If she doesnt let you meet her parents by the second visit

[GregfromGa]

cut her loose.

[Faux Pas]

Greg,

No ifs, ands or buts? No extenuating circumstances?

[kievstar]

I think in most cases very good advise, but what if she lives in Kiev and her parents live in Russia.  1st visit is in Kiev and everything is good.  Next visit 1 month later and she is not ready to spend 4-5 days in her home city and her parents work.  I met many girls like this in Kiev.  Parents live small town 14 plus hours away by train but they go to Kiev as that is where the high paying jobs are.

I think their needs to be a timeframe.  For example once you have 1st meeting with a RW and she will not show you her parents in the next 3 months than she goes.  But after 1st visit if she has not mentioned you to her parents within a couple weeks than she goes.  Also, if it is a blind date cannot expect to visit parents one month later.  That is where 3 months is reasonable.

 

[Sculpto]

concrete rules like that are sure to cause good guys to lose good girls and good girls to end up wondering what went wrong.

[Daveman]

IIRC, the MIL is visiting GregfromGa at the moment. That "rule" is probably a little venting over the visit. He's mentioned some interference before.  Probably a somewhat difficult situation for him at the moment.  

I had one problem with an MIL which lasted only about a week... she loved me, then shockingly became completely paranoid and caused us some problems for about a week or so, then things went back to normal.  She had had a dream about her daughter and I getting married, and at the wedding, the daughter was wearing no shoes (or maybe it was red shoes?) which is a symbol of unhappiness so she went off the deep end for some days.  Don't ask me, I have no idea. Edit: ack, now that I think about it, the situation was a little more bizarre. Her mom's friend/coworker had the dream and told her mom about it.   After that bout with superstition she went back to being 110% supportive...

Parental interference can be a real issue sometimes so really, getting to know the parents can be quite important, and especially so if they are a close knit family.  MIL can be your most wonderful ally or your most vocal naysayer.

I'm sure greg will fill in a little more detail when he stops pulling his hair out.

[MatryoshkaMan]

In my case I met my future wife in the airport WITH her father standing right beside her, lived with THEM in Kiev for a few days then moved in with the ENTIRE FAMILY after we took the train to Zaporozh'ye with father in the car (hard to make out!). So this is my take on it for what it is worth. After a week they seemed like MY parents almost. Mother especially doted over me like a helpless little kitten.

[GregfromGa]

concrete rules like that are sure to cause good guys to lose good girls and good girls to end up wondering what went wrong.

Concrete rules like this will keep good guys from getting taken and scammed by girls that have no intentions of ever being anything other than a mark. It's not that hard to figure out fellows. You ride 6000 miles about twice, you need to see what Mama and Papa are like. If she gives a damn about you, she'll want you to meet Mama.

[Kuna]

I think in most cases very good advise, but what if she lives in Kiev and her parents live in Russia.  

If the girl is "that into you" she'll find a way for her man to meet her family.

My wife was living in Dnepropetrovsk.  We met in Kiev.  She returned home and i continued my trip before flying to Dnepr for a flying visit.  During that time she made sure some workmates/friends saw me...  albeit to say hello/goodbye.

Her family live in Moscow but on my second trip the entire family came back to Dnepr.  This wasn't easy as the BIL has a business and they have 3 kids PLUS Mama.

If you don't meet the family on the second trip you need to accept THERE IS A PROBLEM!

concrete rules like that are sure to cause good guys to lose good girls and good girls to end up wondering what went wrong.

With all due respect, "What the hell would you know?" 

You've not met your gf's family after how long?

You've made every excuse under the sun to rationalise it away.

You're planning a K1 without ever seeing her in normal life (unless you've changed your plans again)...  and now you're off for yet another neutral location to prolong the avoidance of reality.

IMHO you're the last person who should be giving an opinion on this until your method is proved to not be the dumbest ting to hit these boards since Alfies conquest!

...  but all the best with your fantasy anyway!   

[Faux Pas]

Concrete rules like this will keep good guys from getting taken and scammed by girls that have no intentions of ever being anything other than a mark. It's not that hard to figure out fellows. You ride 6000 miles about twice, you need to see what Mama and Papa are like. If she gives a damn about you, she'll want you to meet Mama.

I agree with you BTW. I was looking for more clarification from you for the statement. I would however say this is true probably 90% of the time. Those 10% think they are in the 90% but only fool themselves. I don't fault any man who chooses the neutral ground on the first trip but, after that if she isn't insistent on meeting at least her mother on your next meeting, something is amiss. Good OT but I thought you were too incomplete.

[Kuna]

My wife is not "extremely" close to her mother (mother can be a bit overpowering...) but I asked her if she would have married me before I'd met the family.

Her response, "Never.  I couldn't.  My family must meet my husband.  Would you let our son marry someone we'd never met?"

Then it hit me...  how would we feel if our son (or daughter in future) were dating or intending marriage with someone we'd never met?

The answer is simple...  a woman CAN NOT be serious about a man until after meeting the parents.

Give me the 1% example where this is not true...  but it would virtually require the parents to be deceased to make any sense.

[GQBlues]

I met my wife in Moscow the first trip. The second trip we met in St Petersburg for a week then flew out together to Novosibirsk to formally meet her parents. Then also met her friends. I stayed there another week.

I'm not sure when exactly is the right time to meet the parents for everyone, but in my case and at my wife's request, the second time was definitely the right time. Thus, Greg's point is made in my case as my wife didn't think it cool to be meeting with me in other places other than her town and not have her parents meet me personally.
 
Times after that, telling me how important it was for her for me to meet her entire family if we are to get engaged, I flew all over the world to meet them all by myself (my decision) in between my visits with her. She knew that chances are great that she'll get married and not have her family around her when the time comes. So meeting them beforehand was important.

I invited everyone out to LA to join us for our wedding to my wife's surprise. I told her about it when she passed her interview. We got married in Hawaii. FIL walked the grassy aisle to give the bride away. That was pretty cool. The in-laws, having experienced how long the flight was from Novo-LA and knowing how many times I flew it, joked that I must be crazily in love with their daughter to go through that so many times.

Indeed, those were crazy times...

[Aloe]

what if she isnt sure after only 2 meetings and needs more time to decide? After all, MOST people in the world do NOT decide to marry someone after 2 weeks together (1 week every visit), so whats wrong with that ?

[Daveman]

what if she isnt sure after only 2 meetings and needs more time to decide? After all, MOST people in the world do NOT decide to marry someone after 2 weeks together (1 week every visit), so whats wrong with that ?

Absolutely nothing...  the time frame will vary from couple to couple.  For me, I wouldn't be ready to be seriously contemplating marriage until quite a bit more than 14, or 28 days together. I would HOPE she wouldn't be either.  But I think the point is a valid one -- when the couple becomes more serious, meeting the parents/family/etc is important.   Many in this pursuit forget that you are only meeting and dating at first and the relationship, IF one develops, will grow to different levels of seriousness at a natural rate.  Some ladies will not want to introduce a man until they are sure, some will introduce a man to assist in becoming sure, and probably others will have varying degrees of incomprehensible womanly thoughts on the matter.

I really don't care, either way, to meet the parents or not meet the parents until I am sure that I am interested in developing relations with a particular woman.  I don't think there is a possible scenario where I'd be that serious in 14 days, unless perhaps I were struck by lightning and my brain completely reprogrammed. Possible, yet unlikely.

 

[Boethius]

Whether or not you meet the parents is irrelevant. 

I knew many women in Kyiv who married men their parents, for one reason or another, did not approve of.  Some of those marriages were happy, others were not.

My husband had made his decision to marry me before I met his parents.  My parents did not meet my husband for years after we were married.  I was just out of my teens when we married, and my parents weren't thrilled about it.  But I knew he was the one.  What my parents thought was irrelevant.  If your intended spouse really loves you, what her parents think of you will not be of importance. 

Would you let our son marry someone we'd never met?"

So if your mother had said "I will never approve of your marriage to a foreign woman." would you have discarded the whole notion?   If your children are adults, the reality is you will have no influence on this decision.

[Billgreen54]

I met Larisa's parents three days after we first met at the Odessa airport over two years ago.  We stayed in Nikolaev because Larisa lived here.  Her parents live in a city on the other side of Kherson.  It's called Vinagradova.  I had no idea what to expect when we all met, but we had a great time and her family and friends welcomed me with open arms.  On top of that, Peter (Larisa's father) and I, polished off a bottle of homade red wine in less than 20 minutes.  I don't remember much after that:)

[GoodOlBoy]

After I met Marina in Greece (for 2 weeks), I was "invited" by her whole family to Omsk.

I went to Moscow/Omsk over the 2004 New Years and had a wonderful time meeting all of my wife's family, colleagues from her work and friends.

I would also have to agree, that if you are meeting a woman for the second time and she hasn't introduced you to any of her family members, colleagues or close friends......something is wrong.


GOB

[Kuna]

What my parents thought was irrelevant.  If your intended spouse really loves you, what her parents think of you will not be of importance. 

I think we all feel like this when we're young. It actually reeks of Gen Y so many of the young-uns around us would be horrified to know teens were just as rebellious 30 or 40 years ago.

So if your mother had said "I will never approve of your marriage to a foreign woman." would you have discarded the whole notion?   If your children are adults, the reality is you will have no influence on this decision.

If my mother hadn't approved of my current marriage it wouldn't have changed my mind...  I make my own decisions - but in my family (and this includes my wife's family), it would be seen as highly disrespectful to marry someone without even introducing the person to the family - and that is important.

I know we're all different... but for us family values were critical characteristics we each were looking for in a life partner.

[GregfromGa]

Bearing in mind that I said by the second visit. I would hope that the smitten couple wouldve established some relevance of a foundation to build upon by the end of the 2nd visit. I guess if you live in Europe and you only have a 2 hour flight then this rule might seem a little unimportant. I've always said that guys living in Europe doesnt have or need the same rules. When you can fly for $200 and you only go a couple of timezones away then it's really not much of a big deal and there's no reason pretending like it is.

I met my M-I-l the first day I met my wife. When I returned after a couple of months, I insisted on meeting her and Papa again. They needed to feel comfortable with me and I wanted the big table,and it was a great big table by the way I might add. Believe it on not but my M-i-L actually told my wife the other day that she misses me. It so funny to my wife. As you all know she's usually on my ass from about 7AM until she decides to turn in when she is staying with us. I think my charm is gradually wearing her down. The Soviet mindset and her fire breathing dragon attitude toward me is fading. It usually does after she goes back to her village so I'm not going to get a callouses on my hand for patting myself on the back just yet.

Posters can come on here and say I didnt do it that way and I did it this way and blah,blah,blah. Some people just like to refute everything and will argure with a focking fence post. Your lady should have enough respect for her parents to want you to meet them. If your lady is scamming you then she probably hasnt taken all her guys to meet Mama and Papa as well. It aint science, it aint rock solid advice and I'm sure there have been instances when it didnt happen. People that know me and people that I've tried to help know I have a few rules that need to be followed.

1. Stay away from the girl with the  really pointy shoes. There is absolutely no room for wavering on this rule.
2. You go out to eat and she orders the steak and lobster, run. No Buddha Bar, No Divinci Fish Club, No Soho on the first or 3rd dates for sure.
3. A good Ukrainian girl will never ask you to buy her things on the 1st,2nd,3rd and I could go on and on dates.
4. Meet Mama and Papa

Stick with these solid rules of engagement and You'll be way ahead of the game.

[Aloe]

i met my husbands mom 1 hour before the wedding and his father 2 days after the wedding, and he met my parents briefly on 2nd and 3rd trip to see me, when he left, i asked my parents what was their impression? They said: "normal guy, but what matters is if you love him, not what we think" and that was it 

[boaterguy]

My wife and I had our 1st misunderstanding over this topic. I did a 2 city tour to specifically meet my wife. Our plan was if we clicked for her to come with me to the 2nd city.

We clicked! We were in Moscow and it turns out my wife didn't want to go to Kiev...she wanted me to come to Novosibirsk to meet her mother. I was trying to explain to her I could not go to Novosibirsk because my Visa was only for the time we were in Moscow. She took this to the extreme and thought I did not want to meet her mother. Took the main interepreter a good 30 minutes to make my wife understand about the visa issue!

[groovlstk]

There are plenty of reasons why a guy may not meet a girl's parents quickly (e.g., her parents live in another country or far-off city). The big red flag is if she makes excuses as to why she can't introduce you or refuses outright. Guys who are willing to put up with these shenanigans are already too far gone to rehabilitate, they'll make excuses for her behavior right up until the day she packs her bags.

FWIW, during my first serious relationship w/a Ukrainian woman I made this mistake and bought her excuses as to why she couldn't introduce me to mom & dad. Very foolish on my part, I'd hate to see new guys falling for the same. Heed Greg's advice.

[Simoni]

Absolutely nothing...  the time frame will vary from couple to couple.  For me, I wouldn't be ready to be seriously contemplating marriage until quite a bit more than 14, or 28 days together.

Excellent point, Dave.  We should be talking about facetime, not "when" you meet the parents.

what if she isnt sure after only 2 meetings and needs more time to decide? After all, MOST people in the world do NOT decide to marry someone after 2 weeks together (1 week every visit), so whats wrong with that ?

Great point, Aloe!  It seems like a no-brainer to me, but it looks like different people plant their own circumstances into the discussion and become rigid.

concrete rules like that are sure to cause good guys to lose good girls and good girls to end up wondering what went wrong.

Excellent post, Sculpto.  Trying to make concrete rules takes away the human element, and removes choice.

Take my wife, for example.  I did not meet her family until the third visit.  This rule would have doomed us.

On the first visit, it was a WMVM trip, so I dated her three or four times those 10 days.  Nothing serious, just real life first dates like you would have at home.  The best approach, IMHO.  After that, we wrote for 3 months and sent thousands of texts and lots of money of phone cards.  Our second meeting was at a neutral site.  My next visit was to her home city, and on that-- the third meeting -- I met her family.

The lesson in terms of this thread?  Avoid absolute decrees...

[GregfromGa]

Excellent point, Dave.  We should be talking about facetime, not "when" you meet the parents.

Great point, Aloe!  It seems like a no-brainer to me, but it looks like different people plant their own circumstances into the discussion and become rigid.

Excellent post, Sculpto.  Trying to make concrete rules takes away the human element, and removes choice.

Take my wife, for example.  I did not meet her family until the third visit.  This rule would have doomed us.

On the first visit, it was a WMVM trip, so I dated her three or four times those 10 days.  Nothing serious, just real life first dates like you would have at home.  The best approach, IMHO.  After that, we wrote for 3 months and sent thousands of texts and lots of money of phone cards.  Our second meeting was at a neutral site.  My next visit was to her home city, and on that-- the third meeting -- I met her family.

The lesson in terms of this thread?  Avoid absolute decrees...

All I can say is I'm happy it worked out for you. We have an old saying that a blind hog will find an acorn every now and then as well. I have no problem standing by my sentiments. I guess we can just agree to not agree.

[GoodBrew]

There are plenty of reasons why a guy may not meet a girl's parents quickly (e.g., her parents live in another country or far-off city). The big red flag is if she makes excuses as to why she can't introduce you or refuses outright. Guys who are willing to put up with these shenanigans are already too far gone to rehabilitate, they'll make excuses for her behavior right up until the day she packs her bags.

FWIW, during my first serious relationship w/a Ukrainian woman I made this mistake and bought her excuses as to why she couldn't introduce me to mom & dad. Very foolish on my part, I'd hate to see new guys falling for the same. Heed Greg's advice.

I just made a similar foolish mistake.  In my case I met her friends and they were asking all the "right" questions.  It made it easier to buy the BS she was pushing about mama and papa being in poor health and living a days journey away from her.  I will post the details later today in the Scam section so as not to derail Greg's thread.

[Simoni]

All I can say is I'm happy it worked out for you. We have an old saying that a blind hog will find an acorn every now and then as well. I have no problem standing by my sentiments. I guess we can just agree to not agree.

No blind hog here, Greg.  My point is that the criteria should be more flexible, to include the circumstance like I mentioned.

Groove gave a good example of why your rule would be important; I have a good one that voids it.

Anyway-- for you readers in the search, RWD 101 does state that it is of utmost importance to meet the family, and before you invest too much time.   It's a basic strategy needed to void professional daters.

On the other side of the coin, it's foolish to be pulled into a meeting with the family of a girl you hardly know.  Meet them only when you are serious about her.  Just use good common sense and you will be ok.