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.

Just came on to say brilliant dad, asking a question about his friends.

As they say, you can tell a lot about a man by the company he keeps.

It is a much better question than if you were to directly ask the boyfriend this.

It’s only been a few months, so I’d let this one go.

Dump him now, this isnt going to get better @MerryLeah.

1. BF goes to meet new 'in laws', despite knowing he'll likely be very hungover after a big night out the night before => hero

1. He feels free to be totally himself with them despite first time meeting => very brave

1. He has a beer as a hair of the dog and opens up about his choice of friends & lifestyle => he trusts them & feels he gets on well with them already.

Overall a true 'keeper' !! ;)

You are both in your early thirties? Good grief! I had assumed teens.

Oh dear op. Bad enough if he was 18, but in his thirties?.Red flag that he then blamed you for his poor conduct.

My colleague introduced her new, much younger bf to her stern humourless mother and he greeted her with "hey Mrs W, lets see five" Yours is worse - the lengthy loo visits foĺlowed by the gross brass comment. Ugh.

He sounds like he fits right in with his mates on a Saturday. The brass comment was vile. Early 30s? I'd give him a wide berth OP and tell him to give me a call once he's grown up, if at all.

Red flags are
1 lack of respect for you in not being fit for a ‘family’ commitment
2 blaming you (!)

I also find that drinking to that level and that sort of language/the attitude it conveys are incompatible with long term adult relationships, but that’s me

I thought you were going to say you were both teenagers! 😯

He sounds very immature.

He sounds awful. I wouldn't want to continue in that relationship.

My late dear Mother always encouraged me to bring my friends home because it’s good to see someone against your own background. As a teenager this seemed impossibly snobbish to me but the older and more experienced I become, the more I see the sense in it.

The really important part is that he isn’t ruefully admitting that he messed up, he is not taking responsibility and instead just blaming you for things such as not taking the opportunity to pick a different date in the first place.

stop. Have a quiet think, is that really what you want for your own life. For any children you might want at some stage

yeah, throw this one back and tell your parents that is what you have done. They will be so relieved.

Not making excuses for the dick but your parents question was very nosey and intrusive TBH ! Not a question I would ask anyone about their friends especially on first introduction.

Yeah, I tell my kids you are who you surround yourself with.

OP, are you not concerned that he likely has used/uses sex workers? Even if he doesn't, which in my opinion is unlikely, he's okay with people doing it. That would be a big deal breaker for me.

Appalling behaviour.

I have children your age, they're married, but if they weren't, and brought someone to meet me for the first time who behaved like that I'd be horrified and would be very worried for my child about why they were with the person. The first time you meet someone's parents is when you should be on your best behaviour.

His subsequent behaviour to you is dreadful and reinforces what type of person you're dealing with.

The fact his friends behave like that at their age too says a lot about the company he keeps.

You should get rid of him. He won't make you happy if it's like this only 6 months in.

I could forgive the toilet and the hangover. But what I would never forgive is the casual referral to prostitutes (almost certain he’s used them if he’s talking like this and his mates all do - and he’s not likely to swear them off now). Also that he blames you - because that will end up a massive pattern through your relationship which will grind you into the dirt. Either of those two are great reasons to dump and move on - before you do end up feeling trapped.

He has a cheek blaming you when he was the one who refused to change the date. Sorry but he's a waste of space and waste of your time, when it really counted, when you really needed to rely on him he let you down. And rather than be apologetic and mortified - like any self-respecting sincere bloke would be, he's gaslighting and blaming you. How dare he? He's shown you disrespect. It's almost like he sabotaged it deliberately. You'd think he'd be so desperate to make good impression to his partner's parents that he'd pull out all the stops to ensure it went well. But, he just didn't care enough, did he? He couldn't even be bothered. The fact he had shots even knowing how they affect him and knowing what he had the next day, shows he did not prioritise meeting your parents at all. He's just not that into you, I'm afraid. He showed you his true colours.

Also the fact that he is quite familiar with sex workers and the terms used to describe them says everything about how he sees sex and how he views women. In vino (or shots in this case) veritas. The alcohol had his real character come out. I'd bin him. He showed you his true colours and his true character, you can't go back from that. Neither can your parents. Thank your luck that he showed you his real self so early and you only wasted 6 months, not 3 years. Walk away and don't accept his requests to take him back or forgiveness. He's made a fool of you once enough.

If you offered to change the date and he said no and insisted that he'd be fine the next day, then his blaming you for the lunch being the day after his friend's birthday - not to mention the whole other string of errors on his part - does seem like a big red flag. His having stomach trouble might be excusable even if it is from the drink (your parents didn't have to know that) but regardless of the cause of it, why would he drink MORE?

Not sure about the "brass" thing; assuming since you haven't explained it that there's a shared local meaning that partner, parents, and you all understood but I believe it can refer to either a prostitute ("brass flute") or just casual one-time sex ("brass rubber" = "scrubber" or "brass nail" = "tail"). Even if it's somehow possibly not horribly misogynist, it probably didn't need to be said to your parents at all especially since it didn't answer your dad's weird question.

I don't think it's only his friends that 'haven't really grown up much', but the fact that he's blaming you for his ongoing bad judgment would really make me stop and think.

I was drunk when I first met my in-laws in the pub.

My husband met my Mum, as he stumbled out my bedroom to the bathroom, as I was still living at home.

…25 year on, i’m not sure anyone remembers either incident

My parents would have asked what 'brass' meant, so that would have been an interesting conversation.

I would be ditching his sorry arse. Blaming you for his behaviour and reference to sex workers, showing you his true colours

He comes across as crude and that is a big deal breaker for me. I had a bf once who behaved in a similar (crude/crass) way when meeting my family for the first time and I dumped him.

Dump. For the brass comment, the heavy drinking and the blaming you...it'll only get worse

Dump him.

I hope this raises a smile/

There’s a HUGE middle ground between Downtown Abbey and his behaviour….but maybe I just have higher standards 🤷‍♀️

Why wouldn't he have wanted to make a good impression? Any time my dd's have brought home new bfs they've been nervous and on their best behaviour!

But the worse issue is blaming you. He sounds immature and emotionally stunted which can border on abusive behaviour.

He's not worth working on, Op.
This guy is not a keeper.
Glad you found out and can break up.

Did your husband tell your mum that his mates like to pay for sex with ‘brasses’? If not, it’s a pretty different situation!

Drunk and nervous meeting the parents = relatively common occurrence.

Mentioning to the parents that his friendship group enjoys sex workers? So far outside of normal and not something that would come up in conversation if it wasn’t true.

Im shocked OP doesn’t actually seem bothered her boyfriend’s mates pay for sex. I would never be with a man if I knew that was something normalised in his friendship group.