My boyfriend (24M) and I (24F) have been together for three years. In that time, we’ve met most of each others’ families. He doesn’t like quite a few of my family members, mostly my father and brother because of how they treat me, and refuses to be around them. I understand where he’s coming from, and though it makes me sad I try not to push it. It doesn’t often become an issue, because most of my family lives in a different state. I’m a much more family oriented person than he is, though, so I try to make plans with my family whenever possible.
We hang out with his cousins pretty often, and are close to them. I have an older cousin who I would love to be closer with, as we grew up together and she’s the only family member I have in my city. Last year for her birthday, she invited my boyfriend and I to her birthday brunch. We were all set to go, but the morning of we got into a huge argument and he decided he didn’t want to go anymore. I was fine with that, and went by myself.
Today she texted me and invited the both of us to her birthday party again tomorrow. They’ve never met, so I was very excited to tell my boyfriend. He said that he doesn’t remember what was said, but she said something last year that made him uncomfortable so he doesn’t want to go again this year. I was confused because they’ve never met, she never said anything about him to me, and as far as I remember he didn’t go last year because of our argument. I told him it was really important to me that he met her, and I think he’s misremembering what happened. He says that he knows she said something that made him uncomfortable, even if he doesn’t remember what, when, or how, and that I’m dismissing his feelings. I feel the same way. Am I dismissing his feelings because I think he’s misremembering? I just think it’s crazy that he can completely disregard how much I’ve been wanting them to meet for years because of something he can’t even remember.
7 comments
What do you mean when you say how your brother and father treat you?
It seems like they’ve left a sour taste in his mouth for your family and he doesn’t want to meet anymore of them. He most definitely made up that she said something to get out of meeting your cousin
Holy gaslighting batman. Why is your boyfriend trying to separate you from your family ? What’s his issue with your father and brother ?
Uncomfortable how? He should remember that much.
Why won’t he try again? One small incident so small he wouldn’t mention it when it happened, doesn’t mean it will happen again.
He’s not doing it for himself but for you and to be part of your family.
If he can’t even remember it, either it wasn’t that bad or he has just made up this memory. Not good enough on his part he’s got to suck it up
Be careful that he doesn’t alienate you from your family. Eventually if there’s family events such as Christmas for example he wouldn’t attend and you’d feel bad for leaving him home alone.
it could be a controlling move.
There’s this really strange phenomenon with the human memory where we think we remember something correctly but it’s just made up by your own memory. It’s really interesting because this might be what is happening to your Bf.
That aside, if he doesn’t want to meet your cousin, I think that’s perfectly fine. He doesn’t need a reason for not wanting to meet her but that’s just my opinion.
Has he met any of your other cousins? Could he be mixing this one up with someone else?
If you have a picture of her, I’d show him that and say, “This is Cousin Birthday Girl. If you have a problem with her, specifically, I need you to give me some details, because as far as *I* know, the two of you have never met.”
You can also show *his* picture to your cousin.”This is going to sound weird, but have you met Boyfriend already? I didn’t think so, but he’s being kind of weird about this birthday get together and I can’t figure out why.”