Am I supposed to break up with my boyfriend before meeting his family?

As a guy, I would want you to ask me where I see a relationship going. Perhaps you are both on the same page and just having some fun and keeping each other company for now. In this day and age that doesn’t mean you have to marry him.

We communicate pretty well. He’s aware he is maybe more invested in this relationship than I am (e.g., he has said he loves me, and I have said that I’m definitely not there yet).

Then in that case I would pull the plug.. NOW. Don’t get to much closer to the holidays because if his parents are expecting you and you don’t show its rude. The right thing to do is get it out of the way… something along the lines of I had a great time with you but I can’t give you what you need. Don’t pull a “its not you it’s me”... just be honest.

I don’t see what harm joining him over the holidays would be. You like him now, right? So enjoy yourself while it lasts. Especially if he knows this might not be a forever thing.

If you can’t just tell him, have sex with his best friend, that will get the message through.

Or you could follow @mrlaconic ‘s advice…

It’s all about (well not entirely really) how he sees this ‘opportunity’ to have his family meet you. Is it about ‘formalizing’ the relationship? Cementing it somehow? It’s kinda weird since yeah, meeting his family will make you talk to a lot of them and get them to later speculate. Maybe he thinks it’s for life as opposed to how you feel. There’s a lot of unknown factors here. Do you think the fact you’ll meet the family (if you go) is going to affect/effect you? Do you believe it’ll make you stay with him because ‘now you have to’? Of course it’s up to you what you decide but I feel these are some good pointers.

You need to have a frank talk with him. If you are sure that there is no forever potential, you need to tell him that.

Then say that you are having fun, but don’‘t want to break his heart.

Then ask him what he wants to do.

If you think it may turn into something more for you and you have told him you are not there yet then go and have a good time. But I would tell him again that you are not ready for commitment. If he hears that again he may decide to end it.

Just go to the parties, get really hammered and hit on all the married men, his family will hate you and tell him to drop you like a sack of potatoes. Problem solved!

Wow this is a hard one. Dump him just before the holidays or live a lie for at least the next month. My only suggestion is to go with whichever makes most sense to you, and if you do break up with him before the holidays you better do it soon and not through a text message or email.

For what it’s worth, I don’t feel like I’m living a lie. I like dating him, I’m just not sure yet if this is going to go where he wants it to. That doesn’t mean it’s definitely NOT, but I don’t want to give him the wrong idea by meeting his parents and whole extended family—nor do I want him to feel embarrassed by having to explain to his whole family that we broke up, if we actually do break up in the near future.

Maybe I’m overthinking this.

Again I say just be honest.. if it’s rational he will understand when you say I like hanging out with you but I don’t know if I’m ready for that stage yet can we just keep dating for now. If it’s not rational and can’t hang with that, when its only been a few months then you know what to do.

My cousins are big fans of “showing off” their newly found girlfriends to the family, every family gathering. From the family’s perspective I could say this much – though we’re very welcoming to just about anyone joining us during our functions, the family as a whole begins to take them less and less seriously, as they’ve got new girlfriends every time – or the sometimes (awkwardly) the ex (original mothers of the children) will show up to pick up/drop off the children and sometimes stick around just to chat with the family.

Put quite frankly, I find it kind of tacky… unless the relationship has evolved passed the dating for a few months/casually dating stage.

What does this mean for you? I think if you’re not that eager to meet his family and make an impression to establish the title of “relationship” between the two of you, you probably should just opt out of going. I wouldn’t bring anyone around my family that didn’t want to be there for any given reason in the first place. By going, to me, you’d be asserting that you want to be there because you’re genuinely interested in meeting and spending time with him and his family. In my opinion, such action does would speak volumes about where you stand in the relationship and where you want things to go.

Whether or not you’re supposed to break up with him is a separate matter for you to decide. I’m getting the sense that you certainly enjoy being with him as it wouldn’t have lasted this long if you didn’t and you haven’t expressed any real problems with the relationship itself – but you’re unsure of how much longer it continue because you dont feel yourself deeply emotionally invested in the relationship.