D1’s BF has started to call me mama Oldfort. I think it is very appropriate - not his mom, and not Mrs X.
This thread has been so enlightening!
I’m all about keeping the bf/gf at arm’s length. I did feel I had to meet my DD’s live-in boyfriend even though chance of a long-term relationship seems remote. This required traveling and staying in the same town for a few days. I just needed to make sure she was in an emotionally and physically safe place. Unfortunately, I like him quite a bit and now stuck with a BF I like and will be sad when they break up. Should not have broken the arm’s length rule but probably would do the same thing again.
I think when you start giving gifts and inviting on vacations, it is too close. Even for holidays, develop a system where you draw names from a hat instead of personal gifts.
I am a very casual person and want the kids SO’s to call me by my first name.
I figure that they call co workers my age by their first name, why shouldn’t they call me by my first name. My D’s boyfriend called my IL’s by their first names also. I never heard them say that it bothered them either. I’m sure it doesn’t. We are all very casual.
When I’ve introduced my self to the kids SO’s, I say hi I’m Deb. I want people to know that I want them to know me by my first name.
I don’t see how you can expect to keep SOs at “arm’s length” during dating, but then miraculously turn that relationship into a warm, close relationship when the engagement is announced. Relationships grow organically between people. If you treat the SO coolly and at a distance during the years the SO and your child are dating, you’ve established a cool and distant relationship with that person. Suddenly acting warm and loving toward the person the day the engagement is announced is not going to change the relationship you have with that person overnight. Chances are that they will have developed cool and distant feelings toward you.
I will say that the girl who I’m not thrilled ds might date again has wonderful manners and is quite thoughtful. She traveled last semester and over the holiday with her family, and she sent me two small gifts from her travels because she knows that I’m a collector (think magnets or snow globes, nothing expensive). I thought that was so sweet of her to remember me and my collection. She saw it last spring break when she was one of the college kids ds brought home. Of course, part of me wonders whether it was manipulative on her part, trying to ingratiate herself to me and ds, but I’m trying to not be so cynical and take it for the gesture it probably was.
About keeping them at arm’s length … Both of the girls he’s dated started as platonic friends so I already knew a lot about them and welcomed them and treated them kindly because that’s what I do with all my kids’ friends. With the first gf, I just tried to then not keep getting closer. With the second … well, they’re far, far away and so I don’t have a lot to do with her, though we are FB friends so I “like” her photos on occasion. Ds and I have a great relationship with a lot of trust. If he thinks I’m ever overstepping (or, uh, understepping) I don’t think he’ll hesitate to tell me.
I can be warm and engaging toward someone without being emotionally attached.
I’m not suggesting being cold and distant, just treating them as you would a close friend of your adult child. Of course you should treat a SO with warmth and kindness. If there is an engagement, I would just try to increase my opportunities for contact and invite on vacations if appropriate.
Also, I am a first name person and introduce myself to all friends of my children with my first name and remind them to “please call me (first name)” if they try Mrs…
I am with @nottelling. I think it would be hard to overcome what may be years of an “arms length” relationship and suddenly start treating them like family. But I try to be warm and friendly to all my kids’ friends, not just their SOs. Is there a risk that a relationship or friendship might end, and my tie to that person might be severed? Yes, of course. But taking that risk with other people, whether through our kids or directly with people we meet elsewhere, is worth it, IMHO. If I kept everyone at arms length because the relationship might end badly, where would I be in life? With a lot of acquaintances, I guess…
" just treating them as you would a close friend of your adult child."
Unfortunately I have warm and affectionate relationships with several of adult D’s friends. If D told me that she had a break with the ones I like, I would be sad. This sort of inability to keep people you really like at “arms legnth” is just not the sort of control that I wish to embrace. This was the sort of relationship that I had from the get go with my MIL. It set the tone for the next 25 years. It was not good.
People who meet us are accepted into our little circle almost immediately. I grew up in a house where we might have a retired couple from New Zealand staying with us one week and a pack of colleges students in town for a tournament the next. Affection does not come in limited supply and needs to be dosed out carefully. I think if my wife’s parents were less accepting when I met them it may have derailed our relationship.
S1 is on his second girlfriend (D and S2 still at zero). He went on exactly one date in HS, his senior prom. His first gf was freshman year, spring semester, extending into the summer. That summer, he left to meet her for shopping and dinner one evening but returned about half an hour later. He came in, plopped down in a chair and looked a little somber. I turned to him and asked, “Got dumped, huh?”
“Yep.” That was it. They had little in common, he was not too upset, so we were not too upset. If GF2 dumps him it will break his heart, and ours, but I don’t see that as a reason to keep her at arm’s length. Our default is to embrace people openly, arm’s length is a position earned.
WOOOPS I meant “ability” not “inability”.
“I did feel I had to meet my DD’s live-in boyfriend even though chance of a long-term relationship seems remote…Unfortunately, I like him quite a bit and now stuck with a BF I like and will be sad when they break up.”
@GTalum If they are serious enough to live together, why do you think they’ll break up?
'she sent me two small gifts from her travels because she knows that I’m a collector (think magnets or snow globes, nothing expensive). I thought that was so sweet of her to remember me and my collection. She saw it last spring break when she was one of the college kids ds brought home. Of course, part of me wonders whether it was manipulative on her part, trying to ingratiate herself to me and ds, but I’m trying to not be so cynical and take it for the gesture it probably was." @Youdon’tsay, sounds to me like she really loves your son a lot and, therefore, wants to have a good relationship with his family. To me, that doesn’t sound manipulative at all. It sounds like the behavior of a giving and thoughtful person.
@musicamusica I have the same relationship with my MIL. It is not good. I don’t want to replicate that relationship with my own kids’ partners. It’s not who I am.
Her visa ends. Many compromises from both would have to happen for this to be long term.
I’m stunned that anyone would interpret “arms length” as cold and distant. Do you become socially involved with all your kids’ friends’ families? Do you buy Christmas and birthday gifts for all of them every year?
Maybe it’s just a personality thing but I tend to mistrust “instant intimacy” when meeting anyone new, even when it’s someone in my own peer group. I may like them a lot and hope to become very good friends but I’m not going to start treating them “like family” and inviting them on vacations with DH and our kids. I prefer to let these relationships develop organically (or not) as we get to know each other.
When it comes to someone one of my kids is dating, I prefer to follow my kids’ lead but I do not develop relationships equal to those in my immediate family with them. I’m happy to include them at holidays (if they are not committed to their own family holidays) and if they are present at Christmas, happily get them a gift. I am nice and friendly to them, (honest!) but they are not family until my child wishes them to be. YMMV, but I don’t think that precludes having a good relationship with them should they become actual family. To me, there is a difference.
" His reasons were honorable, and it was to some degree mutual, but I’m having a hard time getting over thinking about how it must hurt that sweet girl."
My best friend stayed friend’s with their ex’s mother for many years, until she unfortunately passed away of cancer recurrence. There is no harm to actually talk to her and say that you were sad about the breakup, and if you got along well with her, maybe having lunch together.
There’s a difference between “how sad they broke up, I liked her” and “oh, I guess maybe I should break my lunch date with her next month!”. If there was a relationship between a parent and their child’s ex-girlfriend or ex-boyfriend, and everyone is an adult, no problem to continue speaking to the ex and figuring out if you have a friendship.
Assuming that the breakup wasn’t crazy arse.
@Joblue who said anything about “instant intimacy”? We are talking about as you say"relationships (that) develop organically (or not) as we get to know each other." My D really never “dated”. She had relationships that lasted years. Boyfriend 1 (three years) #2 (two years) and her current fiance(three years). Hardly serial dating. And yes being warm and friendly is in fact a “good thing”. A good way to start up a relationship with anyone. Even if they are not family.
Agree that warm, friendly, inviting and inclusive was our approach. If the girlfriends were important to our sons, they were important to us.
^^I know but the relationship is my child’s (primarily) not mine. I’m nice to close friends of my siblings but it’s unlikely that I will treat them “like family” until the friendships last many years. Even then, if I’m doing something with one of my sisters I probably won’t always include them.
I guess I’m saying that I’m hesitant to develop a separate close relationship with my kids’ boyfriends/girlfriends until they become permanent. I guess I’ve seen too many come and go and believe me it would be very uncool if I continued to have contact with them once the relationship has come to an end. It would be pretty disrespectful of my own kids’ feelings as well as the feelings of future partners.
I am struggling with the same! Just last night my DD broke up with her boyfriend, and I am devastated! I thought I was crazy for being so hurt, but have since read that MANY mothers struggle like this!
I saw a real relationship there, and a real future, and had hope and believed in it. I can only hope that the pain I feel does not last long, and that her (ex) BF and his family are not feeling the same.
We prayed for my DD and her BF and his family often. I was really hopeful for a future for them, and they looked liek they were doing everything “right.”
I worry that she made a mistake, and worry that he is hurt or mad, and that his parents feel the same and may harbor hurtful feelings for my DD and her family for hurting him. I will certainly see them “around” in this small town, and do not know what I would say!
Will my daughter want to continue to go to church where he and his family are? Will she find someone good in this world of sharks?
Feeling broken, and crazy for being so upset.