If your child was in a new relationship (3-6 months) and was happy, how interested would you be?

[Carriebosse]

how Would you express this?

Interested to know as I have never had this and my parents don’t really seem to care. Boohoo, I’ll get over it, but keen to leave these behaviours here for when I ultimately have children etc etc.

I would ask how the new partner is, and depending g on the history of my DC (if they got a new parent every 3 months or if they tended to keep them for several years) I'd suggest they join us for celebration meals if they wanted to.

I'd mostly let my DC take the lead, though.

I'd be very interested and would love to hear all about it, but only if they showed an interest in telling me all about it. If they weren't coming to me to tell me all about it, I would ask a few questions, then leave it, for fear of looking too nosy!

I'm interested in everything she does. And I'm happy when she's happy. I'm interested in her boyfriend because she loves him (he's also a sweet guy in his own right and seems like a keeper).

Is your mum's disinterest only about men in your lifie or is it general?

My parents would have been completely disinterested and not even asked about such a short relationship. What do you expect them to ask?

General really! These responses are lovely, thanks

@OwwwMuuuum What? Im not suggesting they break up then, simply that that is how long they have been together for… They may get married, everything has to start somewhere…

They are probably keeping out of it and letting u dictate what they know. Have they ever been too interested on other relationships you have had or have thru bern through a difficult time with u after or durungbsny previous relationships you've had? If so this coukd be the reason, if not then maybe they just don't want to interfere? Enjoy ur new relationship.

I would be totally over interested and desperate to know all about them and meet them. But I would absolutely play it cool and let them come to me and tell me what they're happy to tell me.

Could it be the case that they're trying to play it cool? Especially if this is a first relationship?

Do you mean adult child or teenager?

Well, perhaps if you're very young and have been meeting loads of new dates, seeing who's out there, then they might not get worked up expecting your new one to be the 'one', but it's still nice to show an interest in your kids' personal lives and their happiness.

If you have had a chequered romantic history and perhaps not made the best decisions or met some unpleasant characters then I would expect parents to be a lot more circumspect about a new partner out of feeling protective.

Depends on culture too. I'm sure it goes for other backgrounds but my Muslim friends for instance, from places like Afghanistan and Pakistan, find it a bit tricky balancing partners with families who don't traditionally choose to be involved in their love lives unless marriage is on the cards.

It's not rocket science. If you love people you're interested in their lives. A lack of interest is a lack of love. We really need to stop normalising this because it's why so many of us get intp relationships with people who don't/can't nurture us. Where do you think people learn to tolerate such a deficit of love? if you thought your child was demonstrating poor life choices you'd be MORE interested, NEVER less.

I would expect my DC to keep new boy/girlfriends under wraps (as it were) until they reasonably established (exclusive/acknowledged) and that they were introduced/mentioned because they were ready for the "trial by family".

And no of course I don't mean a full on interrogation! Rather that it's someone to ask after, include in the odd event when it's convenient, and gradually include in more. I take lead from DC about how much to talk about their friends, and use same rule of thumb for romantic friends

(I've found, btw, that the girl/boyfriends were much more nervous of meeting the siblings than the parents)

Of course I would be interested and want to know absolutely everything because they are my DC and I love them

... however I would desperately try to be 'cool' and not ask too many questions and almost certainly fail.

Luckily my dc are fun and laid back (unlike so many of the easily offended adult dc on MN) so they would probably indulge me with too many details.