Of all the situations that any new couple find themselves, meeting their partner’s parents ranks up there amongst the highest – if not actually the highest – in terms how stressful the event is.  It doesn’t matter how much you know your partner loves you, or how often they reassure you that everything will be fine and how could their parents do anything other than fall in love with you, you know that the bottom line is that no mother is ever going to think you’re good enough for their child.  At best, you can only hope that they think there could be worse and so they aren’t going to convince your partner to dump you and find a nice, more suitable person to date instead!

Problem is that it’s very possible that your partners parents have none of these preconceived notions at all.  They aren’t the reality, they are the perceived reality.  You only know the parents from what your partner has said about them.  This will be colored with bias – positive or negative.  So much of the stress that you find yourself under before meeting your partner’s parents is self-inflicted and if you put things into perspective and trust that you are a great person whether they think so or not.  Another technique is to remember that it’s not that important if they like you or not, you’re not dating them, you’re dating their child!

One of the main reasons for meeting a partner’s parents being stressful is that it’s conducted in a formal manner, usually over dinner at their home.  This puts them immediately at ease, whilst you are not only meeting strangers, but also meeting them on an unequal footing.  The best way to avoid this is to have the meeting at a restaurant.  Ensure that the restaurant serves food that both you and your partner, plus your partner’s parents will be able to choose from,  so that there’s no reason for the food to be an issue.  This way no-one is on “home ground” and so no-one has the home advantage. 

Your partner can also make the meeting less stressful by not building either you or their parents up to be more than they are.  As with many things in life, it’s easy not to live up to high expectations.  Try and make sure your partner doesn’t tell his parents how absolutely wonderful you and that no-one else is even half as super.  Remind him you’re not superwoman and his parents are going to be very disappointed to meet a regular girl after such a build-up. 

Learn about his parents and what interests them so that you have something to fall back on if the conversation starts to lag a bit.  Keep in mind that these may be your partner’s parents, but that doesn’t mean that you have to either agree with everything they say, or feel you are being interviewed for a job.  You’ve already got the job, and you don’t need the approval of the board of directors.  It would be nice, but it’s essential. 

Keep things in perspective.  This is just a meeting with people you don’t know, they just happen to be your partner’s parents.  Lower the importance of the meeting in your mind and you’ll find that your stress levels lower accordingly.