Should I Take My Man Home for the Holidays?

If you’re lucky, then you’ve got a family that’s supportive of you and the decisions you make regarding your life. This includes supporting your choice of a partner. For these families, new boyfriends will be welcomed with open arms as a potential new family member someday. Belonging to a family of this type means that you don’t have to hide who you’re dating because he may not be rich enough, handsome enough or have a high enough standing in his community. You can relax about introducing your new man to your family and know that everything will be fine.

The unfortunate other side of the coin are the families that are controlling and judgmental. With these families, it doesn’t matter WHO you bring home to meet them. If he’s not a Kennedy or a Rockefeller, then you may as well not even bother.  He’ll be grilled by all members of your family, particularly by your parents, and most likely made to feel as if he should be staying in a hotel rather than in their guest bedroom that night. No one is ever going to meet the approval of these people, and that’s a truly sad state of affairs. It’s people that come from these families that take off as soon as possible and move as far away as they can get to make their lives.

In the end, it’s really up to you as to whether your new boyfriend is ready to take on your family, especially during the holidays. Now, if your family is more like the first type discussed, you’ve most likely already told them about this amazing new man in your life and they can’t wait to meet him. The holidays can be the perfect time to introduce him because everything will be warm and welcoming anyway. You also most likely don’t have to worry about how he will be treated by your family members.

On the other hand, if your family fits in mostly with the second type, you probably want to think long and hard about whether you’ll risk ruining the holidays by exposing your boyfriend to their rudeness and insanity. The thing you need to understand before making this decision is that it’s not YOUR fault that your family doesn’t know how to treat people. In fact, you should probably consider yourself lucky at having dodged that bullet of inherited madness and inhospitality. Sometimes, it just works out that way. In the middle of a family with no manners or breeding, there shines one lonely, but bright, star that manages to emerge from the midst of the darkness. If you’re that bright shining star, it’s probably best to glow with people more like you rather than return to the blackness of your familial abyss.

The holidays are meant to be a happy time and you should be able to celebrate it as such with your new man. Just because those awful people are related to you by blood doesn’t mean that you have to claim them. Spend the holidays in a happy and loving way with your partner. Who knows? Maybe HIS family is normal and you can spend the holidays with them.