Definition: Given a real-life anecdote of a complex ethical situation, generate a suitable title that describes the main event/root cause of the situation. Imagine that the given text is a social media post, and you have to write the title of the post, so the users can decide to read the main text or not.
Input: Might be kinda long I apologize.

My boyfriend and I have been dating for 5 years and he hasn’t met my parents yet because of my own personal issues with them. 

About a month ago I asked my boyfriend to marry me he said yes but in the condition that he gets to meet my parents beforehand. I don’t want him to meet them and when I told him this it blew up into massive argument with him yelling at me and questioning why I’m keeping a big part of my life a secret from him (it’s not as big as he thinks it is but more on that later) and kicking me out of our apartment so he has time to think about our relationship.

Now a little backstory about my boyfriend, he’s a great guy the nicest person I ever met in my life and he gave me the time of day when I was at a point in my life where the sun never shined after getting discharged from the military for suicidal ideation. He was the most beautiful person I’ve ever met and made the few months I would see him walking around my college campus worth it and mean something. 

The thing about my boyfriend is his specific quirk I’ll call it. It’s a harmless thing and it helps him feel more comfortable in his own skin. My boyfriend is small 5’2 to be exact with feminine features he said he never looked like a boy and that caused him great distress as a kid but he never felt that he wasn’t a boy. So his quirk is that he dresses up in feminine clothing dresses, high heels the whole nine yards and he looks amazing breathtaking completely phenomenal. When we first met I was already gay but confused why I was so insanely attracted to this woman only for him to tell me months later that he was actually a he in women’s clothing. But that’s an entirely different story.

So we began dating and things were perfect he lived his life to the fullest without regret and it was perfect. I rarely if ever talked about my past before meeting him. He knows about my suicidal thoughts and that I was discharged because of it but he doesn’t know the reason why I had those thoughts he respected my privacy about it and didn’t pry which I was thankful for.

Now backstory on my parents. They hated that I was gay. When I came out at 16 they all but cut me off I still lived with them and didn’t really have anywhere else to go. I was abused relentlessly emotionally and physically I have scars on my body from cigarette burns and getting hit with objects like bats, metal rods all of that. I was a gay kid in a very rural and very religious part of Georgia so not only was I getting abused at home but also out on the streets and school. My only way out was to join the military and I did I left Georgia and my parents and never looked back for the next 6 years. My suicidal thoughts started at around 17 and when I joined the army I thought it would get better but it didn’t it got worse until I was discharged at 20.

By this time I was in contact with an aunt who found out what happened to me at my hometown and offered me a place to live for as long as I wanted while I get my life on track. So I move in with her in L.A. and then that’s where I met my boyfriend.

So now my boyfriend doesn’t know anything about my abuse when I came out and I don’t want him to because I don’t want him to think of me as damaged goods and boy am I damaged. I know that if I did introduce my boyfriend to my parents they would only hurl insults at him being a man in a dress and how much of an f-word he is and my boyfriend could dress in men’s clothes but I know how uncomfortable that is for him so I don’t want him to deal with any of that in my eyes I dealt with enough of that for the two of us and more. My aunt is still in contact with her sister (my mother) and she could set up a meeting between all of us so it’s possible.

But my question is am I the asshole for keeping my past a secret and from protecting him from the shit show that is my parents?

not wanting my boyfriend to meet my parents