I’m 20F, he’s 25M. We met in January and have been dating since last month. He’s already met my parents - they love him, and he hangs out at our house all the time. Literally no one has any issues with him, he’s super welcome here. I invited him to sleep over for a few days this week just for fun, but he said he’s not comfortable with it - apparently it feels too “intimate” for him? Like, he’s got this thing about doing private stuff with other people around. I just want him to relax a bit. We’re all adults here, and everyone knows people have private lives. How can I help him feel more okay with it?
Do you know what part is “too intimate”? Is it sleeping over in general, do you stay at his? Is it the awkwardness of your parents being around? Or, with intimate / all adults / private lives are you really talking about him not being comfortable having sex with his girlfriend in her parents house?
All of those are pretty normal, but can probably be resolved in different ways. E.g if he just likes his own space, maybe starting with a single night staying over makes more sense than a few days, and at the weekend so it’s not disrupting his schedule or whatever he worries about.
If it’s the sex one, I’d recommend a bit of empathy. Some people are really relaxed about sex and others are not. And as a guy, if I’m worrying about someone hearing us, how much noise the bed is making, etc it can be pretty hard to get in the mood and some guys can be worried about not being able ‘to perform’ especially when you’re both young and only been dating a short time. And it’s not as easily brushed aside as “don’t worry about it, they don’t care” once my mind is focused on what someone downstairs might be hearing and thinking, I’m not in the moment any more.
I sleep over at his place (he lives alone). I guess it’s a combination of my parents being around + the sex part. Basically him + me sleeping together in my bedroom in the same house as my parents makes it “too obvious” that we’re intimate to my parents (in his mind) and he finds that weird. Feels… ashamed? Plus obvious stressed about sounds and stuff. Pff, hard to describe it into words. Optics, I guess?
Another way to look at this is that you are lucky he isn’t the sort of guy to nail your hips to the mattress while forcing you to scream daddy as your biological father shifts uncomfortably next to his morning coffee at the breakfast table.
Dude has normal boundaries, if one of you has a private place, that is where you should be staying. I’m honestly curious as to why you want him to stay at your parents place when he has a perfectly usable apartment for both of you.
Just to make this more awkward
Her: oh God, YES DADDY
Dad: COMING
Boyfriend: CUMMING
I’m really close with my family and also a homebody. It’d be fun to have him around as part of the household for a bit, part of the trivial day to day life. Monotonous domestic life…
He is the person with a home. If you want him as part of your household, you should consider moving in together in a place that doesn’t belong to your parents.
When you find someone to make a family with, you are making a new family. It is not functional long term to try to work him into your existing family like that. One woman’s comfortable monotony is another man’s perpetual guest status.
I think the more feasible version of what you want would be some sort of family vacation that he is invited along for, but even that needs to come with private space for the two of you each day. Neutral territory lets people build a new status quo, and your parent’s place isn’t neutral at all. I know this might all sound dramatic and insane right now, but I’m speaking from a lifetime of experience—putting him in your parents space for over 24 hours is going to create mental stress for him that will have an adverse effect on your relationship, especially if you don’t acknowledge his stress as valid.
Thanks. I really appreciate the advice. I’m just not an inhibited person at all, so I find it difficult to relate to these kinds of feelings.
And that is ok, you don’t have to personally understand it to acknowledge that his anxieties are valid and real. I wish you the best. It sounds like you have a good guy and good parents.
Just channel that inhibition towards traditional exhibitionism instead of parental exhibitionism, and I think you’ll be set.
Personally I think @WeirdGoesPro@lemmy.dbzer0.com’s take is a bit prescriptive, but I do think that if you want a good long-term relationship, then it’s about finding what’s comfortable for both of you, not just for one of you. Boundary pushing can be OK, but usually only with prior consent or better some expression of desire… If either one of you pushes the other into doing something the other doesn’t really want, that’s probably not gonna pan out well in the long run. Listening (especially to the “why” part) and working together is important.
If its important to you, and you’re capable of having grown-up conversations as a couple, then there’re probably lots of ways to figure it out. Start by taking the pressure completely off by telling him that you understand that it makes him uncomfortable and you’d never want to pressure him into something he’s not fully consenting to (can you imagine if it was a 20F posting that her older boyfriend keeps trying to push her to have sex in a situation she feels uncomfortable in?)
Then try and find out what is actually the source of the issue for him, and if he wants to, work on that. If he deep down struggles to believe that your parents are cool with this guy banging their can’t-even-drink-in-a-bar* aged daughter then maybe your parents have to be more direct about giving their approval. I had a gf who’s parents had noisy sex when we were staying over and whose dad made super weird jokes like “we want her back in one piece <wink>” when we said goodnight. It was deeply awkward, but I certainly didn’t worry about them judging us for having sex.
Similarly, if it just makes him feel self-conscious and that doesn’t make him feel very sexy, maybe you can start doing (consensual) minor sex stuff during the day while he’s visiting. Or spend time during the day watching TV or chatting in your bedroom with the door shut. And once he’s confortable spending time in your bed and in private, and he sees that your parents don’t judge him even though you could have been having sex, it’ll be easier to accept an overnight. And tbh, when staying in someone else’s house it’s much easier it have sex during the day when people are busy and there’s noise from TVs and stuff, than at night when any noise feels very obvious.
But the main thing is to respect each other’s boundaries, and realise that some things take time.