on his bachelor’s. I joined him within a few months.

We made a road trip out of it, he drove his mother’s suburban to pick me up with all my things, including my large dog.

When we were getting into the city, he called his mum and when he had gotten off the phone I asked him if everything was alright. Because I heard him ask her what was wrong. He explained that she took care of her elderly parents and they were not very nice to her.

I felt bad for her.

Fast forward to yesterday, six months or so afterwards. My boyfriend and I got into an argument. We’ve had them often. I work all day. He’s in school. Three times a week he sits down from 6:30pm to 9:00pm to play online with other people. I wasn’t happy about it.

A few weeks ago, his mum visited our home and sat us down. Asking me if I wanted him to quit. I had a hard time saying yes. But they both understand that I wasn’t happy about it. He continued to play online.

Back to yesterday, or really, it started the day before that. An enormous argument. We had returned home around 5:45pm. My boyfriend needed to get online and I was left alone.

I started to feel angrier and angrier as each hour passed. By 9pm I was fuming.
I walked into his study where he was playing and gave him a “look.”
It was meant to translate to, “You’ve been playing for a long time.”

I left him to play but sat in the bedroom, still quite upset. When he had finished he came into the room and asked what was wrong. Though I expected him to know what.

We argued and he ended up walking out and didn’t return until an hour later.
We argued again and he threatened to leave for the night.

I didn’t want him to, but I said he could. It made things worse.

Eventually we went to bed. Work was difficult the next day.

I called him at lunchtime and we argued again. At some point I told him that I hated him for putting a game before us. He said he was done. That I could do what I wanted with the promise ring his mother had given me, that he would dispose of the one I had given him. That we were done.

I apologized. I told him I didn’t mean it when I said I hated him. He hung up.

After a very long hour and twenty-two minutes he sent a text back that he hadn’t meant what he had said either. We both apologized.

Later after work, he took me to his parents to talk about it. His mum came back home and the talk started.

She told me that we had already gone over it and I just couldn’t be pleased with anything. She said, he called to ask what he could do to make me happy.

She said that I wanted more than her son. I wanted more then her family. That he was putting in 100% but I was not. That if she were me she wouldn’t be with him.

She mentioned a previous girlfriend that had hurt him. She talked about how she was the one who cared about him the most in this world, and that she would always be there for him.

It was a long discussion, but the thing that kept becoming the focus of the conversation in my mind was the fact that she had said I thought I was too good for her son.

I never felt that way and I never thought it would seem that way to her.

Afterwards, we were on our way home. I burst into tears in the car. He started to cry as well. I finally told him that his mother thought I wasn’t fitting for him. He called her on the spot and asked her. His mother responded that I had lied. She had never told me that she didn’t approve of me for her son. She told him to come back, and her tone made me freeze in my seat.

He didn’t pause for a second, even though I told him I didn’t want to go back.

We went back and she went off on me completely. Her husband left the house and my boyfriend was told to leave with him, I called after him to stay but she screamed no.

She said that she had told me before I had left not to cry, not to be upset, but I had walked out that door and did those things. She backed away from me defensively and wouldn’t let me touch her. I spent a lot of time trying to calm her down following her from the kitchen to the living room.

She yelled at me for killing her son everyday. For making her daughter not want to come to Sunday family dinners (this has a thorough backstory), for trusting me with the promise ring and having me betray her and her family despite letting me join it. She commented that I never laughed at the dinners. That I just kept bringing up problems with her son, over and over, he couldn’t do anything right.

I tried my best to calm her down, to apologize and say I never meant it.

But we never got to a calm state in which we could talk it through. The boys returned and we left for home. I said everything was alright to reassure my boyfriend. He was always sensitive. I didn’t want to make things worse.

I’ve felt completely hollow since then. I hardly slept. Hardly ate. I couldn’t stop thinking about all the things that she had said to me.

We have five more months on a lease. I pay the rent and I’m responsible for it.
I can’t leave, I don’t want to. But I’m scared that I’m at a point where if any little thing goes wrong, or if my boyfriend says that I’m upset. She’ll come over and toss my things out in the street.

There’s a considerable amount I left out. Concerning previous arguments I’ve had with my boyfriend, a lot related to raiding or not having enough time together.
But this story is already long enough.

I need guidance.

I don’t know what to do. I’ve never felt so lost and scared in my entire life.