Hello. This is my first post in here, and I am really grateful for this forum.

My name’s Gina, and I’m 24. I’m currently working on my Master’s in Ancient Greek Literature, in a long-term relationship with my partner (who recently moved 100 miles away from me due to his duties as an Air Force officer), but still living at home with my overprotective parents due to the Greek recession. My parents did not allow me to have a job until I finish my Master’s program. Even though they mean well, I’m brewing with anger for many reasons.

First of all, they did not let me move out with my partner, because he lives in a town smaller than mine and “there are less career chances over there”. The thing is my partner will have to remain in that town for at least 8 years. Thank God he is understanding of my predicament, but I do still feel like a teen who has to ask for permission on everything. It’s not like they have that much to spend on me, my Master’s program has no tuition fees.

Moreover, I have many dreams, such as writing articles (I am already writing a book), being a radio broadcaster, forming a band with my partner (I am already teaching myself the bass, he plays the guitar since his childhood), yet my mum tells me to follow my sister’s path and do teaching. Even though I do like teaching, I don’t want to be teaching middle or high schoolers, since the pervasive attitude is all about grades and not true learning. Furthermore, I have really traumatic memories of my teen years, due to being bullied and trying to always have perfect grades to make my mother proud, and all this urged me to rebel a lot (when on holidays I would smoke a lot, but my family doesn’t know about it).

Oh, did I mention my mum picked out my major? That’s right. I wanted to be an English language teacher and translator, but she would just tell me: “you won’t have any chances of finding decent work through this”. Now, not only are translators in demand, but also I am unemployed. My sister had to break a relationship with a boyfriend, because my mum told her his job was not high-paying enough (my sister was unemployed at the time and he was working as a Chief Chemist in the National Chemistry Board, c’mon!). To this day, my sis is 31, unmarried, and at a low-paying gig as a teacher in a tutoring school (tutoring schools are on the rise in Greece, unfortunately).

Even to this day, I have a curfew when going out with my classmates without my partner and mum always tells me not to bring my female friends along with my boyfriend because “single females are thirsty for men and won’t hesitate to do anything to steal them”. However, not one of them has shown any kind of advances towards my partner.

As you can imagine, I can feel the veins in my throat tighten as I write all this. I’m afraid my mum is trying too hard to live her unfulfilled dreams through my sister and me. She is a housewife who abandoned her former job as a secretary in a law firm due to marriage, and my dad is a former accountant (he recently got his pension) and his alcoholism has become even worse. I am praying my partner will marry me one day and get me out of the house in order to experience some decent freedom, but I hate considering him as my crutch.

Sorry for giving all this beackgound info, but I hope it helps you have a more accurate view of my situation. I just want to stop lying to them, live authentically, and fully appreciate my parents. However, I do feel like a failure for staying like this in my age, when I should have been more active and seen more of this world, and I do think my parents don’t trust me and hinder me from becoming the fully independent, responsible person I always dreamt of being. How can I not be angry at them and just think they have good intentions? How can I trust myself in being capable of doing my own thing?

Thank you very, very much in advance for your wisdom, and I hope it was not very long.

• This topic was modified 10 years, 2 months ago by Geo.
• This topic was modified 10 years, 2 months ago by Geo.