Monday, April 10, 2017

Maybe the first chapter? Or part of it?

Raise your hands: How many of you slept in the same room as your significant other the first time you went to his parents’ house and stayed there overnight?

Yeah. Me neither.

Every single time I have ever visited the parents (1), I have stayed in my own room and the boyfriend has stayed in his own room.

Anytime I have taken a boyfriend to my parents’ house, we have had separate sleeping quarters.

It never even occurred to me that it would be any other way – that parents would expect their child, even their adult child, to share a room with his SO.

But then, I have never met Primo’s mom and dad before.

“They pride themselves on being hip,” he tells me when he explains that they are very annoyed at the idea that I would not be comfortable sharing a room with him under their roof.

Wait. “Annoyed” is probably not the right word.

They are pissed.

Primo: They just don’t want to clean the spare room. And, like I said, they pride themselves on being hip.

Me: Parents are not supposed to be hip. I can promise you that when we go to my mom’s house, we will be in separate rooms. My mother is not hip.







1. I have multiple data points on parental visits. Not with the guy in grad school whose parents, it turned out, didn’t even know I existed. That, my friends, is a red flag that should not be ignored. I ignored it. But that’s a different story.

8 comments:

  1. Well, the first time I stayed at my husband's parents' place, we did sleep in the same room, but we were already married, and in fact, I was already pregnant, so there was no mystery as to whether we had committed the marital act :-)

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  2. I was going to say that, since we live within an hour of all three sets of parents (his are divorced) there was never a need for any of us to stay overnight. But, last Thanksgiving, before we were married or even engaged, we went to stay with his Mom and step-dad (and also step-dad's dad) at their vacation condo in Florida, and we slept in the same bed.

    By that point we'd been living together for at least a year, and they didn't really have any extra space to allow us to have separate bedrooms, unless one of us were to take the couch in the living room. So, I suppose it was a matter of practicality at that point.

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  3. Interesting. I stayed with my now-husband in one room at his parents' house from the very first time I stayed there. At my parents' house, on the other hand, we slept in separate rooms for 15 years, till we got married. I just thought it was the difference between parents of men and parents of women. Either way, it wasn't a big deal for us.

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  4. My in-laws did have us stay in the same room the first time we visited. BUT! They pulled Not-Yet-Husband aside to say, "I know this is awkward, but your sister is home and your aunt decided to stay and that's all the rooms. We can put you two in the big spare room, but would it be horrible to ask you to share?"

    That was, sadly, the last time they asked about our preferences on anything. So maybe there's your argument against pre-marital co-sleeping at the parental residence.

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  5. Hubby did stay in my room at my parents before we got married, we were engaged though. When it's my turn to host I figure it's up to them to let me know the arrangements they prefer.

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  6. Data points: my ex & I lived near his parents, so I only stayed the night at their house once, and we were in separate bedrooms. However, my parents lived farther away, and when we visited them, my ex & I did stay in the same room together.

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  7. My boyfriend's parents actually did have us stay in the same room/bed the first time I visited them! Which I thought was a little unusual (my own parents put us in separate rooms when he visited them nearly a year later), but not a huge deal either way.

    Much like Sly and Doris, his parents seem fairly casual about pre-marital relations; unlike Sly and Doris (thankfully!), they are loving and supportive of each other and of their children (and have been very welcoming to me).

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  8. Boyfriend's parents had us stay in the same room. I'm not aware of any discussions that might have occurred between them prior to my visit regarding the sleeping arrangements. He did still live them, but since we were both 19-20, it wasn't unusual.

    My parents are on another continent, so we didn't visit until we'd been together a few years. My mother had a few concerns about putting us in the same room, but those concerns were along the lines of 'what will the neighbours think?'. I said we'd do whatever made her comfortable, and she ended up deciding that the neighbours wouldn't know what exactly was going on in the house unless she told them, and she wasn't going to expand on the subject.

    Funny fact: the first time I visited Boyfriend's parents, I agonised over my hostess gift. I wanted to make a good impression. Borfriend said I shouldn't bother, his parents are 'cool', I ignored him. In the years we've been together, everyone we told the story to has agreed with me.

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