Odd behaviour from boyfriends family

[Headofthehive55]

I am asking on behalf of my daughter, age 20. She has a lovely BF, age 19. Been with him nearly a year, although were best friends for about 18 months before that. At different unis, but manage to see each other in term time quite a fair bit as they do a shared hobby. They are very close and clearly happy together.

We live close to his parents, walkable distance.

He's been often to our house, stayed for tea, days out in the holidays.
However she is ignored? By his parents. No birthday card, Christmas card etc. In fact she has not been invited there at all this holiday. He is clearly annoyed by this as he wanted them to invite her for dinner one day. He has been told she can never come for dinner as she isn't family! Nor was he allowed to bring her on a walk with them as it was a family walk!

Now this seems odd to me. I have never experienced this sort of thing before, my own mil was very welcoming to me.

AIBU to think they might make a bit of an effort? Has anyone else experienced this? How did you deal with it?

What was the film?

Yes unfortunately mabey op dd and her boyfriend will never change them, but you do not have to accept their behaviour. I would have as little to do with them as possible, and be thankful my parents are not like this.

That's a good idea, original mabey invite them out and pay on neutural territory, if they are still rude, than there is not much you can do, but boyfriend keep calling them out everytime they are rude to girlfriend.

Totally agree with all your post original sinner

What were the circumstances of the chucking-out-during-film?
was it mid afternoon, or was it a case of 'we'll be back at 11 and ready for bed so GF will need to go home then' and they just left it too late to start the DVD to fit in with that?

If that had happened to me I would have seriously considered ending the relationship. How anyone can treat a guest in their house that way is beyond me. It is similar to the 'how do they treat a waiter' test. I hope that the BF does stand up to them, but I wouldn't want the lifetime of grief that will go with it.

As for the family/blood nonsense. The parents are not blood related so to marginalise a daughter/son in law for that reason, is clearly bonkers.

Hmm, Head's DD.

My PIL were very unwelcoming to me. I was initially not invited to our first Christmas together, even though we were living together. As my family are in Australia, this would have meant I would be on my own. They didn't care, until DH made it clear that if I didn't go, neither did he.

DH and I have been together for 20 odd years, and married for nearly 17. I do love him, but I think if I had my time again, I would have gone for the easier option of PIL who accepted me into their family.

As you get older, your wider family tends to become more important. If your wider family is troublesome, then this can be very difficult. We are very low contact with PIL, but they manage to poison our lives, even so.

(Of course, you are young, and have lots of time ahead of you to decide whether he is "the one".)

Many a time have my dh, then boyfriend put on a film in the evening for us, and his parents have gone to bed and left us to it. No excuse for rudeness, and like TPai has said, you do not treat a guest like that! Both my dh and my families are from the Med, and we find some of the English views very odd indeed, very English, even though I was born and brought up in the UK. Reading some of the replies on here, confirms that!

My dad is Anglo Saxon English, I can imagine, his Aunt and Brother to be like that, dad would be 89, so from a much older generation, not parents of a teenager!

But there is no way in hell my dad would treat a guest like that in his home, he would probably have grilled the poor boy, shown a lot of generosity. He died when I was 10, thank goodness dh did not get the grilling .

I agree that the chucking outmid film was odd, butthe other stuff-meh!

But it probably is Catch22 in that the more he pushes, the more they will dislike Op's daughter.

I do get the family time if they feel they don't see him much & of course they perhaps think that he sees her often enough at yours so there's no need for her to be at his!

But they could invite her over for a blooming cup of tea for a couple of hours fgs! I personally don't think they approve, and hope that it fizzles out!

Well you would think so, so it does sound as if they don't want to show any approval in any way.

I think there is a lot of looking at this relationship in the context of a much older couple (20s/30s). So some advice I think is a little off kilter.

It's a good point about the film. It really depends what time you were watching it and what the boyfriend had agreed to prior to them going out. You can imagine if he had agreed to do XYZ when his parents came home and they are met with I just want to watch this 3 hour epic first/I'll do it in a minute/ or it was late at night. They might not have been impressed.

Also I hate to agree but if he's at a different uni there may be circumstances that you are not aware of going on. Like I said before if he's fallen out with his parents there might be bigger issues at play here.

Bottom line is, at this stage you cannot force them to accept you. Trying to do that will only make things worse.

My advice would be to just carry on as you are and see what develops over time. You may have to lower your expectations.

You're a very long way off having them as ILs so don't worry too much about that at this stage.

Just be you're charming graceful self and see what happens

Thank you ladies, it's head here, for all your comments.

I wanted her to be able to see a wider view, which I cannot provide myself and I didn't want her to just think our way is the correct one as there is no right or wrong here. It's helped her feel much less hurt, as clearly it's not uncommon to behave in this way.

The film thing was approx ten pm I believe, and he disregards his parents by leaving the house when they say he can't. Not exactly major rebellion I don't think!

I have no idea if he is the one, but I can't see how being unfriendly would help in the long term if he is. Besides, we had him quite often here when he was just friends with her. I do think however you never know what happens in life, I see many people's life cut short so I do tend to live quite a lot for the now.

I don't think the family Christmas thing is weird nor the cards situation. I don't know many parents sending their teenager's friends Christmas and birthday cards, the card from the teenager is normally enough. He may be 19 but if he lives at home out of term time, then the parents are completely entitled to have 'family time' in their own home if they want it, particularly on special occasions.

Never being invited for dinner is odd if that is the forever position. But you regularly read on MN that some introvert people hate having guests and won't even answer the door if arrangements are not in place in advance and lots of posters are supportive of their position. If the BF made arrangements with the parents at least a week or two or even a month in advance, would that make any difference?

The film thing seems odd on the surface of it too. However if there's any backstory e.g. the BF had kicked off earlier in the day and they'd all had a row, it may not be so weird in context of the day's events.

It sounds like the family dynamic is changing internally and there's probably a lot more backstory there. From the fairly limited information, I am not certain that your DD should be personalising some of the points raised - it could be happening to any girlfriend or friend on the scene at this time if there's 'family only' turmoil. Is she being treated any different to his other friends?

If the parents really are 'toxic', there would be nothing the son can do to change them (as pages upon pages of the stately home thread will testify) but they risk him being NC in the future. It would hardly be his fault that his parents have issues and at 19 and living at home intermittently, he's not currently in a position to set up his own permanent home when he's still a student.

It would seem a shame for DD to break up with her BF over the points raised, when you say he is trying to deal with things with his family. Their issues may be with their son and your DD just happens to be on the scene at the moment. If they are like this with all friends, then maybe just give them a wide berth for now, while the BF gets on with sorting things out with his family.

I used to work with a chap whose parents treated his girlfriend like this. It was purely because they were worried that he wouldn't work towards the goals he had always had (joining the RAF) because she was distracting him or didn't want him to. In the end he did prioritise her over joining the forces and didn't join while they were together. When they finished he joined immediately and was very happy with his choice. I did wonder if there were two sides to the story tbh.

It seems that they view him as a child still, and so this relationship doesn't matter because it's a childhood dating, not grown ups. That he's still taking funding from them, cements that view whereas if he was working at 19, it would be harder for them to still see him as a child (that's not to suggest he should stop doing that, but there are downsides to being dependent on your parents).

When he graduates, he'll probably vote with his feet, even if he doesn't stay with your DD.

I would take the higher ground, invite them all over to you for dinner. They might decline, but you've then asked. If they accept, you might make things easier if they can see your DD in your family setting, but also their DS at yours.

What time was it that they asked her to leave mid-film?
Are they civil / cordial when she encounters them or nasty?

Like others my extended family is not keen on early romances, preferring instead that young adults focus on education, career etc before settling down. So we never treat boyfriend/ girlfriend as de facto family members or include them in family gatherings, gift exchanges or otherwise treat as pseudo spouses. Esp not in college years.

All families are different and neither route is wrong per se.

God I wouldn't be inviting them all over for a meal, not in a million years. I've known too many parents get overly invested with their DCs bfs/gfs' parents and it always ends in tears.

It all comes down to communication.
I have similar age DC and we agreed, beforehand, that certain days over Christmas were family days (definition: requires DC's attendance, but does not exclude gf/bf). On the other days, they were free agents to do whatever took their fancy - the only thing I requested was that I was kept vaguely informed so I knew if I was feeding them or not.
His parents need to speak to him to arrange mutually agreeable terms or else he will spend more and more time at gf's and never go home.

Chin up OP's DD. It's all part of growing up.

My parents were just like this and I've found reading this thread quite upsetting with comments like 'spineless manchild' being tossed around.

Like my parents this all just sounds like a control issue. I don't think it's normal at his age having to ask for permission to do things. Control does extend to who you are friends with and your relationships. My parents did the same to me, in fact on more than one occasion I had perfectly nice, respectable friends thrown out of my house if I sneaked them over for a few hours but they came back unexpectedly. They used to call them reprobates and scumbags. They weren't the people they kicked out include people who are now a PhD, a doctor and an HR director.

I think he is doing exactly the right thing in putting up with it for a few more years until he is properly independent. I 'stood up' to my parents. The result was being kicked out, a period of homelessness, having to abandon my education and being stuck in a series of shitty low paid dead end jobs for quite some time.

I think he's absolutely sensible not to rock the boat too much for the next two years. At his age he would really be silly to gamble his education and security for the sake of a relationship which may not last. He doesn't sound like a coward, just pragmatic and sensible. And if they are going down the 'my house, my rules' path there is very, very little he can do.

I would suggest if DD really is serious about him, she needs to accept this is temporary and he really doesn't have much choice and support him.

there's a middle way though -
It sounds as though bf is standing up to the p a bit more - as long as there is continued evidence of that without a falling out, that's ok. Unless his parents are not reasonable they won't cut him off for some standing up for himself, they might even realise he's right. Still not ideal for your dd though - I wish I was close to my ILs because it's much nicer for any eventual dc but that's a long way off most likely.

I went out with a lad whose mum was like this when I was 18.

His mum refused to even acknowledge my presence. She was truly bonkers.

He was an only child and I think she hated seeing him grow up. He'd take me to their house but as soon as she saw me she'd tell him to go back out and come back later when he was on his own.

I made the mistake of going round when she was out once, we came down from his room just as she walked through the door. She went bonkers, shouting and wailing, still ignoring me, her anger was all aimed at my bf.

We weren't together long unsurprisingly.

He now lives the other side of the country.

There are a lot of tough keyboard warrior types on this thread.

I had a dad like this - and btw v interesting to note that several posts say things like "oooh his mum can't let go" - lovely assumption there! Who says it's the mum?

It is very hard to stand up to this behaviour when you have had two decades of conditioning. I would also like to know if this bf is an only child or the eldest. I am the eldest and you get used to accepting, deflecting, enabling this type of behaviour to avoid the hideous scenes that can result from defiance.

Also easy to say he is an adult. Well, at 19 and still relying on his parents to fund his education, that's not so clear cut. Lots and lots of 19 yos are not fully functioning adults yet, whatever the legal position.

That said, rude as his parents may be, there may be another side. My mum has become increasingly tetchy about DSis4 partner staying over. She is not controlling but she found DSis was happy to doss about at home during uni holidays, not get a job, not help at home, be rude etc. so she didn't feel like hosting her bf as well. Maybe if the bf is being rude to his parenst they feel like they are not going to indulge him?