When You’re Not Close To Your Family, But Your Partner Is Close To His - Page 12

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If you aren’t close to your family, it can be easy to forget that some people are close to theirs. You assume everybody rolls their eyes when they see that their mom is calling, or screams into a pillow when they hear their brother wants to stay in the guest room for a week. Some people look forward to these things? That just doesn’t compute to you. You may have spent a lot of your life thinking you’ll just wind up with friends who also don’t get along with their families. You and your friends have, in essence, saved one another from being grownup orphans; you’re each other’s family. You probably thought you’d never relate to somebody who would spend their vacation with their family…So if you come to find your new boyfriend does this, you might need to take a step back. Here’s what it’s like when your partner is close with his family, and you aren’t close with yours.

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You don’t make it home for every birthday/anniversary

Your boyfriend often assumes you’ll be going home for the weekend, because it’s your mother’s birthday or your parents’ wedding anniversary. He even makes other plans for himself, assuming you’ll be away. You have to try to explain to him that you’re not a terrible person because you don’t book a flight home for every event in your family. It’s just…not like that in your fam.

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He’ll spend vacation with his family

Sometimes your partner wants to go on vacation with his family. He wants to take his precious vacation days—the few days he has away from his annoying colleagues—and spend them with his family. That makes no sense to you. You feel like you need a vacation from your family when you get back from visiting them.

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His Sundays are for calling mom

Your lazy Sunday afternoons are often interrupted by your partner taking calls from his mom, dad, sister, brother, grandparents, and cousin. Sunday is catch up with the family day. You wind up feeling like an ungrateful child, just sampling food at the Farmer’s market on your own while your partner sits on a bench telling his mother about his week.

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Your Sundays are for you

Your partner often notices you ignore your phone when your family calls. He’s confused because it seems like a “Perfectly good time to chat with them!” as he puts it. But you’re finally relaxing and enjoying yourself, which, in your eyes, makes it the worst time to talk to them. They can interrupt you when you’re already having a bad time.

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His family’s opinion matters

He truly takes his family’s opinions into consideration when making major decisions. A few times, after he’s said, “Well, my dad thinks I should do this” you’ve accidentally blurted out, “So?” And then you remembered, “Oooh. Right. Your family’s opinion means something to you.”

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Your family’s opinion is a nuisance

You don’t even listen to your family’s opinion and skip right to the part where you’re annoyed they feel entitled to giving you their opinion. If your partner makes the mistake of saying your family has a point, steam comes out of your ears.

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He only speaks kindly about his family

Your partner speaks about his family with the utmost respect. Sometimes, you accidentally make a joke about the fact that his mom is really vain or his dad is super controlling, expecting him to laugh along with you, only to find he is offended. And now he wants to be by himself. Oops.

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You love joking about your family

Meanwhile, joking about your family is your favorite pastime. When your sister comes to town, you two can talk for an hour about your parents’ flaws, mistakes and wrongdoings in your childhood. You can laugh and laugh about how absurd your parents are. Your partner doesn’t join in. In fact, he looks at the two of you like you’re doing something wrong.

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He can’t wait to have kids

Your partner cannot wait to have kids. And why shouldn’t he feel that way? His parents are amazing role models. He has happy memories from childhood. He is who he is because of his parents and not in spite of them. They’ve really made him feel that family is a wonderful thing.

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You’re pretty worried about being a parent

You, on the other hand, are extremely hesitant about starting a family. You think it’s a miracle that you’re a functioning human being, considering the family from which you come. You’d feel pretty bad if you made the mistakes with your kids that your parents made with you. Having kids is something you’d enter into with great precaution.

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You’ll spend the holidays with his family

You have no second thoughts about spending major holidays with your partner’s family. You and your family just aren’t that close, so it’s not a big deal if you aren’t home for the holidays. In fact, it’s pretty nice for you to hang with a family that actually gets along during the holidays. His family is a nice change of pace.

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Your friends are your family

While you may not fly home for your dad’s birthday or your cousin’s wedding, you’ll be there for your friends whenever they need you. They understand you and have supported you emotionally and mentally in a way you never felt your family did. Sometimes your partner doesn’t understand the lengths to which you go for your friends.

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Your partner’s family is his family

He’ll always choose his dad’s birthday over his best friend’s—if he has to. He’ll lend his precious savings to his brother, rather than to his buddy who is down on his luck. You don’t really get it. You think that actions are stronger than blood, and your friends’ actions have always been much kinder towards you than your family has ever been.

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He thinks you’re a little b*tchy to your family

You know that sometimes your partner thinks you’re a bad daughter, or you’re cold towards your family. It’s frustrating because he couldn’t possibly understand the very complex and fragile relationship you have there. He doesn’t know that for you, being close to your family may actually be bad for you.