I know I should want to break up with him for not defending me, but it's difficult. When I first met him, he was completely under their control. His dad had text alerts on his phone for whenever my boyfriend spent more than 100 euro from his own account (some family interest deal his bank does, where if the whole family signs with the same bank they get better deals on loans but this means whoever opened the original account can access all the others under his plan). His mom was friends with his boss and arranged it so anytime he called in sick, his boss would ring her and let her know so she could complain about how lazy he is. There was a lot more issues going on, but because it was going on his whole life, BF didn't find anything wrong with it.

He's since pulled out of the account with his dad, and changed jobs, and even stopped spending every single birthday with them when he really wanted to spend it with friends. It was a long road, but I know he can change, I just don't know how to make him realise that isolating his girlfriend and guilt tripping him into spending every holiday with them is still a form of control. I don't want to go too hard with it, tho, because then his mom can easily convince him that I'M the one controlling him by asking him not to spend Christmas with them. It's a slippery slope ...