My BF (24M) and I (22F) have been together for almost two years. We really love each other. We want to get married in the future, kids, house, the whole nine yards.
The only problem is, until recently I thought he and my parents got along decently but I found out that just isn’t true. I live only 45 minutes to an hour from my parents and try to make time once a month to visit their home (my childhood home). It’s important to me that my BF and my parents are not necessarily besties, but can get on well, so I always invite him to come with me. Until now, his accept to decline ratio was 2:5.
Whenever we go see my parents, we’re expected to do all of the social heavy lifting because of their seniority. When we come, I have a key so I let us in, we have to go find my dad usually in the family room or his office and talk to him, and then my mom is usually in a different room cooking, cleaning, or answering emails so we have to talk to her as she’s doing all these things and meander back and forth between them until we’re ready to leave. This is to make sure both parents feel like they’ve been given ample amounts of attention. My parents are happily married by the way this is just how their house is on a given afternoon now that they’re empty nesters. And they know we’re coming because we always pre-discuss a time. I also am embarrassed to admit there have been multiple occasions where we agree to visit them at X:00pm and we arrive to an empty house because they went out to run errands and didn’t make it back in time for our arrival.
Visiting my BF’s parents is so different. When we go, his mom opens the door for us, she already has snacks or food made, and she spends the entire visit giving us her undivided attention either talking to us or playing a board game or even just watching football.
Because of this, my boyfriend doesn’t feel like an invited guest when we go to their house, but more like a burden. He says my parents actions and body language throughout our visits signal to him that they clearly had better things to do than to host him which makes him wonder why he bothered to come and spend time with them. Their behavior had been this way since I moved out (I was single then) so I always kind of took it as normal.
I have tried bringing these things up to my parents and my mom made an effort when we stayed with them for Christmas, but my dad mostly watched TV in a separate room. Now my parents say BF makes them uncomfortable in their own home and they don’t want to have to cater to him every time he comes. They act the exact same way to my brother’s GF, but she’s more extroverted and go with a flow like me and is more likely to just go with it for the sake of keeping the relationship positive. My BF is very reserved and can weather bull crap up to a certain limit like my brother.
The disagreement is mainly about this with other little things, but boyfriend told me he will no longer visit with my parents in their home because there seems to be a clear power play. When we hang out with them outside of the home, they adhere to social cues more and they have a better (but not outrageously great) time together. To be fair to him, I agreed to set this boundary but now I have no idea how to still be able spend time with my parents AND him together especially on holidays. How can I make sure my BF and my parents have a solid cordial relationship and hang out with all my loved ones despite this boundary? All ideas are welcome.
tl:dr: bf no longer wants to visit my parents at their home because he's uncomfortable with their hosting technique. My parents feel that my boyfriend should be able to go with the flow and that catering to him is not their job and makes them feel uncomfortable in their own home. Need advice on how to still foster a cordial relationship between them and also ideas for getting through the holidays.
Submitted March 29, 2023 at 05:44PM by Beneficial-Step4403 https://ift.tt/MWPbEOs
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