Our family members usually want what’s best for us. However, there have to be limits to their micromanagement! There are times when our relatives’ concerns and advice about our dating lives become overbearing and even downright rude.
Redditor u/houseof1000plants recently went viral on the r/pettyrevenge subreddit after sharing how she gently put her grandmother in place after she’d overstepped with her remarks about whom the OP had been dating. Scroll down for the witty story in full.
Bored Panda has reached out to the author via Reddit, and we’ll update the article as soon as we hear back from her.
Though many of our relatives mean well, they sometimes have very negative things to say about the people we date
Image credits: Kampus Production / pexels (not the actual photo)
One woman recently went viral after sharing how she gently pushed back against her grandma’s comments about her dating life
Image credits: Quintin Gellar / pexels (not the actual photo)
Image credits: houseof1000plants
Dealing with family members’ disapproval can put you under a lot of pressure, even if you know what’s best for you
Image credits: MART PRODUCTION / pexels (not the actual photo)
At the end of the day, what truly matters is that we’re happy with who we’re dating. If we light up when they enter the room, if they’re kind and caring, if they support us and our dreams, if our values align—we need to keep a firm hold of them.
That being said, we’re all still social beings. We need and crave the approval of our family, friends, and neighbors. In short, we want to be respected, admired, and loved. So, we feel pressured to conform to what the rest of the social group thinks and does.
This is why it’s so difficult to go against the grain. We care about our family members. And yet, we also don’t want to lose our sense of individuality. We want to have the freedom to make our own decisions and be our own people.
To put it simply, we want to be able to date who we date without judgment. When someone makes negative comments about our dating lives, it’s hard not to take them personally. They’re an attack on such a deeply intimate part of ourselves.
Don’t get us wrong, many family members probably don’t want to be mean. They think they’re helping. They want to share all the wisdom they’ve accumulated over the decades. However, the advice they’re giving out might not be perfect.
For one, their advice can be outdated and can seem overly old-fashioned in a very modern, fast-paced world. Something that worked for your grandparents when they were young might be wrong for you.
On top of that, the comments you hear may be untactful. It really matters how we say something, not just what we say. When it comes to dating and relationships, it’s usually better to err on the side of diplomacy! At the same time, keep an open mind: you might get some genuinely decent snippets of advice in between all the criticism.
It’s essential that your relatives learn to respect your boundaries, so you need to find ways to enforce them
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As PsychCentral notes, your relatives can sometimes notice relationship red flags that you’re personally not aware of just yet. They might have issues with specific patterns of your partner’s behavior, not their background or nationality.
If you’ve had enough of these sorts of comments, it’s up to you to enforce some healthy boundaries. Start things off by sitting down and talking to your family members about this face-to-face. Explain to them how their nagging is making you feel, and ask them to stop.
It’s also helpful if you set out some ground rules for the future. Be clear about where you draw the line. Be upfront that you’d prefer not to hear overly negative comments about your dates because they’re from a different background.
If those comments persist, well… you may need to distance yourself from your critics for a while. Nobody’s saying that you need to ignore your family! But if someone’s constantly standing in the way of your happiness, you may need to decide to spend less time around them. At least temporarily.
But if you’re dealing with prejudice, you may need to take more active steps to protect yourself and your partner. At this point, you may want to consider seeing a therapist to help you make sense of everything.
Humor can sometimes help in some of these sorts of strange family situations. Telling jokes, laughing, looking for the silver lining, and turning the situation around on your folks can defuse even the tensest situations. It’s also a reminder that dating and romantic relationships should be fun, not an overly analytical analysis of compatibility.
What would you have done if you were in the story author’s shoes, dear Pandas? Have your family members ever disapproved of someone you were dating? How did you deal with the negative comments? Scroll down to the comment section to share your thoughts.
As the story went viral, the author engaged with a lot of her readers in the comments
Many internet users were extremely supportive of the way the author handled things. Here’s what they wrote online
