overprotective parents

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I'm starting to get to know this girl, who is definitely interested in me. The problem is that her parents are overprotective, and we're in college. they makes their daughter come home by ten on the weekend. We are limited in what we can do together. For halloween, her mom made her dress like a jailbird, when she wanted to be an angel. We both hated that jailbird costume. Now her mom is determining what types of physical contact is appropriate and what is not. Putting my arm around her is out of the question. The problem is that we are adults in college. We should run the relationship ourselves. This is taking away both of our chances to learn and grow. How do I deal with these overprotective parents?

Wow! Unless you two are child geniuses and in college at 13 years old, that goes waaay beyond "overprotective."

How do you deal with that? Frankly, I don't think you can or should. At its root, this sounds like a mother-daughter issue, and something tells me that your helpful input would probably not be received well at all by mom. Dad any easier???

at the risk of sounding like an echo... read what RainingRoses said.

your girlfriend is the one who needs to deal with the situation, and i do not know how it can be done. if her mother is paying for college and giving her free room and board, then your girlfriend might not have that much input into how much freedom she is allowed - in spite of technically being an adult.

your girlfriend may be too intimidated to deal with her mother assertively, and if that is the case... there isn't much that can be done at all. it's not likely that anyone in the family will appreciate your involvement. but if your girlfriend is willing to be more assertive, she can possible get some changes happening.

How...?

I can understand your girlfriend not wanting to anger her parents if they are paying for her education, but determining how much physical contact is allowed? This is where you nod and smile and say 'okay' and do whatever you think is right anyway. When she's not at home, anyway.

They're not for you to deal with. It's her responsibility to address that issue, if she see's fit. However you may try showing the parents you are a gentleman.

You are the boyfriend. You are the Alpha male. I assure you that you can make this girl do whatever you want her to do.
But don't do it unless you are serious about her from now until forever.

You would have to slay the dragon (her mother) and make a family break that could never be healed.

Her Mother sounds like the mother-in-law from hell so you would need to protect your girl.

So unless you are prepared to slay the dragon and marry the princess, it would be easier to find another girl.

how do you know that he is an "alpha male"? because he happens to be male?

guys cannot make girls do whatever they want, thank goodness!

Just go ahead and do it anyway. Assuming you're in the US, you're an adult when you're at college (and I make that assumption because you said you were both adults), so they have no legal right to tell her to do anything anymore.

the problem is that it seems like the girlfriend is still deferring to her parents' wishes. otherwise why would she even listen to their "rules"? if she wanted to sneak around, she would have done so already. she's submitting to their boundaries.

hmmm, my girlfriend seems to have the same problem with her mother.
Is this a common problem?

i was like this, but i don't know how common it is. i got so used to accepting my mother's absolute authority on all matters that i had some problems finding out my own opinions and feelings. i would repeat her opinions as though they were mine, and i figured that she was always right. without going into details a lot of my attitude was motivated by fear of my mother's anger.

one small example: i got a nose ring at age 18.5. i had already moved out of the house and was working full-time. when my mother saw it she got so upset and angry and hysterical that i felt horrible to have betrayed her like that. so i had it removed - and i wasn't even living with her! the nose ring was slightly infected anyways, but it would have healed eventually...

i was not allowed to kiss or hug my boyfriends in the house, or in front of her or even on the front step/stoop - even as an adult when i moved back in the house for a while at age 21. i was more rebellious behind my mother's back than the OP's girlfriend is to her mother, but i maintained her rules very strictly in her house.

the only way i broke free was by physically moving to another city, and at first i called my mother every day. now i keep a lot of distance - perhaps more than a person in a healthy mother-daughter relationship would do.