Not invited

LegacyUser

Hi there, I'll keep this short, I'm with my boyfriend for about a year and a half. A few weeks after we met his brother emigrated. A few weeks ago he came home for his first visit since he left and one of the nights they ( parents, siblings and their partners) went out for dinner and drinks and my boyfriends family asked him to invite me but he didn't. In fact he only told me recently, over a month later! I'm a little hurt by this, I asked him why he didn't ask me and he just shrugged it off and just said I don't know. I know this mightn't be a huge deal but this combined him not coming to two recent family events I invited him to, has hurt me and made me and unsure where he sees us going. Am I over reacting?

CaraMay

Op did you post about this before? Does he normally shrug off any questions you have? Why didn't he go to your family thing?

bee06

Any chance he's embarrassed by his family?

LegacyUser

OP here, Thanks for your replies.

No I haven't posted about this before.

For the first one of my family events he said he'd come until about an hour before when he canceled and when I pressed him as to why, he said it was too much pressure to meet so much family at once. The second one he kept saying maybe and just didn't show up!

As to being embarrassed, I'm not sure. He's a fairly closed book with regard to them so it's possible

strobe

I can understand you thinking something about it. Personally I've always hated the family-girlfriend crossover though. A girlfriend didn't attend any family thing if mine until I was 28... always avoided any of their family things too, had no relevance to how much I liked them or anything like that. Maybe he's the same, just doesn't like or understand that whole thing? But it's not OK for him to just shrug it off if he knows it's something you're worried about? Does he know you're worried about it, or did you just mention it in passing and he gave a breezy answer?

R.D. aka MR.D

Have you met all of his friends etc?

LegacyUser

Hi, OP here. Thank you all for your replies

RD, In 18 months I've only met 3 of his friends, while he has met most of mine.

Strobe, thank you for your input, we are both mid 20s, maybe he isn't ready for the whole meeting family thing. I did tell him it bothered me, especially as his family had been nice enough to invite me, but he didn't seem to think it was a big deal. With regard to my family events he knew how much it bothered me, I would have preferred if he said no straight away rather than saying yes until the last minute and told him this.

CaraMay

Do does he hang out with your friends all the time then? Sounds weird you have met so few of his friends. It was very rude of him to change his mind at the last minute. It's not the kind of relationship I would want to have with a bf.

R.D. aka MR.D

I could be totally wrong here but is there a chance that he views your relationship differently than you?

Is he the kind of guy that maybe sees you once a week? Never invites you out with his friends but goes on plenty of nights out on his own?

CaraMay

In fact I would be very upset if all the ither partners were there and I wasn't. Have you ever met his family?

Dial Hard

Notinvited wrote: »

Strobe, thank you for your input, we are both mid 20s, maybe he isn't ready for the whole meeting family thing.

Sorry, you're going out a year and a half, not a couple of months. I would be very nonplussed by someone claiming it's "too soon" to be meeting family after that long.

ManOfMystery

If you were going out only 2 or 3 months I'd say he might not be ready to introduce you to his family yet. But 18 months??? Some people meet, date, go out and get married in that timescale.

If he's not ready to introduce you to his family soon - when you'll be going out almost 2 years - he's never going to be ready. Something stinks here.

ash23

After a year and a half I wouldn't be at all impressed. I can maybe see him being reluctant to meet all the family in one fell swoop or to introduce you to his family at a special family event but I think it's really strange not to have made any attempts to introduce you to them in such a long time.

I've met most of my fellas family by now (a year together) in dribs and drabs mostly and same with him, he's met some of my family but not all.
A lot of it is logistics with us so it's forgivable but being honest, if it weren't excusable, I'd be hearing alarm bells.

I would suggest that you and he go and meet your parents for dinner. Not the whole family, just one or two at a time. And then suggest the same for his parents. Slowly but surely, you'll meet them all eventually. If he won't even agree to meeting your parents or you meeting his, then you're in bother to be honest.

tinz18

I would agree with ManofMystery. I get not being ready to introduce people to the family (I would be one of them- I don't want my family getting attached if something were to go wrong) however a year and a half in is a bit mad.

I met my boyfriends parents 1 month in by chance because his home was on the way back from Dublin, and he met mine after 10 months because its 5 hours drive out of the way.

I would be very cautious as to why he's being so reluctant, I had an ex who was like that with his friends and family and it turned out to be because he didn't see a future for us... not saying this is the case but I see meeting family as a major indicator that the guy is serious about me.

Have you talked to him about this OP? Maybe he has a genuine reason not to bring you home (mother reluctant to meet you etc./embarrassing family member) but either way you need to tell him this is bothering you or its going to eat away at you.

LegacyUser

Hi there, OP here. I have met his mom, one of his sisters and a cousin. He's met a 3 or 4 of my family. I guess I didn't really think much of the not meeting his friends and family until the thing with his brothers dinner, I think it stood out because his brother won't be home again for a year. With regards to the friends one that I met was the guy he was with the night we met, the other is his best friend, and the last was a female friend who I later found out was his ex who is still friends with.

I think I have a lot of thinking to do and probably need to have a chat with him

Calhoun

ManOfMystery wrote: »

If you were going out only 2 or 3 months I'd say he might not be ready to introduce you to his family yet. But 18 months??? Some people meet, date, go out and get married in that timescale.

If he's not ready to introduce you to his family soon - when you'll be going out almost 2 years - he's never going to be ready. Something stinks here.

Pretty much this, I went out with a girl once for about 6 months and when it came to introduce her to family I was very reluctant. On reflection later deep down I knew we weren't really meant to be and this is why I put it off.

After 18 months I'd be asking myself where is this going.