Thoughtless girlfriend’s always upsetting family
Dear Coleen
I always seem to be in the position of defending my girlfriend to friends and family, and it’s starting to wear me down. We’ve been seeing each other for 18 months and I am happy, but it’s obvious everyone else around me has a real problem with her.
If I’m honest, she can be a little blunt and thoughtless.
For example, she made a comment at dinner about someone we know and called her a “dried-up old spinster who’ll never be happy”, even though my single 40-year-old sister was sitting next to her at the table, and was clearly embarrassed and a bit upset.
She also told my 65-year-old mother that she needed to “get busy in the gym if she wanted to keep my dad happy in bed”. She was kind of joking, but not really. Every time we stay at my parents’ house for the weekend she lies in bed till 11am and doesn’t care what people think of it.
She never helps with cooking or washing up, which I always do when we visit her family. I love her and she’s really great fun, but I appreciate how she rubs people up the wrong way. Any advice?
Coleen says
Yes, tell her. Stop defending her and make her face up to it. First of all, they’re not funny comments – they’re hurtful and rude. I think your girlfriend has fallen into that category of person who manages to get away with being offensive because “that’s just her personality”. People expect it of her and inexplicably put up with it. Yes, she is rude sometimes, so don’t apologise for her – make her take some responsibility. Why not explain to her that she’s coming across as rude and, while you love her and have a great time with her, you also spend a lot of time defending her.
She clearly doesn’t feel the need to impress anyone, but getting out of bed at a reasonable hour when you’re staying at someone’s house and offering to help is just good manners.
You love her now, but years down the line, if she continues to behave like this, it could cause real division in your family. So talk about it before it gets to that stage.
She might try to defend herself by saying things like, “This is who I am” and “What you see is what you get” and so on. Well, ask her how she’d feel if your mum told her in front of your entire family that she needed to lose some weight to keep hold of her son?
I’m not sure she’d brush it off and accept it because saying stuff like that is just part of your mum’s personality.