My boyfriend said women need to “serve” men in his family as it’s a tradition. I’m beyond upset.

My bf (28M) and I (24F) have been dating for roughly 2 years now.

I’ve never met his family in person (they know of me) as they live quite far away and we’re all busy with life. But recently, there was a family event for his nephew’s first birthday. I went to the event with my bf and meeting his family and relatives was nice. They were sweet people and said they were happy to have me there.

But once the dinner time came, my bf, who has never ever asked me of anything suddenly told me to ‘get me my plate and food.’ I was confused at first but then noticed that all the women present were taking care of handling the food to their partners. Instead of telling him anything, I just decided to do it.

But the next thing was asking me to ‘get him water’ and then next ‘get me tissues’ and then next ‘let’s go wash hands’ even when I wasn’t done eating?? I was so baffled the whole time because I wanted to tell him to knock it off but given how all the men in the room was doing the same and the women following them, I didn’t say anything until the event was over.

Once it was done and we were going back, I asked him what tf was going on and was genuinely upset and he told me that’s how his family tradition is and since men are far superior than women are, they’re meant to serve and that of course I’ll have to do the same once we get married so I need to warm up to it now??

This was possibly the weirdest and most awful conversation I’ve had with him because he’s never brought up anything about his family or this tradition until I met them in person. He’s never even mentioned any of this UNTIL now.

I got so upset by the fact that he sees women as inferior but then he said it was not about inferiority but women are a good subset of humans that are more emotionally evolved to serve than men are, so it’s a waste for them to not act that way?? He said us serving isn’t a bad thing but actually a great thing that shows respect to our partners.

We argued for a long time and he said I needed to consider my relationship with him if I wanted to marry him. We’ve had marriage talks since my own family is asking to consider him as well and I had no issues with it since he’s a nice guy and always been good to me.

It’s just that he’s never been this way and him bringing up tradition and knowing his opinion on women serving men and all that is making me consider my relationship. I haven’t talked to him since and he’s been saying sorry for making me upset and that I should stop being sensitive over a simple thing that I’ll eventually get used to.

But I’m not sure if this tradition is something that’s normal to his culture and I’m reading too much between these lines. It’s not that I wouldn’t get him his plates or tissues but it’s the context behind it that I do not like.

Idk if I sound affirming of what he is saying but I’m not. I’m seriously conflicted over how his personality just seem to have changed and need some insight because I thought he was the perfect guy for me until this happened. Should I talk this out with him or something?