8 years in Barcelona, followed by 4 in Miami, and my mother was shaking from shame and rage and howcouldyoudothistome and wedidn’tyouraiseyoulikethis when she insisted in coming to the gyne with me and I had a vaginal exploration…
People are weird.
And thank you, EvilTOJ!
OK, I read this and thought that it was only fair to share my own experience…
I am the “white guy” that is (kinda, more on that later) married to a girl from a traditional family. In fact her mother doesn’t speak english.
We got married before telling her mother’s side of the family - but this was registry office only, even now, 13 years and two kids later I still have not given my wife a “Chinese” wedding - so in their eyes we are still technically not married.
The first time mum in law met me she basically disowned daughter, the whole “how could you marry outside your race” spiel.
We perservered, what I believe helped a lot was that we visited the family and I followed all their Buddhist / Taoist customs, including lighting of joss sticks, paying respect to ancestors etc etc.
The big help was when my wife’s grandfather died, I followed all the traditional funeral rights - which gave her (and by extension her family) a lot of “face”. Now I am truely accepted as one of the family.
What I think also helps a lot, is that while I give them a lot of respect while in their house, we also “treat” the family (sometimes upwards of 20 pax) to dinner in restaurants etc, which at the time one of the uncles commented that we were the only nieces / nephews to have done such a thing - even though we are at the junior end of the scale.
So I guess what I am saying - get boyfriend to pay the respects, show concern and let family get used to the idea. If they have a chance to see in him what you do, I wouldn’t think the “in sin” part will be such a big deal.
I do think my parents are more optimistic about my younger brother ending up with a Korean girl, but since he’s living in Chicago who knows what will happen. If I do marry my boyfriend and have kids I fully plan to raise them with an awareness of my native language and culture. Hopefully that will make my parents feel better.
My family lived in the US from when I was 5 months old to when I was 13, so really they have no one to blame but themselves. 
Although I suspect my dad may be more realistic as to the truth about my sex life, there is no way in hell I would broach this subject to him first. I know it sounds contradictory, but it’s my mom who is the more understanding one. I would definitely talk to her first before talking to my dad.
Oh, he’s doing okay in that respect - sends appropriate presents, takes my parents out to dinner, tries to speak Korean to my relatives. They like him, I think. My parents don’t object to our marrying, it’s the living in sin part they have a problem with.
We could just get engaged, but my boyfriend is a little old-fashioned and I know he wants to wait and save up for a ring and surprise me by popping the question. I think my best chance is to reassure my parents that we are “engaged to be engaged” and that there is little chance of him abandoning me after robbing me of my honor and purity.
Could he tell your parents that? Or could you tell them that he is saving up? That’s exactly the sort of thing that my parents would use to console themselves, especially when confronting other Koreans (“okay, she’s living in sin, but only because he loves her SO MUCH he is going to get her a BIG ROCK!”)…
The only downside to this is that they may then expect him to get you a four-carat diamond or something insane. (My mom totally buys into the “size of rock = size of love” thing, and it has still not ceased to annoy her, after five years of marriage, that my husband, at my request mind you, only got me a 3/4 ct ring. It is still a secret from her that it’s not actually a diamond 
)
Like you say: Koreans are weird
This is too funny! I have a pretty huge stone in my ring but it is an amethyst so it doesn’t come with the enormous price tag that a diamond typically has and my grandfather still told me the stone was too big and we should take it back and get a smaller, more reasonable stone. I’m not Korean though and my parents and grandparents had no problem with us living in sin. Well, at least no problem that they discussed with us.
I mean, I think your boyfriend should recognize how much pressure this puts on you and be willing to get engaged immediately. He can still surprise you, but still save up for a ring. Then you can tell your parents you’re engaged. The ring can be a surprise later.
I just don’t quite see the point of waiting if you two are ready and if there are no ramifications. If my SO and I were out of school, we would have been engaged within 6 months of dating (which is when we talked about and confessed we both wanted to marry each other). The stress you’re dealing with sounds a lot worse than mine, and telling them will only lead to them hating him in some way, so why not just tell your boyfriend you’d like to get engaged because 1) you want to and are ready and 2) it will make you more comfortable and less stressed. And tell them you already have friends who are willing to help you move - this weekend.
Hazel, my mother is a lot like yours: controlling, perpetually disappointed that I didn’t “do better” (yes, including the Harvard thing, even though I got an MA and everything, it wasn’t from Harvard and she’ll never get over it) and all the rest of it. I’ve been trying to think of how to phrase this, and I’m not good with words sometimes, so it’s blunt but here it is:
You’re going to have to get it through your thick skull that you’re an adult. This means you run your own life and make your own decisions.
Your parents are going to have to get it through their thick skulls that you’re an adult. whether or not they do, however, is their problem and not yours, and has no bearing on # 1.
Own your decisions. You love this man, and you’ve chosen to share your lifes together. Own that, don’t hide from it or dance around it. How, and when, and even if you get engaged is up to you, and him, in equal proportions, and no one else.
Quit smoking.
(as a Mom I just had to say that)
Yeah, I wasn’t going to hijack, but since YOU did! If you think they don’t know you smoke…there’s just no way. I smoked for over 20 years. The last few miles to my parents, I would spray perfume, chew gum, run a dryer sheet over my hair and clothes. Not even close to fooling anyone. Anyway. I quit 2.5 years ago. Hardest thing I’ve ever done. Best of luck to you, in any case. Very tough situation.
Of course, my Mom can tell if someone’s burning trash across the river in a cave, so I didn’t really have a chance.
I somehow glazed over the smoking part.
They totally know, dude. You reek of it to some extent no matter what. Every smoker does, even the smokers in hiding ;).
I should say - my parents technically know I smoke, but I smoke very seldom and never around them, so they think I smoke a lot less than I actually do (I smoke anywhere between 0-3 a day, they think I only smoke when I’m out drinking).
Heh. I think my parents would be torn about this, because they are practical and frugal people, but they are Korean enough to appreciate the meaning of a big diamond.
I don’t have a strong opinion on what kind of ring I want. Diamonds aren’t my favorite, but I have seen diamond rings I like. I don’t want anything flashy though.
Ideally I wouldn’t want to get engaged until we are in a position to have a wedding within a year or so. Both of us just see it as a formality, but of course my parents feel differently. It’s something we’ll have to talk about anyway.
Yes, I know. This is what my American friends tell me all the time. Really, it’s an Asian kid complex, I think. Logically I know that I am an adult and that they no longer have the power to punish me over my decisions. But I just want them to be happy, and I love and respect them enough that their opinions matter to me.
Anyway. I still have a few months to consider my options and discuss it with my boyfriend. I’ll keep you guys posted. 
Speaking generally – though I’m not Asian, I think I understand the dynamic a bit: there are things in which I could openly defy my parent, confident that s/he’d eventually give up and never say anything out loud about it again. But thenceforward, it’s a matter of living with myself. I don’t want to be a bad kid who made my parents sad and disappointed. Whether that sadness or disappointment is objectively reasonable is almost beside the point.
Hello I was reading all the comments on this subject and wanted to put my input and situation in. Me and my boyfriend have been together for 2 years a half years and live together for a year and a half now. My Christian parents and family do not know we live together. I live on the opposite end of America from them so that’s why its been going on for a while that they do not know. Boyfriends parents do know that we live together and live 10 mins away from us.They are starting to have an issue with my parents not knowing. I am African American and my parents are very strict on their religious views. I figure we wont ever tell them that we lived together and when we get married we will just say we are moving in after the wedding. They believe sex should not happen until after marriage. Its getting hard however because recently boyfriends Christian brother asked his girlfriend of 6 months to marry him. Now I feel like boyfriends parents value other son and girlfriend more then us and look down upon us. There’s that pressure now to push us towards marriage because his brother is doing it right in their eyes. My concern is what will happen when we do get married and his family possibly mentions how we lived together before.
Welcome to the Dope, priscamarie23, but if you look at the dates on the posts you’ll see this thread is well over five years old - so while you might get some responses, don’t necessarily expect them from the original posters.
I’m surprised this is still a thing - it was only slightly scandalous when I was in college 45 years ago. Both my girls lived with their boyfriends before getting married, openly, and we had no problem with it, and both their marriages are great. But then I am not and never have been Christian.
Life will be so much simpler when both your parents are dead, like mine are. What a relief!
How is it possible you hadn’t realized that the truth cannot be long hidden? Sooner, or later, this was destined to come out. Because the truth always comes out. You surely must have known all along it could come out at any time.
Someone else gets engaged and you’re immediately insecure that you’re being looked down on?
You sound like you’re very young, maybe you should consider waiting till you’re more mature to engage in relationships you’re not yet ready to handle? Just a thought!
Wishing you Good Luck, regardless!
OMG, thank you for letting me know I’m not the only one thinking that!
Me too! Well, just my father. Although he passed in 2009 and I grieved heavily, I was also granted a freedom I never had before and this is coming from a woman in her forties.
Since his death, I have done so many things without a second thought that my father would have given me hell and several guilt trips over.
Everyone I know who were raised by “old world” parents tend to feel this way too.
Forgive me for throwing this out but would it terribly hurt you to actually move out from your boyfriend and just get a regular roommate?
I mean, I see many young women like you who who live with a man for years where he gets all the benefits of a wife (sex, companionship, housekeeper) and yet they dont marry them.
I dated my wife for a year before marrying her and only then did we move in together.