I don’t want to leave my boyfriend

Dear Pastor, I am an 18-year-old Christian who lives with my grandparents because my mother is overseas. Since lately, I have been able to recognise that not all is well in my family. Now, I am caught in the middle and being used by my grandmother as the reason behind all the problems. My mother is not her biological child and was treated badly while growing up. She is the only female child who is not married.

She now has me in college and is supporting the house. I live with my sister and my mother is sending me to school. Her stepmother wants her to do more than she is already doing because she doesn’t have a husband.

I have grown to realise my grandmother’s greed and obsession with money, and how she behaves when it is late or if I ask for extra money from her. The lady who is supposed to be my grandmother doesn’t have a good relationship with my mother, but she does with her other children and tries to help the ones who live in Jamaica with things she buys with the cash my mother sends. She then complains that she does not get enough from my mother.

Recently, my mother confronted her about the situation and she turned on me by saying that I am the one who wants the money – some extra cash that was sent to do something. She did not know that I was telling mommy everything from the get-go. And recently, she told mommy lies because she didn’t know that mommy already knew everything from me. Now she hardly speaks to me and we live in the same house.

I also started dating a young man, which I told grandma about, and she advised me not to tell my mom. But she later told her and my mom confronted me about it. I really like this young man, but my mother doesn’t want me to be dating because she has been hurt a lot, so it seems to me that she is protecting me. I don’t want to disobey her, but I don’t want to end the friendship that I have with my boyfriend. What should I do in this entire situation? S.L.