Meeting DD's "partner" before they have even slept together?

[EAC12]

I realise this might sound a bit personal which is why I'm asking on an anonymous forum vs irl friends as it isn't something I would usually discuss with anyone. However I have 3 adult children and this is quite odd compared to the other 2. DD has just met her "partner"'s family (she is 23) and we are due to meet him next week they have been "dating" for about 5 months now. A joke was made with her from her sister very casually and DD replied with "oh we haven't slept together yet". Obviously that is entirely up to her but it feels quite serious to be calling him a partner and meeting each others family when they aren't even at that stage yet, surely? They went to Rome last week so I think we all assumed it was quite serious. I'm unsure if I should be encouraging her to maybe wait for the official meets and maybe not portray it in the way it is? I just worry about if it doesn't work out and it's all out in the open as much as it is. AIBU?

They are serious.
They have been seeing each other for 5 months and have been on holiday together and now are meeting the family.
It doesn't mean they are about ti get married....but some people still wait till marriage to sleep together.

@DonnaBanana

Did you mean "asexual" and not "a sex shawl"?

I think you’re making the ‘meeting the family’ bit way too big a deal. It doesn’t means he’s going to be your future son in law (maybe he will, maybe he won’t)- it’s just your DD introducing you so someone that currently is important in her life. Maybe that will turn into a long term relationship, maybe it won’t- that’s not really for you to stress about (of course you would support your DD if it happened, but that’s up to her). So whether they’ve slept together or had a fight yet or been on holiday or lived together or discussed kids or whatever else- that’s all for her to navigate- just meet him and be welcoming and don’t over analyse it too much!

I even googled ‘sex shawl’ in case it was some new fangled term I hadn’t heard before… 🤦🏻‍♀️

Oh my! That didn't even occur to me. I just thought I wasn't up to date with all the latest relationship jargon.

A sex shawl! 🤣🤣

A sex shawl 💀

I too thought it was something the "younguns" say I was to scared to Google though😄

I'm confused how sex equates to how serious a relationship is.

Lol...I think "a sex shawl" is the new "chester draws". Took me a while to figure out what it could be!

After 5 months there’s nothing wrong with meeting family or going away together. It’s perfectly fine if they haven’t slept together, that doesn’t necessarily reflect the seriousness of the relationship. I slept with DP the first night we met, we obviously weren’t in a serious relationship at that point!

I know a couple who have been together 5 years, live together and everything but haven't slept together. Both early 20's but something she is still nervous about and he's respectful of. Sex isn't the be all and end all for all relationships x

@Ramalangadingdong - Exactly! And if any study/report does exist, which l doubt, nobody asked me.

What’s more, how would this work? Would someone come up to you in the street with a clipboard and say excuse me …

Or perhaps they could put questionnaires in hotel rooms?

There’s also a lot of shame associated with sex before marriage in some age groups/cultures/religions so that would affect answers given to researchers. For example my Nan would swear blind she was ‘a good girl’ when she got married, despite the fact my dad appeared full-term, less than 9 months later.

Didn't any of your children have boyfriends or girlfriends when they were teenagers, who would have met them at your house to go on/drop them off after dates sometimes (or even come in and hung out at yours for a few hours)? Have you literally never met a child's romantic partner unless it is a Serious Occasion?

Adding my voice to the chorus saying it's bonkers and weird to be thinking to this extent about their sex life! I've met parents of people I've dated casually (before and after we first slept together), and didn't meet DP's dad for about 2 years after we got together, due to circumstances. Wouldn't cross my mind to think of sex as a factor, it's more about your partner and your parents' personalities and whether there's a convenient occasion to meet.

Also, this is a sex shawl :-) Penis Lace Crochet

Oh it’s stunning! 😂

“There is PROBABLY a connection.' This is what I dislike about MN - and all social media. PPeople make stuff up then treat it as gospel. We don’t know if there is a connection between when people have sex and how long they stay together.

We knows there's a connection between whether people live together before marriage and how likely the marriage is to end in divorce. https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/meet-catch-and-keep/202101/are-couples-that-live-together-before-marriage-more-likely-to There are studies confirming this, I'm not making that up. We know that the majority of studies show there's a connection between whether a couple are devoutly religious and whether their marriage last. A statistic quoted by a government would be the most reliable on this https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2857783/

People who are devoutly religious would be less likely to shag early on or to cohabit before marriage, and that their marriages are more likely to last. A reasonable inference would be that people who wait for a period of time are likely to stand more chance of their marriage lasting.

People who are devoutly religious are less likely to find divorce acceptable…

In devout Christianity, for example, it’s only acceptable in a narrow set of circumstances. I’d not assume all marriages of devoutly religious people to be happy ones on the basis that they are still married.

Aren't you reporting to the Bureau about your sexual satisfaction?

No, silly, people have done studies on this kind of thing.

It's been a while, but if I recall correctly, they are fairly consistent in their findings on this stuff.

Do you really have no idea how research works?

They don't ask everyone, for a start.

OP would you rather your daughter was in a relationship for the sex?

Sounds like it. You're projecting your own experience on her.