<p>This sounds really familiar.</p>
<p>DH and I dated for over seven years before we got married. I sounded exactly like your daughter, a caring mediator, and my husband sounded a lot like your daughter’s boyfriend… odd. He’s a musician with an Irish Catholic temper, I was an engineer with a very even keel and a tendency to forgive too many trespasses.</p>
<p>My parents really didn’t like him. They thought he was taking advantage of my good nature, and he was a little awkward around my family (oh, the stress of meeting the family…), so he didn’t present himself very well. I kept getting very frustrated with him for clamming up around my family, and I got frustrated that my family couldn’t see him for who he is.</p>
<p>What I saw: a wonderful man who would doggedly guard the door to his bedroom while I took a nap between field rehearsals and football games when I was drum major of the band, who would bring me perfect grilled cheese sandwiches when he knew I’d forget to eat lunch, who would encourage me to actually stand up for myself and not be a doormat!</p>
<p>What they saw: a weird guy who didn’t talk a whole lot, who didn’t really fit in with my otherwise boisterous family, and who would only speak up to be overly-confrontational. (I don’t think they ever found him annoying, though!)</p>
<p>I could understand why they weren’t too keen on him. It irritated me that he wouldn’t be his dear sweet self around them, but I also knew that the cold shoulder that my family gave him, while deserved, didn’t help his stress level too much.</p>
<p>Seven years later, on the morning of our wedding, my mom said to my mother-in-law that she really didn’t like DH at first, but that now, she thinks that he’s really a sweetheart, and that she was so glad that we were getting married. My family eventually saw him for who he actually is, and were able to see what I see in him. Both of us had also grown a lot over the seven years that we dated… His rough edges had softened somewhat and he’d learned diplomacy (plus, he’d gained a sense of style and had become a pretty snappy, clean-cut guy!). I’d also learned to assert myself, and not always sacrifice my own needs for the needs of others. I learned to take care of myself. Some of this was due to age, but so much of it was from our influence on one another.</p>
<p>My parents used to object to our relationship based upon the idea that I hadn’t dated a whole lot, too. I’d dated a little before, but hadn’t experienced anything even remotely serious. The same was true with my husband. Still… I think that “playing the field” is something that people only really tend to suggest when they don’t approve of a person’s significant other. I’m fairly certain that if my husband had been easier to read from the beginning, and if my parents had realized what a great guy he actually is, that they’d have been begging me to not mess up the relationship!</p>
<p>I’d say to be cautious. It helped me that my parents told me what they saw, and why my husband worried them. I think that if there was legitimately a problem with our relationship, that it would definitely be my parents’ right (and, as they saw it, their obligation) to say something.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>