3 pieces of advice if your parents don’t approve who you are dating or marrying
Today, I want to talk about if your parents don’t approve of who you are dating or marrying, what you should do.
- First thing, remember and realize it’s your life.
Your parents don’t own you, and you don’t owe them anything.
Often, kids will feel a sense of guilt to make their parents happy. That’s not your job in life. So many people will make the mistake of living life on other people’s terms and then regret it later. My thought process is if I live on my terms, I can’t blame anyone but myself and I’ll have no regrets. Your job is to be you. There is no rule in life that you need to sacrifice or serve your parents just because they birthed you or they provided
food or economic means during your childhood.
Also, realize you’re the one who has to live with the person for 40–60 years. Not your parents.
Realize if they love you and want you to be happy, they’ll want what you want for your happiness.
2) Have empathy for their background
Realize your parents grew up in a different time when the mixing and matching that we see today was not really a thing back when they were growing up. This is hard to do — it’s hard to understand why they’re being so difficult — this situation often happens in situations where the child is dating/marrying someone outside of their race or religion.
They didn’t grow up in the openness and liberalness of our generation where we see so many more interracial, biracial marriage, and different religion marriages.
3) Be strong, surround yourself with support and understand the effects of this tension
There will be tension. I know couples who got married privately and didn’t even invite their parents to the wedding ceremony.
The trauma of not having your parents support is real — make sure your significant other realizes this and understands it will have an effect on your emotional health.
And make sure those around with people in your ear that are supportive. You’ll need them.
As always, if you have any feedback, please comment or DM me, I can make a part 2 if people have other pieces of advice for this process.