This topic hits close to home for me, I made many mistakes when I was younger when it came to my girlfriends and how I was viewed by parents. I think it’s especially common for young guys who are naturally “alpha males” to experience this problem. It’s hard to be different from who you are around someone’s parents. This is a common rookie mistake for young guys and I know I made it way too often.
I’m writing this to help guys out who are in this situation and to help guys avoid it in the future. There’s a lot of lessons to be learned here about impressing your girlfriends Family so you don’t need to experience the difficulties that many young men go through. This question is in online forums around the world, it happens every day and because of my personal experiences when I was a young guy, I’ve been there myself and it will probably be one of my favorite questions to answer.
This article will be two fold and will help out young guys with two major topics. Most of this advice will be best served before you get into a relationship so you never get to the “my girlfriend’s parent’s hate me” part of things. Obviously if you’re following the advice here, it will be very difficult for them to hate you. If they already dislike you there’s always the opportunity to change things around and start doing things the right way. This is a very difficult topic to discuss because, as you’re about to read, there’s no gurantee’s with anything. Much of the dislike you experience will involve things you can do nothing about that are completely of your control..
There are Always Reasons you Can’t Control
I want to start with this for a very important reason, there are things that your girlfriends families may hate that you can’t do anything about. I can help you impress your girlfriends family and I can help give you tips as to not give them a valid reason to dislike you, but there are things that I can’t change. For example, if the girl your with is of a particular faith or race and her family wants her with that same faith or race, I’m sorry but I can’t do anything for you.
We live in a society where to many people these things are important. What color a child will be, what religion they will follow, what last name they will have. I completely understand these mindsets as well, the only problem is when a child doesn’t have that same conservative mentality and falls in love with someone who doesn’t fit the “perfect model” of what they want.
When I apologize here I legitimately mean it. I wish I could help in these situations, but there is no advice to give. If someone is closed minded there is nothing you can do. You can deal with it and be the best man you can be, but sometimes it will never be enough. Even if you end up married and you have a good woman who weather’s the storm, there’s a chance that a certain level of animosity will always be there. To be fair, it can also go away.
I have no doubt that people’s minds can be changed, but I will not sit here and pretend that it is commonplace. Sometimes people are set in stone when it comes to what they think is best and there is nothing you can do to change them. Logic and love does not enter into the picture when someone will stay rigid on a particular belief, so again, there is no advice I can give here other than to stay strong if you wish to stay with the woman you are with. There is no doubt it can and will be a bumpy road and I wish you all the best on that journey.
The Other Reasons You Can’t Control
I’m going to give the best advice I can here in this article and much if it will be extremely useful when you get older. This is the perfect advice for 20+ year olds, but I know a lot of younger people are the one’s who actually need and look for this kind of advice. It will definitely help you, but at the same time something interesting comes into play when you’re younger.
Similar to above where I mention religion and race, sometimes it is nearly impossible to date a woman who has not done what her family wants her to do. Parents have a vision for what they think should be going on with a child. There is no way a guy fits into that picture, especially for girls younger than 20. You’re facing an uphill battle, not an impossible battle to win, but it is most definitely uphill. Know this in advance if you have legitimately done everything I discuss in this piece.
There are times where age alone can impact your relationship. I want to help you with the best advice I can give, but in many situations you won’t be a part of what a family envisioned when you’re young. There’s nothing you can do about this, but again, be the best you can be and understand you have an uphill battle.
Accept That you Need to be Fake to Your Girlfriends Parents
This is the most important thing that I am going to mention here. This is where many young guys get caught in a rookie mistake. Young badasses feel like they need to be themselves at all times and young average guys feel like they need to be honest and open. Nope. Both are wrong. At no point is your girlfriends family who you need to be open, honest, or yourself with. At your girlfriends house and when you speak to your girlfriends parents you are going to be a silent bitch.
I’m not kidding you. I don’t care if it destroys you to be fake, you must if you want everything to work. Being an alpha male will work with your girlfriend, but it won’t work with her family. I know, this is baffling, how can you be a badass all the time then be a fake kiss ass around her family? The answer is simple, your girlfriend wants a warrior and her parents want a provider. It’s best to give the appearance that each one wants, having etiquette is important.
This is where I can give advice from personal experiences the best. I was the kind of guy who refused to be fake. Who was going to say what I wanted to say and give my opinion, I have a right to, this is America. I can say what I feel. There was never a time I was more wrong about an opinion. I wasn’t tough and I had no freedom to say what I wanted, it only caused me pain.
I admit, looking back there’s a very very small part of me that is proud of myself for being true to myself, but then there’s the other 99% where I feel ridiculous even feeling the need to be “real” in front of anyone’s family. They never mattered, so being fake to them shouldn’t have mattered to me. I won the battle of being myself, but lost the war of being able to be with girls I cared about. Don’t lose that war, it’s not worth it, I can tell you with complete honesty that any happiness you feel for being yourself won’t compare to the feelings of losing someone because of it.
You will lose many women and won’t be able to maintain relationships if you have this attitude around a girls family. You can’t care about her family, you need to smile and be as fake as you can be. Give politically correct answers to opinions questions, you’re going to be a politician around your girlfriends family, that’s how it needs to be. When I was younger I had everything going for me, I had a damn good job (especially for my age), and majored in a degree that had the promise of $80K+ right out of school. My inability to be fake to my girlfriends families made all of that irrelevant, which might seem weird, but that’s how it was. Now of course there’s another major tip to come which I also learned about personally, but this is major.
I want to give another example from my personal life currently. I’m older now and obviously learned the art of bullshitting a girls family on my own, but lately I have seen exactly what I am talking about in action with my friends families. I have seen girls have boyfriends who explicitly act the way I am discussing here and they all love the guys. I know they’re full of crap because I know how they really are. I’ve interacted with them personally and smell the bullshit from a mile away. I’m lucky enough to have friends who confide in me about the real deal when it comes to them and violent behaviors outside of family gatherings. When they’re all together though, you’d never have any idea.
Watching this happen within my own circle has solidified the fact of how major it is to be accepting of being fake. It doesn’t make you any less of a man to be fake, it’s a lesson all men must learn in order to maintain relationships. You need to have class and understand that you’re in a different situation around your girlfriends family, even if she is with you. Over time as things get more serious, you can RESPECTFULLY have disagreements. But that is only when you are independent and so serious her family is irrelevant. That’s not likely either, irrelevant is a strong word because women are bound to their families.
That’s important to note, even though your girlfriend is around, she will not think you’re any less of a man because you’re being a quiet listener around her family when that isn’t who you are. You’re girlfriend will be turned on by the fact you’re able to bullshit so well. This is obviously not something young guys know very well, it takes experience to find these things out. People love to talk about themselves, so being endearing and engaging with your girlfriends family will be majorly helpful to go down this kind of path.
Some men though, may not find it out for a very long time. They have such a need to be themselves or to be honest, that they forget that it’s all a game, none of your interactions with a girl’s family has anything to do with who you are at all. Naturally badass guys want to stay true to who they are and stay badass and natural “nice guys” think that a girls family really gives a shit what he feels. Both are wrong and no matter what kind of guy you are you need to take the political and “gaming” approach to your girlfriends family. It’s just another facet of a social circle.
This rule matters for every guy and girl regardless of age. Being fake doesn’t matter. It’s no different than not going apeshit on your boss because you have bills to pay. That’s right, like it or not, her parent’s are your boss when you’re at her house. A real man can accept that and act that way.
Don’t Fight With Your Girlfriend When She’s Home
This part, again, is going to lean for the younger crowd where guys are dating girls who live at home. Let’s start with the obvious here, never fight with your girlfriend at her house. Don’t do it. I don’t care what she did, let it go. The second you fight anywhere near her family or even have a disagreement you can be in some trouble. It sucks how things are that way, trust me I know, but you can’t do it. Your girlfriends house isn’t the place to be yourself, I’ve already discussed that and it comes with fighting to. This section though isn’t about fight’s in person, it’s about fights in texts and over the phone.
If you can avoid it, and I know it’s hard to do, don’t fight with your girlfriend when she’s at home. There’s a very simple reason for this, if it’s on the phone her family is going to hear you fighting. Don’t ever do this. Everything needs to be great, remember, you’re that fantastic bullshit artist who sits and smiles at everything her ridiculous family says no matter how insane it is to you, so why on earth would you be fighting?
Young couples fight over extremely silly things, so don’t fall into the trap of fighting with her where they can hear these things. Texting is much less severe but there’s a chance she can start crying and start showing off her texts, that’s just as bad as hearing your phone call. Don’t get into a situation where anyone in her house can see or hear anything to do with a fight. When you’re there you need to be perfect, when you aren’t the relationship needs to be.
How do you fight with your girlfriend then if there’s a problem? The simple answer to this is, you shouldn’t be fighting that often. Many young couple fights are over insecurity issues so it’s best to take some time and think before letting emotions take control. Young guys have a hard time controlling emotions, that is extremely important. If you’re fighting all the time then you need to evaluate yourself or the relationship. This point is strictly for the few times something major happened where a fight needs to happen. Those times shouldn’t be happening often, if at all.
Phone Fights: This part is easy, if your girlfriend lives home, don’t yell when you’re on the phone with her. If she starts yelling back “why are you screaming at me” and her family hears it, your relationship is about to have a serious problem in the form of parents and/or siblings. Always maintain composure and never give a woman something to blame you for.
Text Fights: Since a woman can’t say anything about a text like she can if you’re talking, there’s something else she can do. Your girlfriend can start crying for sympathy and relatives may ask to see the text. Make sure your texts are diplomatic, not ranting/curse filled tirades. Texting your girlfriend during an argument needs to be just as political as talking to her parents. Again, never give a woman something to twist onto you. If she did something you need to discuss, then express your disappointment, it’s extremely hard to turn that onto someone. Women will always try, but when you’re fighting with style, it’s hard to do.
The basic key to this point is this, if a woman’s family sees or hears you fighting with her all the time they’re not going to like it. That should be pretty easy to understand and while I’ve just typed a lot that’s really all there is to it here. The problem comes up when guys can’t control themselves, especially young guys. An insecure moment comes up and here comes so major fighting over absolutely nothing. Insecurity is the root of many major fights for young couples, so there’s a chance this could be happening a lot to you, if it is you need to start working on yourself and building confidence so these fights aren’t happening where parents can be concerned at all.
There are times when I read these questions where a guy says her parents hate me for no reason. I always think that there’s really no reason like I mentioned above, but most of the time this is one of the reasons. Someone always asks, well do you and your girlfriend fight a lot, and the answer is always yes we get into arguments. Sure enough after a little while you find out they’re fighting all the time and the girl is walking around her house constantly yelling. That’s a pretty big reason and far from “no reason”, so if that’s happening in your relationship it’s time to change it around now and in the future.
It should be noted that this doesn’t mean to have all of your fights in person either. The real point, is that you shouldn’t be fighting often at all. Fights are when a man is extremely unhappy with something a woman did where a serious evulation of the relationship needs to happen. Fights are absolutely not about petty things or insecurities. It’s important to know the difference and to start getting rid of the insecurity based fights, they’re only going to hurt the actual relationship without parental involvement at all.
Don’t Blame Your Girlfriend or Fight Because of Her Parents
I’ve given a bunch of reasons why parents may not like you, some of which you can control, some of which you can’t. No matter what the reason may be, you can’t blame your girlfriend or fight with her because of it. This is the final rookie mistake that young guys make. They think the girl they’re dating can do anything to convince her family otherwise. As though they’ll care enough about her feelings to ignore everything they had planned. I can assure you that is not going to happen.
Your girlfriend can fight with her family non-stop about how wrong they are about whatever reason it is they have for disliking you and there’s a good chance it does nothing. Maybe it does change something, but you can’t imagine the stress your girlfriend will feel in this situation. The best way to handle everything is to be as nice and pleasant as possible, stay caring and stay kind. Don’t take it out on your girlfriend at any point, I know how difficult this can be, it’s her family and you’ll think she can do something about it, but she can’t. She’s just as helpless as you are in this situation. The best thing you can do is almost ignore there is any problem at all, worrying about it will just cause more stress on the relationship and that’s the ultimate goal of the parents anyway.
How to Impress Your Girlfriends Parents
To sum up everything I’ve said here is pretty basic. You need to be a socially aware and confident man. A socially aware man understands when he should be honest/badass and when he shouldn’t. A girlfriends parents are no different from a boss, you have to know your place, that’s how it is and things like that in life need to be accepted. A confident man has no need to worry about being genuine with someone’s family, he understands it’s just a means to stay with a woman he loves, that’s it.
A confident man also doesn’t have insane fights on a daily basis. Where everyone is questioning what is wrong with him and why he’s so insecure. It’s never acceptable to start flipping out at anyone if it isn’t deserved. On the rare times that it needs to happen, then it needs to happen properly without involving other people. Like I’ve said throughout this article if fighting happens too much there’s a problem with you/confidence or the relationship in general and a woman’s family is the least of your concerns. There are some basic other things that you can do to impress a woman’s family which can never hurt too, so I might as well include them if you’re looking for any extra help you can get.
Look Good: This is all about being well dressed and well groomed. If you look like a slob all the time it’s not going to get you a girlfriend and a girlfriends parent’s aren’t going to be thrilled if you can get to that point. Dressing nicely and looking presentable is easy, being in good shape is also completely in your control. This helps with everything and a girls parents are just a part of who will be impressed by you.
Be Successful: This is the best way to sum everything up when it comes to women in general. Being successful can almost make everything else on this list completely irrelevant. If you’re a multi-millionaire CEO, you can get away with dressing how you want from time to time. No one is really going to be causing relationship problems with a guy who has success. This is the main reason why young relationships don’t work out with parents. Most guys are just starting out and a woman’s family has no idea what he’s going to be. There’s a big difference between ideas and having a mansion in reality. It’s funny how being wealthy can often get rid of the “silly reasons” that a woman’s family doesn’t like you.
If you really want to make sure you can have everything in life, then this is the real lesson. You need to achieve success, for you. The best part about being successful, is that you don’t need articles like this. Then odds are you have so many women everything falls into place on it’s own. A girlfriends parents is primarily a young mans problem for this reason. When a guy is successful the parents of one particular girl are rarely an issue.
When you combine everything I’ve said in this article together here’s what you get,
Social Awareness
Confidence
Style
Physical Fitness
Success/Wealth
This is not just the recipe to make sure your girlfriends parents like you, it’s the recipe for being the best man you could be. The solution to every social issue is becoming the best man you can be for yourself. When that happens then everything will work out for you.
Note: There’s a chance that even knowing all of this information that you may be beyond the point of repair and the stress may break your girlfriend at some point. If you break up the best thing you can do is just calmly let her know you understand. No amount of anger or fighting is going to change anything and it won’t make you feel any better. All fighting is going to do is give her parents a reason to speak badly about you. It makes it like they were “right about you”. When your anger over the situation has nothing to do with whatever reason they had for disliking you.
If a girl needs to break up with you because it’s causing family stress it is not your doing. It is not your fault, be the best man you can be and move forward. Parents will not always be in the picture. Many times a lot of the issues presented here go away over time. Sometimes a girl will date guys who parent’s prefer even less than you in the future and eventually YOU BECOME WHO THEY WANT. This happens all of the time. You didn’t fit the bill the first time because you were a certain look or success level. Then you meet up again in the future and she’s been with some serious fools with no direction in life. Her parents will actually start campaigning for her to date you. Stranger things have happened. The key is always and will always be to be the best version of yourself. Do that and everything will fall into place.
The post My Girlfriends Parents Hate Me and/or How do I Impress Them? appeared first on Daily Manliness.
