I love your story @cameo43
Maybe a bit different in our circumstances than those of others, even if they are modern enough to think that shouldn’t or wouldn’t be the case?
It’s a bit tougher since our kids live 2500 and 5000 miles from us. Son’s GF comes from a family that lives a long drive or plane ride away from DC. We never did meet the other women S dated, so we’re pleased to meet his current GF. Hopefully we will meet anyone D starts dating at some point.
A little off topic but I just learned that when our kids say “I’m talking with someone” it means early dating/courtship.
I really just thought she meant she was talking to someone. You know, like a general conversation. So meeting a SO probably isn’t anytime soon. X_X
D1’s boyfriend invited himself to visit us for a few days over winter break their sophomore year of college (started dating spring of frosh year). D1: “ wants to come visit for a few days, is that okay? Me:… He showed up with chocolates AND flowers for me, and completely won me over. 10 years later he is my SIL and I love him dearly.
D2 had her first SO frosh year of college. I took them out to dinner when I visited her campus, and was completely charmed by him. He was eerily similar to my kid — they looked alike, had the same mannerisms, spoke in shorthand like twins or something. I couldn’t help but like him — it was like meeting a copy of my own kid. I was sad when it didn’t last. She had 2 more fairly short lived SOs in college — one I never met in person, one I also took out to dinner but was not as charmed by (but it wouldn’t surprise me if that one wins the Nobel Prize someday). She isn’t really dating in grad school.
My oldest D met her husband during junior year of college. She went to school 35 miles from home, so she brought him over to dinner not too long after they met (probably 3-4 months). They got married 4 years after they graduated (she was 26 and he was 28).
I knew younger D’s significant other since he was in middle school. The two of them never dated in high school. After college, D stayed in Philly. By chance, she ran into her now significant other in downtown Philly. They started chatting and went out for coffee. He went to college in Boston and got a job in Philly. The rest is history.
I like both my SIL and younger D’s significant other. My H, on the other hand, goes between sometimes liking SIL and never liking the significant other. No real reason–except that he’s one of those people who is very protective of his daughters.
D2 and her sig other were certainly an item by the time she brought him home from living in DC for Thanksgiving. That it was a Thanksgiving I had to work didn’t matter a whit. He and D cooked a fine feast, to a higher standard than mine, earning him a place in our hearts that continues post wedding.
One of my kids told us everything, and was so proud of his girlfriends and potential girlfriends that he tended to introduce them to us waaay too early in the relationship. My wife – who at the time was sharing an apartment with our son in the city where he lived and she worked 3-4 days/week – met our now daughter-in-law a full year before the young woman and our son officially became a couple. (That night, she told me, “[Son] had two women he knew from college over to dinner tonight. They were both really nice, and doing social justice kind of work. I think he may be interested in one of them, but I couldn’t tell which one.”)
By contrast, our other child engaged in outright deception to avoid telling us any information, like whether she had a boyfriend, much less meeting him. We met lots of her friends, and we pretty much thought we knew the roster. One day, on a phone call, she “casually” mentioned that she had been hiking with her friend “X” the day before. My wife and I looked at each other and mouthed “Who’s X?” more or less simultaneously, but out daughter was on to something else already.
Forty meandering minutes later – completely unlike my daughter and almost intolerable to my wife, who prefers short, focused communication – it emerged that our daughter had been dating this X exclusively for about 7 months. She had met his parents twice, and he had begun to comment about not having met hers. She cautioned us not to get too excited, they might break up next week. But if they didn’t break up, she felt like she couldn’t go too much longer without arranging some meeting. Then she got to the main point of her call: if we met him, when we met him, we should under no circumstances let on that we had not known of his existence until seven months into the relationship. “He might think it means I feel more ambivalent than I do, or than I want him to know about. And in any event it doesn’t make me look like my best and most mature self.”
We arranged to come to the city where they lived (separately) a few months later to spend an afternoon with them, then out to dinner. It went fine; it was clear she was nuts about him – a side of our child we had never seen before. They’re married now, too.
We met oldest son’s gf when they had been dating for about 3 months. He was 17 and she was turning 15 in a couple of weeks. We were at dinner in a restaurant when my D, trying to make conversation, asked her what she liked to do in her spare time. She said: “Set fires.” OMG! It took us awhile to realize that she somewhat shares our family’s distinctive sense of humor. They have now been together almost 11 years but have never lived together. We never met her dad before he died and met her mom a couple of times. She lives with her grandma, who I have met several times.
Oldest son met gf’s SO first, at the NYC Gay Pride parade. He came home very confused because the bf apparently dressed in hot pants and a rainbow tank top. D was not concerned and said it was just a costume and a way of showing support to the LGBTQ community. We met him a couple of months later. I adore him, as does H. His parents live in Europe and we have met them a couple of times, twice when they visited here and once when I vacationed there. I would really love to have these people as machatuna (extended family in Yiddish).