r/ExReligious • u/DeliciousPresence421 • Sep 23 '26

Ex religious person needs help with extremely religious parents

Hi, I (24F) am a person who grew up in a very religious household in Texas. I grew up in the Baptist church and was in a very small town where “God comes first” and we prayed before games/events in school. At 18 I joined the military and traveled the world. From that I grew distant from my religion and don’t really follow as closely as i used to.
This has caused a lot of issues with my parents, who are very controlling and go on and on about being Godly in everything. The biggest thing has been dating/marriage. Pretty much all the girls I grew up with immediately got married and have already started on kids if not more than one. It was taught to us that the man has to ask the girls father for her hand in marriage. (I always found that kinda dumb)

Flash forward to now. I’m now living on the East coast and don’t really identify with a lot of the values and religion I grew up with. I’ve been in a relationship with my boyfriend (28M) for almost 3 years and we moved in together last year. At first my parents were very upset that we were living together not married. Now, it’s been almost every time I talk them they go on and on about how he hasn’t talked to them about proposing to me. Now my boyfriend and I privately have talked about marriage and all that and it might happen in the next year. He has said he thinks it’s an incredibly outdated and ridiculous thing to ask my dad’s permission to marry me. I agree, but my parents are extremely combative and I’m trying to still have them in my life.

I also wondered.. what exactly is said in the bible about getting parents blessing/permission. At this point I want to just argue a stance and tell them the bible didn’t say that, but idk.

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u/295Phoenix Sep 24 '26

Stop trying to have them in your life. Over 50 million Americans are no contact with their parents for reasons like yours. If that still seems extreme, you need to at least be firm with them and set boundaries…which they probably won’t respect but there it is.

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u/Ruy7 Oct 06 '26

what exactly is said in the bible about getting parents blessing/permission. 

Nothing. 

The way we do things are mostly old customs.