taylortruther

[taylortruther]

scary doctor's appointment :(

[taylortruther]

Now that you have been in your new job a bit how are you liking it?? What do you do? (you can just share kind of work if you don’t feel comfortable sharing your job title itself)

i like it well enough! it's A LOT, i work for a really small company that's growing very rapidly (not a start-up) so there's tons of work. i am in that stage where i feel lost a lot of the time but i'm learning a lot. and i work with a lot of smart and motivated people, which is wonderful.

i'm in a communications role, so i'm doing comms strategy, social media, emails, website admin, etc for nonprofits basically!

[taylortruther]

Does your friend hope their future children will help her to keep connected to his family? "Anchor baby?"

this would be so strange!

[taylortruther]

A good family would not make me stay with someone I didn't like, but unacknowledged red flags with the family would make me reconsider someone I was interested in. Unacknowledged is the key word here: if a guy I liked had a dad who was not great to his mom, but the guy did not want to replicate that marriage, that I would consider that a green flag.

this is a good way to put it!

i also understand that if family is super important to someone, maybe it's a bigger factor for them. but life is long. this friend of mine is 30. she's not sure she likes this guy but believes family might sway her to keep dating him right now. but 2, 5, 10 years down the road... will she be happier with him because of the family?

[taylortruther]

i love it when y'all have many thoughts about a social issue in my life lmao

[taylortruther]

i feel like the foundation of her relationship is with her and her partner, and so i think she should see the long-term potential with him alone (then consider his family being great as a bonus)

i just feel like meeting his family shouldn’t determine the long-term potential of her partner, but should be like a separate thing if that makes sense

agree

[taylortruther]

If you like him, yes it is important to check up if you like his family too. If you don't like him, nooooooo leave him and his family alone.

i feel she likes him but not enough and she's looking for things to help her make a decision

[taylortruther]

I was so sad to lose the relationship with a future mil than I was the boyfriend. he even mentioned this when we broke up…that he thought I liked his parents more than him. (he was right!) if your friend is looking for a close knit family I could see that being a factor but the immediate relationship needs to be the focus.

i think this is so common too! not something i've personally experienced but many friends have.

[taylortruther]

I think that's your clue. there are so many people who want the comfort of family especially if they're planning on kids, and when that's missing a partner's family can be really meaningful. I'm just getting into 30's and I hear my gf's say he'd be a really good dad. being queer I too think of that in my partner. the world is so crazy we look for comfort I think

it makes sense that she'd want that! it can be really hard to accept your relationship not looking how you thought it would. but personally (and i get along with my own family, so there's that) i wouldn't use that as a major factor to decide to be with someone.

[taylortruther]

If those are your friends concerns then I don’t think meeting the family will help. If he goes along with whatever and doesn’t take initiative those problems are not solved by meeting his family lol and likely would get worse once married

i know! maybe she's hoping to see him act that way around his mom (who he has an iffy relationship with) and use it as a reason to leave

[taylortruther]

The way I look at it (and I've been married for almost 11 years now) meeting family can make or break a relationship. It's something I always liked doing early on because family can bring out different sides of a person you might not ever see. If someone I was seeing was fine with me and friends but came off more rude and abrasive with family, I might decide to end things if I was still on the fence about them. If I really liked them, I might want to get into the why of why they're less pleasant around family (maybe their family just suck/been some abuse or other trauma going on).

If I was dating someone who wanted a lot of frequent interaction with family, I would want to be able to get along with them. But if I found the family to be totally unpleasant, then it's time for me to bolt. As it is now, I like my in-laws well enough, but I don't think any of them will be my favorite people in the world. This works though, because me and husband live in a totally different part of the country from them, and see them rarely. He's also not the kind of person who rolls over for his family just because they're family. But I needed to meet his family and see him with them to know that about him, and know he was a good fit for what I wanted.

i do think this it's important to keep in mind for sure! like if someone's family or relationship with their family SUCKS, you really need to consider if that's what you want to deal with forever.

like, if my partner's family was super racist, and they were still close to them/didn't call them out, i would be out so fast.

[taylortruther]

also, the way their family is the first weekend you meet them is likely not a great reflection of how they really are. not that they'll be lying or anything, but you can't really get to know people and see different sides of them from just one weekend.

no this is so true, my partner has met my parents multiple times and over multiple holidays now and sometimes they still kinda act unlike themselves around him lmao.

they're all going to be outting their best feet forward.

[taylortruther]

Is your friend looking for like a certain financial class in a partner? Why does she not think he has long term potential?

I think meeting the family and seeing how someone interacts with their family is important but if you’re feeling meh about someone then it doesn’t really matter.

I’m curious to know what she is concerned about and what she thinks meeting the family will tell her

i honestly have no idea and she hasn't really explained it either, except that he's maybe too much of a simp? LMAO like she said he just wants to do whatever she wants and she finds it tiresome.

i think she's always wanted to be close to in-laws because she's not close to her own family.

[taylortruther]

I think it's far more important to observe how your partner speaks of their family + how they experience family dynamics + how they interact with their family rather than the family themselves? like. I always heard that "you don't marry a person you marry their family" and while that is true in some ways (as many people remain close with family or have strong familial obligations), I think it's far more important to know how your partner handles their family more than anything. It sets the tone for your interactions with their family for the future, allows you observe differences in culture/values/upbringing (ex. I am Hispanic and my partner is Slavic. You can imagine we have differences in family dynamics 😂), and if there are "difficult" family members or toxicity or something, it gives you a sense of their emotional maturity, boundary setting, etc. so....yes and no?

this is what i told her. lots of family stuff is hard, but what matters is how your partner handles it and intervenes on your behalf if needed. and it takes time and trust to uncover that. and it can change! like my partner is no contact with his mom, but if we'd been dating when he was still dealing with that, i'd be helping him through it.

[taylortruther]

i think it would only really matter if your partner was adamant that having a close relationship with their family was a non-negotiable for a long term thing

i don't think this is the case here but agreed like if you're anticipating spending every weekend together or moving in together at some point then carefully observing family dynamics is important

[taylortruther]

nuance: if you're serious about the person and really love them/see a future, meeting the family is a good way to at least preview the dynamics you're working with. But if you're already on the fence and you think meeting their family is going to sway you, um... Well, you're generally dating the person and not the family so if you're already unsure then letting the family sway you is a bit of a red flag to meeeeeee lol.

(👋 @wavesoutbeingtossed)

bestieeeee you're right imo. like you can't stay with someone just for the family.

[taylortruther]

I feel like meeting someone's family should not be what pushes you into staying with them? I guess it could sway you into a no, perhaps, if you were already leaning that way. but you can't stay with someone because their parents are nice lol. so i think trying to use it as a deciding factor is...problematic.

exactly!