Dealing With The In-Laws

Avoiding The Focker Experience

Recently I've been coaching a client who was very nervous about meeting his girlfriend's parents. This is more of an issue than most of us pretend and is actually fairly stressful for all concerned.

David was giving himself a hard time about the level of anxiety he was experiencing but like most of us had a couple of examples of it going horribly wrong. Nothing quite like ‘Meet the Fockers', but you get the general idea.

So here are a few tips for making meeting your potential in-laws a day to remember (for the right reasons!) Let's begin by listing a few of the classic ways to really make a mess of this momentous event.

Underestimating their importance

Early on you may think that your partner's parents aren't going to be much of a feature in your life. Well think again. If you're lucky enough to stay together with your loved one they are going to be a regular feature. Bare minimum you'll be expected to make an appearance every couple of Christmas's. Factor in a few other regular family events like weddings, christenings, funerals and the like and you begin to get the picture. If the two of you ever have children then your in-law visit regularity just quadrupled. In-laws are a fact of life that you are going to have a hard time avoiding. Your aim for the day you meet your in-laws is to make damn sure they like you.

Not making an effort

This is one of the trickiest first impressions you are ever going to have to make. Look at it through their eyes. If you are hooking up with the son then mum is going to feel usurped and you better believe she's going to grill you. If you're hooking up with the daughter then look out for dad, in his head you're the animal that's having sex with his daughter. No matter how progressive they may appear to be they are having to work at welcoming you into their family.

Getting irritated with them

Of course they are irritating. They have all the negative traits you've spotted in your lover only worse and, at this point, there could appear to be very little upside. Ok. This isn't always going to be true, but generally meeting someone's parents is a real eye opener. Suddenly it's apparent where certain habits came from. Things like whether they say please and thank you, make polite conversation easily, whether they are able to listen as well as talk or even their use of colourful language.

Underestimating the challenge of staying upbeat

Your partner has had many, many years of dealing with their parents' personality foibles. Give your self some space to get to know them. If you feel you're starting to slip, find a reason to remove yourself so you can give yourself a bit of a talking to about your aim for the day.

Competing about who knows their baby best

Do not get caught up in this, you are bigger than that. For some reason there is often a bit of a scene around this. If you know for a fact that she hates Shepherd's Pie it's not your place to shatter mum's illusion. If you know he hates watching the boxing with dad you may want to keep it to yourself. There are certain stories in place in families that help the family get along. No one, including your partner is going to thank you for making it harder.

Betraying secrets

As a partner you can sometimes end up knowing things about the family that the parents may want kept hidden. Things they would be uncomfortable knowing that you know. The fact that Uncle Ronnie did major time in Parkhurst Prison may not be common knowledge as far as they are concerned. This can also work the other way around. If you know his last ‘perfect' girlfriend was a major ‘coke' head you may want to keep that to yourself if they don't raise the subject.

Getting into dangerous conversations

As always avoid conversations about politics and religion, it rarely goes well. Also be careful, you come from a different generation, things you think of as acceptable conversation may well not be. Allow your partner to take the lead on this as, let's face it, they know them best.

Getting stuck in a situation that is way too stressful

You may try to set up an event that you can all feel comfortable at. Running into them at a wedding is not ideal. Sitting down for dinner in a strange/new restaurant is not ideal either. It probably makes sense to either meet in their home so at least they are relaxed or do something nice together. Going out for a pub lunch would work pretty well, just remember not to get drunk, not the first time anyway.

I hope that helps make the day a little easier to navigate when it comes to meeting the parents. If you follow my advice things should go off without a hitch.

The final point I want to make is that you also need to be aware that, if you do it right, this moves things forward between you and your partner. Do not judge them on the basis of their parents. How like you parents do you want to be told you are? Also remember that whilst your loved one may moan about their parents you'd better not say a word against them. It's always an error unless they're actively seeking for you to support them in their opinion. Talking about how rude her dad or his mother is also probably a really bad idea.

Enjoy your day.

Michael Myerscough

P.S. To coincide with Sky Movie's launch of Meet The Fockers we are doing a one-off seminar on making sure your meeting goes just a little bit better!

If you'd like to register interest in attending the seminar you can either contact Tracey Jacques at Sky on 020 7705 6791 or by contacting us.

The seminar will be held on Wednesday 17th May in a central London venue.