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?

You’re massively overthinking this.

They’ve been together 5 months and have been on holiday together, so it sounds like it’s becoming serious.

Its different if she’d only met him once and then wanted you to meet him.

You meeting him does not cause any issues if they break up.

Them not having sex is completely irrelevant.
Many people choose to wait until they are married or they are having sex, she may have a medical or personal reason for waiting or she was just joking and they are having sex.

I don't understand why you think it would be awkward if they break up after you've met him? Especially since you assume the lack of sex means they're not serious. Why?

Surely in that case she just says 'oh, Tom & I broke up, I'm a bit sad but it's for the best' and you say 'oh that's a shame love, do you need a hug / cuppa?'

Job done. End of story unless she needs more support.

How do you even know they haven't had sex anyway?
This is such an odd post.

Perhaps they believe that True Love Waits.

Neither of my brothers lived with or slept with their wives until marriage. I think it’s more and more common than we think it is. They’re early thirties.

This is bonkers! Personally, I find the idea of having sex very early in a relationship (lots of threads on here about meeting someone, chatting on line then having sex almost immediately) pretty problematic. The concept of worrying about someone waiting too long is utterly bizarre. IMHO. There is lots to a relationship besides sex.

You claim you are not interested in your DDs sex life yet here you are discussing it on Mumsnet. Plus you appear to have had a discussion with your other DCs about how you only know if you are serious about someone if you have had sex with them. Back off and have a think about why this matters to you so much instead. This thread has given me the ick

And I met lots of my children's girlfriends and boyfriends. I have no idea mostly which ones they'd had sec with!

You are complicating this deliberately, no idea why but it's weird

It’s really nothing to do with you OP. Just go with the flow.

My only slight concern would be that there isn't enough attraction between them ….. they tick all the boxes in other ways but not necessarily physical.

People do things differently and there's huge variation. It's annoying to impose your norms on other people. This applies to when a couple first have sex and it also applies to when they introduce new partners to their families. The latter depends on what their relationships with their families are like, mostly - and there's huge variance in this, from "close and in touch daily" to "barely speaking" - so there's no hard and fast rules. The former is entirely the couple's own choice and also no hard and fast rules.

This is such a non situation. Your projecting plus conflating sex and seriousness which is ridiculous. Your dd sounds more mature than you.

why not just be pleased that she isn't shagging everyone she has a fist date with?

what are you expecting of "official meets" FFS? an interrogation about his/her sexual prowess?

Gosh, my mum would have been thrilled to have met my boyfriends before I had slept with the 😂 Some of them she never met at all .

Your thinking is very very strange OP. Just meet this person like any other, with an open mind.

Why are you discussing your daughter's private and personal life with online strangers? Your dd has her own life and whether she has sex with her boyfriend or not is her business not yours I were your dd I wouldn't tell you anything and if I found out you'd been discussing my sex life online I'd get the hell away from you.

Maybe he's a Christian? Would you like to wait until after they're wed to meet him?

My partner and I waited, because he believed strongly. Didn't make us any less serious or in love

Unless she just said she hasn't slept with him cause you were in the room and she was embarrassed?

It's as simple as being none of your business and staying out of it. They're grown ups and if it all goes to shit, you're only job is to be there for your daughter.

That's not the issue anyway.

Well, what is the issue? None of us can understand why there is an issue at all!

your 🙄

Our DC have wheeled in any number of boyfriends/girlfriends over the years. Mostly all charming. Our home has always been "open" and never the need to be introduced to parents.

I was tempted to reply with just "eh?". For the first time. Not often am I almost rendered speechless.

It sounds to me as if she was making a joke to her sister.
A dead pan joke?
Could you see her face when she said it?
Did she wink at her sister in a pretend ‘not in front of the parents’ way?

Or… is he religious in some way? Ask if there are any dietary requirements…

YABU and a bit weird!

Just meet the guy. And try not to say anything that will embarrass your daughter.

OP you really are not making any sense at all.

Some people regard sex as being an important relationship milestone and a marker of the relationship being serious which is why they choose to wait (in some cases until marriage). These people will usually meet each other's families long before they have sex.

Other people think having had sex or not is no indication of whether a relationship is serious or long term. These people will usually have sex long before they start thinking about meeting each other's families.

You seem to be muddling the two ideas here.

You seem to think that sex is an important relationship milestone and that your daughter's relationship can't possibly be serious until they've had sex, and simultaneously think that meeting your partner's family is an important relationship milestone and almost tantamount to an engagement, making it much more difficult if you then later break up. If you think both having sex and meeting the family are important milestones indicating that the relationship is serious, fine, but one of those two things has to come first.

I've never waited five months in a relationship before having sex personally, but I would have thought that statistically, relationships where the couple didn't have sex right at the beginning are probably more likely to last the distance, simply because they waited until the relationship was already serious before having sex, rather than having sex and waiting to see if the relationship became serious.

Finally, if I could go back and tell my 17 year old self anything, it would be that how well you get on with each other's families is a far greater measure of compatibility than your sex life. Perhaps your daughter's boyfriend wants to check that her family is one he wouldn't mind joining before he gets seriously involved with her. Don't screw it up for them by being weird.

I would say after being together for 5 months it seems fairly stable and serious. I wouldn’t care if they had had sex or not and would actually be pleased they were committed to waiting until it is right for both of them. Maybe it is for religious reasons from his side?