In what would prove to be a terrible decision, I decided to take my boyfriend of three months home for the holidays this past year. Why so soon? I thought we were in a good place and I’ve always felt like a fish out of water around my family. I thought he’d help ease the tension. Boy, was I wrong.
- He was a total suck-up. When I invited my boyfriend home for Christmas, I told him that it would just be a quick meal and then we would pop out. My boyfriend surprised me on the day by arriving with gifts for my parents and by then it was too late for me to get them anything. I hate that he made me look bad when we’d agreed that this was going to be a low-key thing.
- He pretty much ditched me once we got there. I’m not the type of woman that expects my guy to hang onto my arm 24.7, but I do hope that if we attend an event together that we’ll spend time together. Once we got to my parents’ house, my boyfriend left me to fend for myself. I’d already told him how hard family gatherings could be for me, so the fact that he ditched me hurt.
- He got drunk with my cousin. Because my boyfriend works a lot and we’d only been together a few months, I’d never seen him drunk until then. Unfortunately, I hate the person he turned into once he got some alcohol into his system. He became loud and obnoxious, and that behavior was only encouraged by my cousin, who thought he was a trip. Seeing my boyfriend get drunk in front of my family changed the way I viewed him. I can’t help but feel that his behavior was disrespectful not only to me but to them too.
- He overshared about our relationship. As the evening wore on, I overheard my boyfriend telling my cousin stories about how we got together. Intimate stories. The memory of him doing that still upsets me to this day. My boyfriend told my family things he shouldn’t have and violated my privacy in the process.
- He tried to make out with me in front of my family. My boyfriend knows good and well that I’m not into PDA. The fact that the drunk version of him didn’t remember that upsets me. He kept trying to pull me close to him and whenever I resisted, he whined about it. Loudly. I was so embarrassed that I crawled into a corner to get away from him. I can’t believe that PDA caused problems in my relationship. Any man that cares for you should respect your boundaries. The fact that he didn’t respect mine spoke volumes.
- He and my cousin teased me for being so serious. After the attempt to make out and overhearing my boyfriend telling my cousin about our relationship, I just wanted to go home but my boyfriend was having too much fun. The fact that he’d make fun of me for being miserable in a situation that he caused put the nail in the coffin of our relationship. I knew I had to break up with him but I still had to save face in front of my family.
- He exchanged phone numbers with my female cousin. While my boyfriend and my cousin weren’t flirting, the idea that he’d take any woman’s number upsets me. Firstly, he knows about how I feel about him having female friends. Secondly, I don’t want him cozying up to my family. I’d decided to break up with him by that point, but even if I hadn’t, I don’t think that a boyfriend of three months should regularly be talking to my family members.
- He told my aunt he wasn’t sure about marrying me. It’s ironic that he said that because I was already planning on leaving him. It was just embarrassing to see that he had no boundaries and didn’t care enough about me to think about how his words would affect me. When my aunt pulled me aside to tell me what he said, I wanted the ground to swallow me whole. I tried to play it off but I knew he meant what he said. Most of the time, men mean what they say and there’s no point trying to read into it. I just wished he hadn’t said that in front of my family.
- As we drove home, he told me that my family was cool and that I was the problem. Hearing him judge me after spending a few hours with my family broke my resolve. I broke up with him then and there. Telling him how I felt like a fish out of water with my family was a big step for me. The fact that he threw that in my face was the last straw. Word of advice to all you ladies out there: don’t bring a guy home until you’ve been together for at least a year. Trust me, you don’t want to deal with the fallout.