My boyfriend of over a year hasn’t introduced me to his family. Should I keep waiting?

Dear Roe,

My boyfriend still hasn’t introduced me to his family. It’s been over a year – am I stupid to keep waiting? We started going out officially in April last year, with a good few months before that of exclusive dates, but we hadn’t really tied it down.

We knew he was moving abroad to study in September 2019 and we both said we’d try long distance so I busied myself with looking up flights and interesting things to do in his new city. I hoped to meet his parents before he moved, and waited for him to arrange it but the summer passed and by the time I got fed up and broached it myself, something had come up with a family operation and it wasn’t a good time.

When he came home for Christmas his time was split into ‘family, girlfriend, lads’ and nothing together. Now with the lockdown it will be July or August before it can be possible.

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I feel like I’m waiting my life away and nagging him for us to reach standard relationship milestones. I wanted him to take the initiative and introduce me first as he was the one who was moving away and I already feel like I’m compromising so much by tackling long distance. 

I have raised this issue, he’s apologised for Christmas and acknowledges it was a bad mistake, and I know in this current situation that’s all he can do. But I still feel so frustrated and resentful that I’m pushing this relationship along even though he’s the one that’s moved away. We’re in a cycle where I get upset and he apologises but I can’t let it go and am becoming bitter which I hate but can’t seem to help.

It’s obvious that meeting your boyfriend’s family and feeling like your lives are integrating is important to you, and that’s a very common desire. For many people, meeting a partner’s family is a sign that your partner is committed to you and that they take the future of your relationship seriously.

If you hold this view, it’s very easy to see not meeting your partner’s family as a sign of the opposite; to feel like your partner is holding back, or isn’t committing fully.

However, while this view is common, it is far from universal. There are also many people who simply aren’t that close to their family, and who prefer to keep their romantic and personal lives slightly removed from the view of their parents and siblings. There are also people whose family have poor boundaries or lack emotional intelligence; or who are even bigoted or abusive.

You acknowledge that your boyfriend has apologised, that he literally cannot arrange for you to meet his family right now, and yet you're still angry and resentful

For these people, not bringing their partner to meet their family is not a sign that there’s anything wrong with their romantic relationship; it’s more indicative of their desire to maintain boundaries with their family that are vital to their emotional well-being.

It doesn’t sound like these latter examples apply in your situation, but you need to acknowledge that while this can be a very important issue to you, it is not necessarily an automatic relationship milestone for everyone. Acknowledging this could help break you out of the cycle of thinking that meeting your partner’s family is such an intrinsically, universally important relationship step that your boyfriend’s failure to introduce you to his family must indicate a problem. It doesn’t.

What could be a problem is if you and your boyfriend share completely different views of what your shared life together looks like, and if these different ideas continue to cause you stress and unhappiness. I wonder whether you ever asked your boyfriend about what level of interaction with his family he is comfortable with and why; and how the dynamic between his family and past girlfriends has been; and how he envisions this dynamic changing now he lives abroad, to get some clarity on his comfort levels.

But what strikes me most about your letter is that your communication has broken down. First, you wanted him to be telepathic and know that meeting his parents was vitally important to you, so you didn’t say anything for a while – but are still angry, months later. Now, you acknowledge that your boyfriend has apologised, that he literally cannot arrange for you to meet his family right now, and yet you’re still angry and resentful.

This indicates to me that there could be a bigger issue at play here, and meeting the family has become a bit of a scapegoat. It seems like your preoccupation with meeting his family could be a projection of your insecurity about the relationship and your desire for some external validation that this relationship will last and is going somewhere.

Given that your relationship has become long-distance, this desire is understandable – but you may have to be more flexible. It’s important and telling that you reference “standard relationship milestones” because in long-distance relationships – particularly when your partner no longer lives close to his family or old friends - those milestones change.

For him, it might be more important for you to get to know the life that he’s building now; and it might be less important for him for you to meet his old friends who he now only sees at Christmas. Are you okay with creating new milestones together, or is it important for you to have the “standard” ones? I ask without any judgement – it’s okay to want the traditional milestones. But if you do, you’ll either need to accept that in a long-distance relationship, they can’t happen the moment you want them – or end this relationship for one that is more comfortable for you.

In your letter, you make other statements that imply that you are finding long-distance very difficult, saying you (and you alone) are “compromising so much” and that you are “pushing this relationship along even though he’s the one that’s moved away”. There’s a real sense of hurt and resentment here, but no details apart from the family issue to imply that your partner is otherwise not putting in effort.

Without these details, it’s unclear whether your boyfriend is failing to show you affection and appreciation and love – or if it’s simply that long-distance relationship isn’t for you. But if you want to stay together, you and your boyfriend need to get out of this useless and upsetting cycle of discussing meeting his family, and start talking about your relationship as a whole. Are you communicating effectively, do you both feel appreciated and listened to, how can you manage this uncertain time when you can’t plan visits? And importantly: is this relationship sustainable for both of you?

Finally, there is an obvious, immediate solution to the family issue: get him to arrange a Zoom call with them. It’s all the rage, don’t you know. If this doesn’t appease your worries, then you know it wasn’t all about the family to begin with.