Dad thinks my boyfriend is a gold-digger!

Q: I’m 25 and am dating a wonderful guy. We get along beautifully and I think he could be The One. There is a problem, though — my father is worried that he is after me because of my money.

He thinks I should find someone better. My boyfriend didn’t go to college and has a 3-year-old child, although he was never married.

I would like to take my loving, caring boyfriend home to meet my family, but my father is absolutely against this. How do I get him to let his guard down and accept my sweetie?

A: Clearly, your father’s approach to this appears to be inconsistent. He hasn’t met your boyfriend, yet he is sure he is not good enough for you.

Before you rush headfirst into this, though, you need to consider some of the things that might be going on in your father’s mind. This should help you understand his thinking and aid in providing a resolution that could work for all involved. Here are several possibilities, which could be true either alone or in some combination:

1. The age-old one: Your father thinks nobody could ever be good enough for his little girl. This is very common. It is also fairly easy to detect. Think about your past boyfriends. Has your father deemed all of them not good enough?
2. Then there is the issue of status. Perhaps your father has hopes of maintaining or enhancing his own place in society, wishing that his daughter ends up with a rich, powerful lawyer or businessman. This is a common parental fantasy. Sometimes it’s because they want to keep the status quo (your dad may be wealthy already). And then some parents believe that their own lives would have been better if they themselves had chosen a higher-status partner. Also, there are those who are disappointed by what they have achieved in life and then try to live their lives through their children.
3. There also is the possibility of something deeper. It could be that your father is reacting to the threat of being replaced as the man in your life. It’s often hard on fathers when another man enters the picture, which in many ways alters the father-daughter bond. To him, it feels that an interloper is stealing you away.
4. Then again, your father could be more right than you think. Sometimes love is blind.

Let’s deal with the last point first.

Although without all the details it is difficult to completely gauge your circumstances, this situation does indeed raise some potential concerns.

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Your letter suggests that you have more money or a higher earning potential than your boyfriend. What’s more, he already has a child to support. It’s not that a difference in financial resources is always a problem for a couple, but it is worth considering.

You father could, for good reasons or bad, lead you to be realistic and hard-nosed about this. You should examine the situation closely: Could your boyfriend have an ulterior motive, in terms of gaining something from you — wealth, citizenship, social status, a mother for his child?

Of course, your boyfriend may be entirely without avarice (or, at the very least, is looking for some sort of security for him and his child — a not entirely un-noble thing).

Overall, you need to look for a balance. You, obviously, will be gaining things from the relationship, and so will he. Most romantic partnerships involve some sort of examination of prospects of the individuals involved. At its core, though, must be true feelings based on love. And if you really do get along beautifully, and you care deeply about each other, you have a wonderful foundation on which to build.

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