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R/Relationship_advice
I (M) am trying to figure out how to introduce my boyfriend (M) to my overprotective family. Advice?
Submitted two month ago by u/throwra-oldrbf
So I’m posting this on a throwaway cause one of my best friends and I think one of my brothers know my main and I need them to not know about this for now. They will find out at dinner anyways if I actually go through with letting them meet.
My boyfriend and I have been together for just about three years now. We aren’t super big on dates so we just kinda use the whole month of October as annaversy stuff. Over the years we have crossed paths a lot in personal and professional settings. We have known each other for just about ten years and started hooking up with one another 5 or 6 years ago mostly as a way of stress relief from our jobs which are very high stress. I fell in love with him a year into this and he fell for me as well and now we are very happy and live together part time (he travels a lot for work so he spends a lot of time in other countries). He is the best person in my life and has helped me in so many ways including helping me learn to stand up for myself, start therapy, and also helps with a lot of morality issues I have due to how I was raised.
Recently my family has found out I have a boyfriend. My boyfriend and I agreed to not let my family know for at least another few years due to how overprotective they are. Well at work one of my best friends accidently let slip I am taken by asking if my boyfriend was in town. This was in front of my youngest brother who does not understand the idea of secrets. SO now everyone knows. This has led to an invitation I cannot turn down for a dinner of my family and our close family friends in six weeks that they expect him to also be at. My grandfather has indicated our attendance is mandatory due to how long this has been a secret for (another thing bsf let slip because he is a motor mouth love the guy but I forget how scared he can be of my family lol).
There is a couple issues that I am going to run into at dinner. The biggest of which being my family has nearly all already met my boyfriend. This is bad because they do all hate him already and I know just because we are dating their opinions are not going to change. I am the eldest kid and a lot of my family treats me like I am very fragile due to some past issues and they will not trust my boyfriend. My dad has known my boyfriend for years longer then I have, I think they met about a decade or two earlier? They run into one another a lot and the rest of my siblings also occasionally run into him (less often then me ofc even before we got together) as we are all in similar lines of work that overlap a lot. We were going to wait to introduce them until my boyfriend retires which he is planning to do a soft retire soon and that would have made the meeting go a lot smoother but because of this he is still very much so working and it is against a lot of my families beliefs (besides one but that brother hates him for different reasons).
I am certain my grandfather already knows because he knows everything. Also possibly my childhood best friend but I think she had cameras in my house at one point so i think she caught us then because a year or bit ago she sent me a very vague text of not being an idiot and to stay safe but also that could just be because of the line of work we are in idk. My only sister may also know she has seen us at work events together before and she is very good at reading people, I may be a good actor but not enough to fool her.
Another issue of this meeting, two of my brothers (youngest and one who wouldn’t care about his work much) are pretty violent? I am worried that either of them will attempt bodily harm against my boyfriend and I am sure he can hold his own but I really would rather he did not hurt them and they did not hurt him. It would be a lot and very overwhelming to the point I do not want to deal with that headache.
As for how they have not found out, just to tell before it’s asked, I live and work in another city. All of my family works in the same city but me. It makes it easy for all of them to keep eyes on one another but harder to keep eyes on me but I do visit min once a week to see them and have family brunch. My boyfriend has never joined me for these meetings and apart of our agreement to not argue all the time he does not pick up work in my families city (he freelances) anymore. Which did make them very suspicious for awhile ngl but its been a few years and they now only keep a soft eye out for him. It is also why my childhood bestie had camera sin my house. Camera thing is very normal for my family, my middle brother also likes to put up cameras and trackers. It’s a love language lol.
So I just wanted to see if anyone had any advice about this? Just in general about how best I could soft launch who he is to my family without dinner starting or ending horribly. I cannot do anything related to a social media soft launch as my bf does not use social media and also can’t cause of his job. I also tend to stay offline and have someone else post for me if I have to post. My bf and I overall do not want to announce our relationship to the whole world either.
I am tempted to cancel but I think my siblings would call me a coward and also constantly break into my apartment to try to get a view of him which means we wouldn’t be able to live together for an amount of time until they stopped and my siblings are very very stubborn so that could be maybe like two years of not living together? Which I don’t want, I already hate when he gone for weeks for work :(
Thanks in advance for advice! I’ll try to respond to what I can :D
TLDR: Family hates my bf and doesn’t know we are dating, how do I make intro dinner go well?
Edit: I didn’t add ages cause I did not think it was important, sorry guys! I am nearly 30 and my bf is late 60s :)
Edit2: Guys I promise you I was not groomed I hated the guy until I was 22 when he finally grew on me I promise
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All 87 Comments - Sorted by best
u/extended-time: Hey OP how much older is your bf then you? Your user said older bf and says your dads known him a decade or two longer? Is that another reason they hate him so much already?
Edit to add: Ya no, your family hates him for a reason. Break up with your boyfriend OP and take the dinner to explain to your family you were groomed holy shit
↳ u/fishin-for-u: I had the same thought, why would he not mention ages otherwise?
↳ Open 16 other comments
u/bird-fan: Maybe it would be best to have a convo with ur dad before the dinner so he isn’t surprised and can keep ur brother in line? Also little concerning your brother would be willing to stab someone??? And that’s me trying to ignore the fact your family casually stalks one another
↳ u/throwra-oldrbf: My brother was raised in a cult for the first 10 years of his life :( makes him have bad reactions to stuff but we are working on it as a family :D
↳ u/bird-fan: Op???? What????
↳ Open 26 other comments
u/Oracle: … Hey answer my texts idiot or I’m shutting your phone down from a back enterance
↳ u/gotham-gurrrlll: ORACLE???????
↳ Open 9 other comments
↳ u/throwra-oldrbf: :( ok
u/vain-mirror: This sounds like a super unhealthy dynamic both between you and your bf and also you and your whole family, op. I really would suggest a clean break or possibly group therapy because it is worrying a lot of what you wrote
u/leviosaaahhhhhhh: Hey OP why did you make it seem like if you post online everyone is going to know? Are u both famous?
↳ Open 3 other comments
u/chiccken-diinneerr: Lmao ‘is away a lot’ ur bf is so cheating on you dude
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