Help! My Parents Don’t Approve of My Significant Other!

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So, you have a new boyfriend or girlfriend, and it’s time to meet your parents!

You set up a dinner at home, or perhaps meet at a local restaurant, so everyone can finally get to know each other a little more. Sometimes it’s almost as bad as first date jitters! What will your parents think?

Afterward, you get the hit: 

I don’t really like him.”

“Honey, you can do better.”

“I don’t know what you see in her!”

Cue crushed feelings. Your parents don’t like the new sweetheart. What do you do now?!

First, avoid reacting like a teenager: no screaming, crying, or door slamming allowed. You and your parents are all adults, so take a deep breath and calm those nerves. Then, move on and reflect on the following questions: 

First, what is your relationship like with your parents?

Many people come from healthy nuclear families, and many also come from divorced families, blended families, or single-parent homes. How much you want to weigh your parents’ opinions on your dating life will depend on how close you are to them, how much you trust them, and how involved you both are in each others’ lives.

So consider this first, before jumping to any conclusions or rash actions. Remember, almost every parent has their child’s best interest in mind. So unless you have a unique diagnosable situation (which would probably warrant professional help), there is no reason to freak out. Your parents love you and they likely feel how they feel for a reason. This leads us to the most important thing to consider...

WHY don’t they like the new boyfriend or girlfriend?

Many, many parents can see things an infatuated new sweetheart can’t. If your parents express distaste for your new beau, your best response is to ask why. And then LISTEN. Seriously, listen. What they cite as their reasons will tell you volumes. It’s possible they might not like his accent, or she seems too quiet, he lives too far away, or other vague disinclinations. This doesn’t really inform you about the character of your date, or give your parents any solid ground for dislike.

But far more often than this, a parent will spot something like poor manners, a lack of respect, a big difference in faith, a lack of chemistry between you both, or other red flags you might want to consider. Things like this can greatly affect your own romantic relationship, and if someone spots something before you do, it’s worth taking into account.

Never base your romantic choices solely on your parents’—or anyone else’s—opinions. But it is always, always worth hearing what your family and friends have to say.

How is your parents’ perspective informed by their past?

Nobody becomes a parent without some kind of romantic history. What did your parents’ dating lives look like? Have they had good, bad, or mixed experiences in marriage? I personally greatly trusted my parents’ opinions on my dates, because they have been happily married, devout Catholics for thirty years. I wanted a marriage like that, so I heavily valued their opinions.

Divorced or widowed parents can also have really good advice, because they’ve been through unique hardships, too. Divorced, single, or non-Christian parents can also harbor a bad taste in their mouth from negative experiences, and tend to look at things in a self-protective lens. Every person and every parent is different. Consider how their experiences might be coloring their perspectives, for good, bad, or mixed results. It might explain if they see a legitimate problem in your date, or if they are projecting something from their own past onto your future.

How does your new boyfriend or girlfriend feel about not being liked by your parents?

If you’ve been on enough dates that you set up a meet-my-parents, it’s probably a good idea to tell your date your parents are worried about your relationship. Obviously, consider why your parents are concerned first—and then judge how to talk to your new significant other about it. You don’t need to get into the nitty-gritty, who-said-what details. An overall impression is likely all your date needs to hear. (Unless you’re already engaged or something, then bare all.)

The whole point of this is to see how your date reacts and what their perspective is. This will tell you a lot about their character, especially if this is a pretty new relationship. Similarly, how you react to your parents’ less-than-welcome opinions will say a lot about your character, too. (Remember how we mentioned not acting like an emotional teenager? Yep.)

So . . . what NOW?

After getting the answers to all the previous questions, you should have a pretty clear idea of what you want to do. Maybe your close, loving parents had a really good reason they didn’t like your date, and you find yourself agreeing—probably time to leave that relationship. Perhaps your somewhat-emotionally-distant parents had a vague dislike but didn’t know why—it might be good to continue dating, and see if either you or your parents can pinpoint the reason for discomfort.

Maybe you have a helicopter parent who believes nobody will be perfect enough for their forty-year-old baby—you might want to find some other, more objectively reliable counsel on your romances. It could be your parents don’t share your Catholic faith and don’t want you to marry, period! There are a myriad of possibilities, and only you can read your own situation. My best advice is to talk to your parents about it, talk to your significant other, and talk to anyone else whose advice and opinion would be relevant—maybe your siblings, your best friend, a spiritual director, trusted married couple, etc.

Finally, if you ever find yourself in the sticky my-parents-don’t-approve situation, remember this: eventually you will have to weigh the importance of your parents’ approval and involvement in your new relationship. This is ESPECIALLY true if you’re thinking about marriage. You don’t marry your in-laws, but you will always have them in your life.

It is worth building a positive, respectful relationship with them during your dating and engaged days. That’s the foundation for how you will interact with them when you get married, after all.

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