What Should I Do if My Family Doesn’t Approve of My Lover? (Video)

Dan and Jennifer — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:09:28 +0000

If you find yourself in a situation where one or more family members don’t approve of your relationship with your partner, you’re not alone.

Often, family members won’t like a partner because they don’t think they’re good enough for you, or for other reasons.

It can be difficult trying to please everyone you care about, including your family and your partner. Does family come first?

Dear Dan and Jennifer,

My cousin and I have been closer than close for 2 years – Never letting anything get in the way. We are always there for each other. I’ve been dating my boyfriend for 4 months and she has been recently single for 2 months. I’m in a good relationship and everything is going great. We even started having sex. My cousin is totally against it and now wants me to end my relationship with him. What should I do? He’s the only guy that I have been active with and I love him… but I also believe that family comes first. How could I get my cousin to see that were no different and that she shouldn’t try to intervene in my sex life?

–YouTube Viewer

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Making Your Own Choices

If you’re a legal adult, you can make your own choices about who you want to date and when. Perhaps you don’t want to date anyone or perhaps you want to date someone your family doesn’t approve of. Either way, it’s your choice. It’s no one else’s!

However, that doesn’t make it any less difficult of a situation to deal with if your family is consistently hassling you over who you’re dating. It can be hard to have a positive, successful relationship with someone if your family always has something negative to say about your partner, but it can also be hurtful to be in disagreement with your family over who you’re dating. What do you do? Who do you choose?

You Shouldn’t Have To Choose

You shouldn’t have to choose between your family and who you want to date. Your family should love and accept you no matter what. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always happen…

5 Ways to Survive Being Around Your In-Laws This Holiday Season

Lisa Brookes Kift — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 14:38:20 +0000

Hardly anyone I know can say that their families don’t have "issues" of some kind or another. This is just part of life for most of us – navigating through our family’s overt or covert drama.

For some of us the complications in our families of origin are far more intricate and obvious than for others. For those lucky others, things are pretty peachy without too many old skeletal bones rattling in the closet. Regardless, we all deal with our own situations differently.

What if your partner has a decidedly more difficult family than your own?

What if, by default, you’re expected to engage with people who leave a sour taste in your mouth and for whom conflict is as much a part of their daily lives as your sleepy morning shuffle to the coffee pot is for you?

Many Couple’s Seek Counseling Because of "In-Law Issues"

One of the things couples seeking counseling often struggle with is just this – difficulty and frustration around navigating through the subculture of their partner’s family.

I call it a "subculture" because families operate with their own roles, rules, expectations and homeostasis. Many of us can relate to the feeling of nervous anticipation prior to a family gathering with another’s high-tension family. It can feel a little like walking on a tightrope to get to the other side – or into the car in which to make your getaway!

In this article, I will not go down the road of the decision-making around whether or not you should engage with your partner’s family. I will continue with the assumption that the decision has been made that you feel it’s necessary to learn to deal with the family in question.

Also, "difficult" will here be defined as common issues addressed in couples counseling where partners’ families are concerned, such as frequent arguments, acceptance by family, jealousy, alcohol use/abuse, etc. I am not including extremely serious issues like physical, sexual and emotional abuse as the presence of these concerns have far more implications than I’m addressing here.

Walking into the subculture of the other family requires a combination of skills, some "partner" centered and some "you" centered. Here are six tips to help survive your difficult partner’s family.

6 Steps To Help You Deal with Your Partner’s Difficult Family

1) Use Active Listening Skills

This is the first step in good communication in any situation but is particularly helpful in a potentially problematic exchange. Listen carefully to what the other has said then carefully reflect back, to assure that you heard them right and they feel understood.

If you have something to say that might illicit defensiveness by the other, begin your statement with “I feel” followed by an emotion, preferably one that will have a disarming effect.

For example, “I feel sad when I try to make conversation with you and it appears you’re ignoring me.” You can’t control what the other’s response will be but you can decrease the chance of escalation.

The idea is to listen, reflect, validate and empathize with the other.

In an ideal world…

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