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.

He is friends with people who regularly plan a weekend prostitute? And this rings no alarm bells for you?

@MerryLeah

1. Meeting your parents should have been the priority that weekend, and he should have restricted his drinking - if he cared and was respectful
2. Referring to women as brasses in front of your parents is disrespectful and shows he doesn’t really care about women in general. It’s a misogynistic term, but then to use that term when he should have been on best behaviour??
3. He is now blaming you?? Please end this relationship. Your parents know best and don’t want to see you hurt. He doesn’t give a shit about hurting your feelings.

With a lot of luck your parents are like many MNers and didn't get the reference.

As a parent, I would think he had quite a long way to come back. Owning his own lack of judgement and manners would be a good start. However, also as a parent to a single (and dating) DD, we have met quite a few boyfriends over the years and none have ever rectified a bad first impression.

Throw this one back, OP!

early 20’s - ok, lack of maturity, sure.

early 30’s - ffs! Pathetic. Man up. Why is he getting steaming drunk anyway. It’s not 1995.

‘when people show you who they are, believe them’ x

My STBH inadvertently used the C word the first time he met my mother. I've never heard him use it before or since in ten years! It's a shame she died shortly after and never got the chase to see how lovely he actually is!

Ew. I would be rethinking the relationship. And also if I were your parents it would take a lot for him to come back from this for me.

I mean the bad stomach I have nothing but sympathy for, it happens to the best of us. But the talking about his friends and stuff is pretty icky.

Do you see yourself having a long term future with this man?

Do NOT stay with this guy. Gross. He didn't give a fu*k about meeting your parents. And to blame you...icing on the disgusting cake.

He sounds like a total loser. Your parents will rightly be so disappointed that their daughter has lowered herself to someone so vile. I’d be mortified and ashamed if it were me, goes without saying the relationship with be over with. But not just because he said those things to your parents. Because he said them at all. The fact your parents were there makes it more embarrassing of course, but if you end it with him they’ll just be glad you saw the light and will laugh about him someday. It’s only if you stay with this loser that they will think badly of you as well as him.

It sounds like you took him to Downton Abbey, did other red flags include giving his gloves to the driver instead of the butler?

I don't think you need Downton Abbey level of standards to know not to pratt on about prostitutes.

If a new boyfriend told my parents the first time they met him his friends went out on a Saturday for beer, curry and a prostitute when he'd been out with them the night before he'd not be my boyfriend any longer.. I wouldn't want a boyfriend who hung around with guys like that and I wouldn't want one who gave that first impression to my parents.

This is him on his best behaviour, OP. If he couldn’t be bothered to put the effort in when meeting your parents for the first time, he’s either dim or doesn’t care about you that much.

You never know, you might all laugh at it one day.

Has no one ever said anything and then thought wtf did I say that!

Blaming you is not good.

Nice blokes who don’t already casually talk about using sex workers don’t accidentally say ‘brass’ randomly. They use the word frequently enough that it slips out in conversations even in front of strangers.

At best OP he has friends who pay for sex. Thats thought of as fine in his friendship group. Doesn’t that bother you?

Meeting the potential in laws for the first time is one of the scariest things.

You prepare for it wearing suitable clothes, having thought about things to say etc.

He’s done none of that. He turned up half cut gibbering a load of crap.

Nope. Dump and move on. He’s the type that’ll be at the pub while youre in labour or complaining that as youre off work sick this week you should do all the hoovering and dishes etc as youre in anyway…. And gaslight you when you say something he doesn't like. He’s started already.

Nope. You can do better. Byee

I could put the rest down to nerves but the brass comment is hard to get past.

I knew my ILs for 20 years before they died, and never once needed to raise the topic of sex workers in the many, many conversations we had over the years.

He’s a liability, OP.

I'm glad someone else has said this. All the way through I was thinking "you can do way better than this!".
Is he 18 and getting drunk for the first time??

He sounds gross.

Oh. Dear. If my daughter bought home a person this disrespectful I would not hesitate to tell her. He ruined it.
Find a better model, or, just stay single. Raise your bar; op!

This.

I want to say it really sucks and i would be furious if i was in your shoes.
now i wonder if he was very anxious about it all? And the heavy drinking/bravado about football and sex workers was just because he felt quite small and vulnerable.
i am not saying this to excusee him but it could be understood like tbis and could be part of a conversation with him too.

What’s a brass !

I don't think anyone who doesn't/hasn't used sex workers would refer to them as brasses. I'd put this one in the bin for a number of reasons, OP.

If he took responsibility for his own behaviour, instead of getting defensive and blaming you, I might have some sympathy. A future with a man who blames you for his mistakes is best avoided.