My late husband’s family disliked me (and I them!) and we knew this before marrying. We went ahead with the marriage, and it caused some definite stress.
Now, I’m inclined to think that I wouldn’t want to do that again–that if I ever remarry, I want to be on good terms with the in-laws. It may even have gotten to the point where in my head I would consider it a dealbreaker, though I can’t say for certain how I would react.
Do you see it as a big deal if your SO’s family dislikes, hates, or disapproves of you? Would you or did you go ahead with the marriage/relationship?
It wasn’t THE dealbreaker, but it was a major factor in calling off my engagement. Very hard to imagine living my life with those people hovering around the edges all the time.
One set of parents should be accepting, I feel. If both sets of parents can’t stand the relationship, you have a long, tough haul in front of you. Been there, done that.
If HE didn’t get along with his parents, it wouldn’t be. I have plenty of friends who are not on the best of terms with their own parents. If he adored his parents and they couldn’t stand me, definitely a deal breaker.
Proximity is what helps for me - I’m in the midwest and they’re on the West coast. I see them maybe once every 5 years, DH takes all their calls, stuff like that. He doesn’t put up with their crap, but I imagine it’d be harder if we lived closer.
That and proximity would definitely be factors. I honestly don’t know if it would be a deal breaker or not; it certainly would be something to get hashed out before a commitment is made.
This would be my answer, too. The better she gets along with her parents, the more likely she is to see it as a misunderstanding that can be resolved by getting to know them better, and thus the more time she’ll expect me to spend with people that hate/disapprove of me.
It wouldn’t be a dealbreaker for me. It’s not like love is so easy to find.
The way the guy acted regarding his parents could be a dealbreaker. If he ever let his parents dictate the terms of our relationship, that would be a dealbreaker. As long as he was the one to deal with them, he didn’t let them walk all over him and he made it clear to me and them that I was his priority, then I wouldn’t let their disapproval keep me away from a man I loved.
It would depend entirely on what kind of support I was getting from my potential-spouse.
Not that I’d expect him/her to play the stuck-in-the-middle role, but if his mom says something unjustifiably catty to me / about me, I’d expect him to call her on it. If me and the in-laws can’t be in the same room together without it becoming a seething tension-filled mess, I expect him to be graceful about it when I decline to spend any time in the same room with them. (He can do so himself as often or as little as he wishes, he’ll just have to do it without me.) This would, of course, include making sure that holiday-time festivities are spent, in part, with me apart from them, which may mean we do the holiday-family thing with my family or just the two of us instead of with his family; or we spend some of the holiday together in addition to time he spends with his family (without me).
I’m not a mean person, and don’t behave in a way that justifies assholish behavior toward me, so I’d expect potential-spouse to recognize that. If he consistently told me that I need to make nice with the mean in-laws, to the exclusion of any kind of effort of same on their part, that would be the dealbreaker.
If my in-laws hated or disapproved of me but were respectful to me and my relationship with their son I would have no problem with it. If they were outright hostile to me and he refused to stick up for me I would probably leave and find someone else. Luckily my in-laws love me to bits so I have no problem but I have dated people before whose families didn’t like me and it was never a pleasant experience.
As others have said it entirely depends on how your SO deals with it. They need to be on your side (assuming you are not the one being antagonistic) and try to minimize interaction you should be fine. Also, for your part, you need avoid antagonizing things and on occasion suck up dealing with them as politely as possible (weddings, funerals…unavoidable stuff). Likewise avoid trashing them verbally even if only to your SO.
Years ago, in my late teens, I dated a girl whose parents disapproved of me on principle. Not only was I not Filipina, like her, but I was black. This was a big no-no. However, the girl and I lived in California, and her parents lived in Guam. Further, my mom liked her just fine. So it was kind of a non-factor for me, and honestly, I thought it was kind of funny. They’d never met me, and had no desire to do so, and my g/f essentially downplayed to them the fact that we were dating.
In the end, however, the pressure of her parents’ disapproval proved to be too much for HER, and was a factor in our break-up.
I don’t know how much I’d care if I was dating someone now whose parents didn’t like me, especially if I had to interact with them on a regular basis. I don’t think it would be a dealbreaker, but it would certainly bother me a lot.
It’s never been a big deal, but I’ve never been in a relationship serious enough to be considering the long term effects of her parents hating me for the rest of my life.
I honestly don’t think it would bother me that much.
I’m married, and my husband has no living parents, so it is all theoretical, but the older I get the more I think it’s something to be careful about: I’ve seen so many relationships where in-laws were a constant sore spot in an otherwise solid relationship. I think marriages can survive this, but it’s a huge red flag that needs to be carefully considered.
Not a deal-breaker, but definitely an issue. Family is very important to me. However, since I’m from a bi-cultural background, I know that there was tension between my parents’ families (mainly “my son can’t marry a nice [same religion] girl? :mad:” coming from dad’s mom), and that everyone sort of learned to grudgingly get along without causing intense drama every time the two sides of the family interact.
So basically, if it’s on the level of “I wish you could have married a nice [whatever]”, I can deal. If it’s on the level of “People like her deserve to be shot” or me having to put up with ethnic or other slurs from the parents, then it’s probably going to be an insurmountable issue. If it’s just an issue of us rubbing each other the wrong way, I would be able to deal with that too, I think.
EDIT: I should add that my ex-girlfriend did not tell her mother that we were dating, because of her mother’s homophobia. That bothered me a lot and was one of the few arguments we had during our relationship.
My parents didn’t approve of my choice. “You can do better than that,” they said. His parents didn’t approve of me. “You can do better than that,” they said. Years later we shared these memories and had a good laugh over it. Turns out neither one of us could do any better. It’s been 46 years now. We treasure each other more than ever. Both sets of parents have gone to their final rewards, whatever that may be.
As others have said, one key was that neither of us was disrespectful to the inlaws and we expected the same respect from the parents.
mrAru’s mother, sister and brother like me, however the issue is with his father and step mother. Oddly enough, when she isnt around, his father seems to get along with me, but changes when she is around. She doesn’t like me, to the extreme. As an example, 3 years after we were married, and had been together for about 6 years at this point … wildfires were running around in the San Bernadino area, so since hubby was out to sea but I was expecting a call from him next time they hit port I called to ask how they were doing … and she basically said Aruvqan Who? when she answered the phone. My real name is not overly unusual, but I had been living with or married to their son/stepson for 6 years … :dubious:
They also send sort of passive aggressive birthday and christmas presents - like dried fruit baskets and candy to a diabetic … and grapefruit to someone who is on a statin [and there had been much discussion of statins as mrAru and his father are on the same one … ]
It wouldn’t bother me much, but I’ve always been pretty darn good at defining my boundaries and speaking my mind. You don’t have to like me, I don’t care, as long as your polite, like you would be to a stranger, I can live with that.
One thing I learned in my life, and I wish I had learned it eariler was not to let others dictate my happiness.