Hey,
A guy from Germany here. I read through Reddit and some relationship threads from time to time and I always notice something.
In the US it is common that the partner is not introduced to the parents until the whole thing gets pretty serious. This can take months and years.
In DE it seems to me that it is much more relaxed. I’m probably an extreme example, but I met the parents of my current girlfriend before we were even together. I mean, I already spent the night at her place the day we got together and her parents were okay with it.
Do I have a wrong perception or is it still a bit more classic/old school in the US?
8 comments
Funny story, my mom is the daughter of a German immigrant, my dad and I have a good relationship, so my ex was introduced to them and over for kaffeeklatsch a week after we met. Was awkward for my ex, but for my family and I…I’m just introducing a new friend in my life? What’s the problem? Now it’s all clear.
Otherwise it does seem to be a little more old school in the US.
I met my girlfriend’s parents a couple months into the relationship. More specifically her mom and step dad I never met her dad.
It can be a few weeks in or months depends on the gf.
Also, distances are far greater here in the US.Ive had GFs with parents in ither states, sometimes 2300 miles away. Its not always convenient to meeet them just because if that.
I think this depends a lot on age… meeting a girl’s parents is a lot different when you’re both like 18 and still living at home versus being adults, out of the house, and having to make plans to do it.
Never. Her mom died when she was a teen and her father was in prison our whole relationship except for the last month of his life but he never made it back to the east coast.
I met her mom before we were dating when we were just friends. She was living with her mom at that point and I would stay there if the weather was bad rather than driving an hour at night through a snow storm.
I met her dad and step mom just before I met the rest of that side of her family for a monthly birthday dinner. We had been dating for a little while at that point, but exactly how long is a little fuzzy.
I’m from the U.S., and my girlfriend is from Europe (she’s a green-card-holding permanent resident of the U.S.). As a simple matter of logistics, I met her parents the first time we traveled to her home country together.
It’s not that we were waiting for a certain level of seriousness. We were just… waiting for an opportunity to travel there together.
(She met my parents much earlier, when we were still in a fairly casual phase of our relationship.)
We have been married 8 years and I haven’t “met” them yet…they live back in her home country and we don’t speak the same language. I smile and wave to them on Facetime occassionally.