Dating During the Holidays: Meet the Family?
By Nina Atwood
You’ve been dating for a few weeks/months, and now there are holiday family events, but you haven’t yet met each other’s families. What do you do? Here’s the upside and downside of introducing each other to families during the holidays.
The downside is that if your relationship is very new and you don’t know where you’re headed, it can be awkward to meet families. If you invite him to your family events and he doesn’t invite you to his, that leaves you off balance, and vice versa.
Families have a tendency to interpret the introductions as a prelude to getting engaged at some point. You may find yourself sitting at the dinner table witnessing your date being grilled by the family – “how serious are you?” and “what are your intentions?” This can be uncomfortable for both you and your date.
The upside of meeting each other’s families is that it gives you a window into your sweetheart’s background. Before you get too serious about someone, it’s wise to meet that person’s family to get a sense of compatibility. Couples whose famlies share similar values and lifestyles tend to be more compatible themselves. That doesn’t mean that you are doomed as a couple if his family and yours are nothing alike. It does mean that you may have a more difficult path ahead of you. And wouldn’t it be good to have that information so that you can make a more informed decision about moving forward?
A note of caution: Don’t hold your lover’s family agains him or her. If you see major dysfunction, take that under advisement, but don’t automatically assume the same dysfunction will show up in your lives together. Take into account your partner’s level of emotional development past the dysfunction – maybe via counseling or some other avenue of personal growth. Some people who come from dysfunctional families are able to forge very productive lives and famlies of their own precisely because of their backgrounds. Having seen the worst, they choose to create something far better, and often do.
Entry Filed under: Dating
