Boyfriend made awful first impression with my parents and blames me

[MerryLeah]

My Boyfriend met my parents for the first time yesterday and it was a disaster.

This was arranged weeks ago and at the time, I said to him that as he had a planned day out for a friends birthday the day before, that we could decline and find another date. He was absolutely adamant he’d feel fine on the Sunday and that he wouldn’t be drinking heavily, even saying this would give him an excuse to be home early.

Fast forward to Saturday, he gets home to mine (don’t live together but he was staying here) later than he says (just gone midnight) and is steaming drunk, but still tells me he will be fine the next day and ‘hangovers don’t affect’ him.

We were meeting my parents at their house for a roast and turned up as agreed mid-afternoon. My boyfriend uses the loo twice in the first 30/40 minutes (for 5+ minutes each time) and again in the middle of eating lunch. He said to me his stomach was playing up from the day before.

He initially declined any alcohol when my parents offered but eventually said he would have some, and this was just as if he was topping up as after a couple of bottles of beer he perked right up but wasn’t making a lot of sense in terms of what he was saying.

My Dad asked him about his friends and what sort of things they do for a living. He said that some of them haven’t really grown up much and still live for the weekend. He worded this really inappropriately ‘their Saturday is a day out in town for a few beers, football, a curry and a brass’. I could tell from the look on my parents faces they were really taken aback.

When we got home I told him that I felt he let me down and he was really defensive and said it was a stupid choice of date given he had a friends birthday the day before. I told him he didn’t have to go on this date and even if he said on the morning he was unwell, we could have cancelled.

AIBU thinking this is all on him? I don’t know what more I could have done. To pre-empt some questions, we are coming up to 5/6 months together and we’ve not had any issues up to this point.

She says he blamed her for choosing that date, even though she offered alternatives.

They would be happy for you to date a guy that tells you, and them, that his mates pay to have sex with prostitutes? That’s a pretty low bar tbh.

Raise your bar, OP. If he can't know his drink limit at his age, he's never going to. This is going to be every occasion you attend at a weekend because he's got steaming drunk the night before.

I thought you were going to say he's 19/20 and I was still going to say LBT but early 30s???? That's crazy!

My parents aren't the types to talk about prostitutes etc, but they'd assume that phrase (not something I had heard of!) was said in nerves or in jest.

Where in her comments does it say he said it was all her fault? I'm assuming she has had that comment deleted or maybe my screen just isn't showing that update.

Oh yeah, they mut be right stuffy old gits to not find their DDs new BF highly amusing for bringing up his mates using prostitutes the first time they meet him.

Please 🙄

Sounds like he’s been watching too much Peaky Blinders

Or he is actually from 1911

He told YOUR PARENTS that his friends use sex workers. It's highly likely that he does too. Please throw this one back. You'd be in for a lifetime of misery.

No - they would not. However, they would assume he was nervous. I've never heard (and I;m certain they won't have) heard of the word brass so they'd just think he was being nervous to use it. I'm assuming you must be from a pretty rough area to know what it even means?

Have you spoken to your parents since? Could it have been due to nerves that he blurted out something so stupid?

Have you had any feedback from parents?

In my early 30s I knew I wanted a baby and he seems worryingly surprised by very predictable events.

If I was in my esrly 20s or didn't want a baby and was happy to just drift along and enjoy the relationship, I'd overlook it and hope it was one day a funny story.

So it depends on you and where you want your life to go as to how big of a deal it is.

I'd get rid OP. Who goes to someone else's home when they have diarrhoea FFS?

He was so drunk the night before he was still drunk the next day in the middle of the afternoon and got totally pissed again when offered a couple of beers. I couldn't be around someone with this type of attitude towards alcohol. Especially after he'd made promises about not drinking much. This is someone who'll leave all parenting to you because he's either pissed or hungover on weekends.

Your dad is shrewd. You can tell a lot about a person from the company they keep. He was sussing out what circles your boyfriend moves in. People generally hang out with others like themselves. Your boyfriend hangs out with wasters because he's a waster.

He's also a huge mysoginist. That's why he spoke about women the way he did in front of you all. He thinks it's ok to speak about women in this way. "A brass" isn't young person's slang, your parents will have known what it meant.

He's truly awful. That's without trying to make you responsible for his behaviour! Which is a massive red flag. His response to being pulled up on his behaviour is to twist it round and say it's your fault. Even if you'd done as he accused you of and insisted on keeping the same date and disagreed with him backing out from the meetup - it still wouldn't have been your fault he behaved like an arse.

Don't doubt yourself, just open your eyes and really look at him. It doesn't matter that there's no problems upto now. There's a problem now and it's a big one. Have higher standards for yourself and let it be a deal breaker for you. Otherwise you'll be back on these boards repeatedly, asking opinions on the latest dickhead thing he's done and questioning whether your totally normal response is unreasonable.

Point one - immature.

Point two - nice bit of abusive behaviour by turning it on you instead of apologising.

I’m assuming this is a relatively new relationship if he’s meeting them for the first time. I’d have a long, serious think about whether you continue with this.

Are you living in the 1980s? I don't know anyone thats uses 'brass anymore...

Oof that didn't go well did it! Why did your dad want to know what his friends did for a living though?

@Safaribar would your parents be happy about that behaviour from a 30yo? My DS has just met family of new girlfriend, he is uni age. I would be embarrassed if he had turned up like that at his current age, never mind 30.

Throw this one back - first time meeting your parents and he made very little effort and then blamed you. At his age it would give me the ick. Bin him.

What an odd reply. I’m from a pretty middle class area but am nearly 40, lived in cities as well as suburbs, have always mixed with people from many different backgrounds (and ages) and have also watched lots of different types of tv / movies over the years 🤷🏻‍♀️

@Safaribar

Why would you assume he’s using it because he’s nervous rather than just because it’s a word he uses normally? The latter makes much more sense.

I'm surprised at all the posters who haven't heard of "brass". I'm thinking you're actually all too young/posh, it's not a gen-z thing. I wasn't sure if it meant prostitute or one night stand, but it's definitely a derogatory term for a woman that reduces her to a sex object. A term used by middle aged men when I was a teen in the 90s, so it's not new.

The "brass" comment isn't acceptable at any age.

Football, curry and a brass... sorrh wtaf. That is just a totaly weird thing to say.
I would be reconsidering the relationship with someone whoes whole friendship group does this every sunday.

I'm trying to think why if you were nervous the first thing you think of to say is that your mates use prostitutes!