My boyfriend is under a lot of pressure, and he keeps asking for my opinion. How should I respond?

Hello, I'm Weiliang, and I'm thrilled to be here!

Thank you so much for your trust! I really hope my reply can help you.

First of all, your boyfriend has confided in you about this conversation. He is actually very concerned about the pressure from his family and the family's poor financial situation. Then there is the fact that Grandma always emphasizes that Dad is tired and ignores the fact that your boyfriend also needs care. Finally, I guess she is also giving you a hint, hoping that you can understand him, including his own thoughts, his family, and his financial situation.

You ask me what to tell him. Well, I can't tell you exactly what to say because everyone has a different point of view. But I can tell you this: a relationship is heading towards marriage. And if you two can't communicate honestly and hide your true feelings from each other, it will be a time bomb in your relationship. So let's talk about how to avoid that!

Because there are so many trivial things in life together, we have the opportunity to live our best lives! It's exhausting for ourselves and for each other, so let's make the most of it!

Now, I'd like to share my personal opinion, which I hope you'll find as inspiring as I do!

First of all, every time Grandma emphasizes how tired Dad is and the issue of supporting the elderly, this is the way of thinking and focus that Grandma and their generation are used to. This view is that of an elderly person, so if you don't agree with it, just listen, but there's no need to force an elderly person to change. This is based on their life experience and insight, and it may not necessarily be suitable for young people, after all, times have changed—and that's a good thing!

Dad is tired, and life is not easy for anyone. But there is hope! Especially when you have seen the prosperity of this world, but you don't have the ability to change your life, you will feel a sense of powerlessness. But you can overcome this!

This is where it gets really interesting! It requires the self in the midst of it to recognize reality and also recognize oneself. It's about living the current self according to one's abilities, and not forcing the impossible. It's actually really difficult, but it's also really exciting!

Second, you get to think about the education of your future children or whether to have children! This is related to whether there will be any differences in your planned life in the future and whether you can accept it. If you have any thoughts, you should communicate with him properly.

And there's another great perspective to consider: supporting your parents. You have the wonderful opportunity to care for your own parents, too! How does that differ from his view?

You absolutely have to think carefully about how to communicate with him. After all, whether it's a relationship or a marriage, it's your life!

If these have conflicts and collisions, where is the bottom line for each of them?

Finally, I think he wants emotional comfort from you with these words. We are all children who long for love, and it's so wonderful that he's expressing this to you!

I really hope these personal opinions help you!

I wish you all the best!

Dear questioner, I want to offer you a hug. When you're with your boyfriend, it can feel like you're taking on a lot of emotional challenges.

While there are factors in your boyfriend's family of origin, he is actually thinking about how he wants his life to be. However, his thinking is only focused on maintaining the status quo and addressing past issues. He may not be considering future changes and how to break through now to have the life he wants. His emotions are weighed down by too much negative thinking, and he tends to express complaints without fully exploring solutions.

I believe your question is about how to respond to your boyfriend's complaining mood. If I may offer a few suggestions, I think they could be helpful. 1. Perhaps you could encourage him more.

Indeed, he has striven to live his life well, work hard to earn money and save it, and take responsibility for the family. It is crucial to try to love yourself well. Only by loving and caring for yourself can you bear all these responsibilities.

2. It is important to take care of yourself, including protecting your mood and emotions. It may be helpful to consider changing your mindset and not letting the ideas implanted in you by your family of origin hold you back. It could be beneficial to view your own life as the main planning target. When you are well, your family will be well, and your parents will be well. If you haven't had a chance to recover, taking on the responsibility of your parents may overwhelm you and make it more difficult for you to cope.

3. Try to do things according to your abilities. We all need a little luxury sometimes. Treating yourself is also a way to reward yourself. When you release pressure, you can gather energy to work and live better. It's important to have a good balance between work and play. You can only help your parents within your means.

4. It is important to recognize the challenges faced by the older generation. Each generation has its own set of issues. It's crucial to avoid being constrained by stereotypes. Strive to enhance your awareness and think innovatively. You can provide mutual support and encouragement. It's beneficial to learn how to enhance yourself and know how to seek psychological assistance. The power of the mind is also significant!

Hello, question asker! I am the respondent, Enoch. From the question asker's description, it is clear that the question asker is worried because her boyfriend has been instilled with too much pressure from his father and grandmother regarding their support in his old age. She is discussing this with the question asker, who is unsure how to respond.

We must identify the root cause of this situation.

1. The symbiotic family lifestyle and inheritance

From the questioner's description, it is clear that the questioner's boyfriend's grandmother has asked the boyfriend to feel sorry for the questioner's father and share the family's pension problems. This is wrong. Pension problems are indeed a major problem. The grandmother is wrong to argue that the boyfriend should exercise his corresponding rights and fulfill his corresponding obligations in accordance with the law, rather than through moral blackmail, or because they are family, they should share the family's problems with each other. This will lead to the problem of mutual shirking of responsibilities, and the problem of mutual dependence and interference in other people's lives.

2. We must stop habitually relying on each other in the matter of supporting the elderly and lose a sense of boundaries.

The law is clear: grandchildren are not obliged to support their grandparents. However, if they have the means, they are obliged to support their grandparents if the latter have died or are unable to support themselves.

We must fulfill our corresponding obligations based on the actual situation and legal requirements. We should not excessively rely on our family members and make unreasonable demands on them without any sense of boundaries.

3. Family traditions that are afraid to take responsibility and assign responsibilities, as well as the wrong concept of putting pressure on the next generation.

The questioner's boyfriend is too afraid to disagree with his parents, even though he is unhappy with them. Just as the grandmother is unreasonable in making demands on her grandson, she is also unreasonable in making demands on the questioner. She believes she can relieve the pressure of supporting the elderly by not having children and not fulfilling her obligation to support the next generation. This is the same as her grandmother's thinking, and it is wrong.

I have some suggestions for the questioner that I believe will be helpful.

The question is about learning to respect yourself and each other in your own life. Unreasonable demands can and should be refused. If the questioner and her boyfriend keep backing down, all they will get in return is more and more demands. So the questioner must carefully consider the influence of her boyfriend's family values on her.

Hello!

From what you've said, I get the feeling you're worried about your boyfriend. You don't know how to comfort him or respond to him. I can see how concerned you are.

The text above describes what your boyfriend and you have said. I will share some of my views for your reference.

1. Your boyfriend is responsible. He has taken on more pressure and high expectations from his family, which has caused him anxiety about the future.

He's already trying his best. His family is making him feel overwhelmed, and this situation has also made him develop some rebellious and negative emotions. I think this is normal. At this time, he really needs your understanding, care, and support.

2. His family's words aren't meant to pressure him. His grandmother's concern for his food and clothing is normal. It's also normal to tell him about his father's hard work. His father is his grandmother's son, so it's natural to talk about family matters.

Tell your boyfriend not to take his negative emotions and misunderstand the love of his loved ones. Even if the family really means it, if you don't adjust your own mentality, it is even less likely to have a firm mentality.

You need to talk to him about this and help him see things differently.

3. Your plan for life is the key. He loves you and is willing to share his thoughts with you. This could be a way to release.

You seem to care a lot about your boyfriend. You're careful with your feedback because you don't want to upset him. You can work together to make plans for the future. Start with a small goal and take things one step at a time. Don't worry about the future. Any bright future is built step by step.

A bright future is built little by little. Many families hope to change the next generation's fate. Many families pin their hopes on a certain person, but one person can only do so much.

If you have a good life, you can help your family. Everything will be fine!

Let's take a moment to discuss how communication between people is a process of encoding and decoding. Consider the example of "As soon as I call my mother, she says how tired my father is."

In this example, Grandma speaks, and the content is "your father is very tired." There's no doubt that Grandma has a perception (meaning) to express, and she uses her system to encode this meaning, and the output is "your father is very tired." After the boyfriend hears these words, he gets the literal meaning, and he has to decode it to get the meaning implied by the literal meaning. This process is decoding, and he uses his own decoding system.

As you can see, Grandma uses the "Grandma System" to encode, while her boyfriend uses the "Grandson System" to decode. If the "Grandson System" and the "Grandma System" are inconsistent, the boyfriend won't be able to understand Grandma's meaning. Since the poster's boyfriend is still very young, there is a big age gap between them, so there must be a big difference between the two systems.

As a middle-aged person, I want to talk about the decoding result of using my system for "every time you say eat well and drink well, but then you say your father is too tired and you will support him when he gets old." Eat well and drink well (this is the grandmother speaking as the grandson's grandmother, and naturally the grandmother doesn't want her grandson to suffer outside the home). Your father is too tired (this is the mother speaking as the son's mother, and naturally the mother is concerned about her son's hard work).

Grandma's demands are clear: take care of yourself (eat well and drink well) and take care of your father (support your father in his old age). Are there contradictions between these two demands?

It can be considered to exist or not to exist. Let's be frank. The key is money.

If you have enough money, you can eat well and drink well yourself, and you can also let your father eat well and drink well. There is no contradiction between Grandma's two requests. However, if you don't have enough money to take care of one side, and you have to take care of both sides, you will naturally feel that there is a contradiction between the two tasks.

We must also decode "eat well and drink well" and "support your father in his old age." What does it mean to eat well and drink well?

Eating well and drinking well means not going hungry and having a balanced diet. It's not about eating whatever you want and going to any restaurant you want.

What does it mean to support your father in his old age? It means ensuring he is not cold or hungry.

It means you should support your parents until they die, no matter what.

Grandma needs to say what she means, and we need to know what the boyfriend made of it.

Answer to the original poster's question: How should I reply? Just reply however you see fit. We know from the previous encoding and decoding process that misunderstandings are inevitable. When trying to express something, be clear, use examples, and eliminate any misunderstandings.

If there's no major "misunderstanding" and a significant difference in values between the two parties, it's also an opportunity to get to know each other better.

Hello!

Dear friend, I can see how challenging and overwhelming your question is, but I'm here to help! I'm excited to share my opinion and some references that I think you'll find enlightening.

? Everyone is an independent individual!

We are all independent of our parents, our souls are free, and of course we all have our own choices! The world is our oyster! We can use various resources to start growing ourselves, slowly surpassing our parents and our original families, and becoming a better version of ourselves.

? Learn to separate issues

The parents' generation has its limitations, but it also has so much to offer! After all, the speed of information dissemination and the means of acquiring knowledge in their era were not as widespread and developed as they are now. There is also the difference in educational attainment, which presents a fascinating opportunity for growth and learning.

In their day, not many people went to college, but nowadays, college students can be found everywhere!

They have their limitations and the things they have to face in their own lives! Of course, they are old and want to rely on their children to live a better life, and of course there is no problem with that!

This is just their way of thinking, but we are still free! It is their problem if they want to think this way, and they will have to bear the consequences of their disappointment. But we can choose to be free!

Meanwhile, as children, we are all free! We have the amazing opportunity to choose how we want to live our lives. We can choose to fulfill our parents' wishes and take care of them, or we can choose to prioritize our own needs and first satisfy our own needs for survival and development.

Now for the fun part! To learn more about separating from your partner, I highly recommend reading the book "The Courage to Be Disliked" by Ichiro Kasami. It's a great resource with lots of helpful tips and insights.

It's time to understand your expectations!

Absolutely! You can definitely ask your partner what he expects from his parents and why he is so angry and dissatisfied. And you have to work hard to get everything you want yourself after school!

Don't pay attention to what your parents say! Just do what you want to do and fight for it! Just because he complains and vents doesn't mean everything he wants will come to him in the world and in life.

And dear questioner, it's so great that you care so much about your partner's emotions and state! What is the expectation behind it?

Absolutely! It's to help him become happy and better, and after his emotions have stabilized, you'll have more time and energy to take care of your emotions and love yourself! Hug~ If so, then my dear, you must learn to love yourself and learn to love yourself well!

You've got to read Zhou Fan's book, "When You Learn to Love Yourself, the Whole World Will Love You," after class!

I really hope my answer is helpful to you! The world and I love you!

Hello!

Your boyfriend is conveying negative emotions through his questions. They confuse you and put you under pressure, so you don't know how to respond. Give him a hug!

Your boyfriend asked you this question because he trusts you and wants to confide in you. He's looking for your support. He may also want to understand your point of view and get your approval.

You need to communicate with him, but you also need to give him feedback based on your true thoughts.

He directly expresses his stress and guilt, as well as his complaints about shouldering too much on his own. He disagrees with the previous generation's ideas and wants to break the vicious cycle in his own family. For example, he will not have children if conditions are not good.

You can sort out what his messages and opinions are, and then give him honest feedback on what you think and how you feel about them. If you want a long-lasting relationship, you must face each other as your true selves.

If you're willing to accept and comfort him when he conveys negative emotions, he'll feel warm. He's communicating with you in the middle of the night because he's under a lot of pressure. Don't make moral judgments. He hopes you can help him bear some of the burden, but you don't have to bear it practically. Catch his negative emotions and give him comfort and relief.

A good intimate relationship is one in which you nourish and warm each other in times like these.

Of course, you don't have to agree with him on everything. Two people in an intimate relationship don't have to agree completely, but you must be able to accept and tolerate each other, seek common ground while reserving differences, and find a way to get along that both people can accept.

Everyone experiences moments of inner confusion, especially when it comes to things they care about. When this happens, it's crucial to calm your mind and connect with your heart to find clarity and direction.

I am confident that the reply from Red Rain will be helpful. Thank you for asking!

Your boyfriend is so responsible! It's totally normal for men to feel a lot of pressure, so you should show him more understanding and support. And of course, you, who are so good at listening and understanding, should also be encouraged!

First of all, your boyfriend's elders' way of raising children was indeed a bit too much. As the saying goes, boys are poor in appearance, but it's not right to be too strict. After all, they are all grown up now. What's in the past is in the past. As adults, we can't expect our elders to change anything. What's important is what we think, what we do, and how we communicate with them. So, let's focus on the future!

His grandmother feels very sorry for his father. She is old now, and maybe she felt that she had not done enough back then, or she feels powerless now. We must all understand, and we can!

Second, your boyfriend's feelings of guilt and anxiety are totally normal. I've experienced them myself, and I know he'll get through it!

He feels this way because he is filial and has others in mind, and because he is concerned. But as an adult, he has the right to pursue independence, happiness, and a free life! On the basis of not endangering others, there is absolutely nothing wrong with doing what is right for oneself. And let's not forget that he will have to marry and have children in the future for his own family.

Third, you should encourage him! It is rare and valuable that he can think of better ways and suggestions for educating the next generation, which shows that he is constantly reflecting and accumulating. He is also right! The key is to reduce his anxiety and guilt, do more sports and other hobbies, and reduce stress.

You've got this! Keep up the great work!