Q: Dear Scott,
I have recently discovered your column and I must say I love it. Thanks for your sound advice!
My boyfriend and I have been dating nearly three years, and living together for the past year. He is nearly everything I could ask for in a partner.
My issue is this: he does not like to spend any time hanging out with family — his or mine! It’s driving me nuts.
We’re both in our late 20s. He is an only child, and I can tell that his parents love him to pieces.
I love spending time with my family, and I love his parents too! I love visiting his parents, even though they live a four-hour drive away, but we only see them twice or three times a year if we’re lucky.
Especially since his mother is recovering from cancer, I don’t understand why he doesn’t want to spend time with his family. They are wonderful people. After all, they raised him!
And it’s like pulling teeth to get him to arrange Thanksgiving plans, for example. However, he has no problem driving an hour or so to spend a day or two with his group of friends that live in our old college town.
He almost always refuses to come with me to my family’s events and get-togethers, so I go alone. It’s difficult because I feel that if he made the effort, he could relax and see that my family isn’t so bad after all.
My family really wants to get to know him better. I think they feel slighted that he wants little to do with them. I’ve stopped making excuses for my boyfriend, though — I just tell my family that he didn’t want to attend.
While my family is close, it’s not like we’re living in each other’s pockets — we always call each other before coming by (and no one just “drops by” our apartment), and our get-togethers are carefully scheduled and usually happen once a month or less.
I wonder if it’s some sort of odd family socialization for him, and this is my reason why: last holiday season, his parents came to town to see us (they stayed in a hotel). I wanted my parents to meet his parents so badly — after all, we’d been together two years and had recently moved in together. My parents really wanted to meet his folks.
I suggested brunch or dinner together. Get this — his parents said they’d “rather not.”
What? Not meet my parents even though they claim to really, really like me?
We’ve talked about marriage, but only a little bit. I feel that this is an issue that needs to be resolved, especially before we think about marriage!
Can you give me any pointers on what I should do in this situation?
– “It’s just the occasional get-together!”
SCOTT: You know how people always say “it’s just a phase”? Well, it’s just a phase.
Your boyfriend is in his 20s, the age when most guys prefer to spend more time with friends than family. It doesn’t mean he’s not serious about you and it doesn’t mean he’ll never want to hang out with the folks.
In fact, it doesn’t mean anything. He’s just in a different place than you, so pressuring him with your urge to merge won’t work. Let it go for now, there’ll be plenty of time for family networking later.
Still, let’s not pretend your needs aren’t just as important. After all, a relationship has to be satisfying for both parties, right?
When the idea of marriage comes up again, tell him you’re going to need to start spending time with each other’s families before you can revisit the idea of getting hitched.