My Parents Don’t Approve of the Person I’m Dating! What Do I Do?

Hi Evan! I have a dating question. What do you do when your parents dont approve or feel that the person you love/dating is the right person for you? Do you respect their wishes and find someone who is welcome at home and around your family, or do you follow your heart and stay with the person you love even if your parents may not attend the wedding? Sincerely, Gili Dear Gili, Let me guess - youre Jewish. Yeah, me, too. And while I like to maintain a separation between church and date, I dont think your culture can be entirely ignored here. Ive explored this concept before, in relation to successful women, but I think it applies to Judaism as well. In short, good qualities come with bad qualities. They cant be separated. So if your parents are super-caring and attentive, theyre likely to be overprotective. If theyre intelligent, theyre likely to be opinionated. If theyre the CHOSEN people, theyre likely to look upon others as NOT chosen people. Okay, so, maybe Im making religion the unfair scapegoat for your parents judgment of your boyfriend, without any real context. Maybe hes a drug dealer. Maybe hes a slacker. Maybe hes got a tattoo of a skull over his left eye. There are some genuine concerns that parents can have about whos dating their daughter. But in the absence of tangible "youre hurting yourself and risking life-long sorrow" reasons? Parents just need to back the heck up. Good parenting means giving your kids the tools to make good decisions, NOT making decisions for them. EVERY SINGLE HAPPY PERSON I KNOW is happy because of independent choices - not predetermined plans foisted upon them by overbearing parents. Im going to briefly use myself as an example, since I never, ever do that. When I declared in 1993 that I was cancelling my LSATs and becoming a comedy writer, my parents supported me. When I decided that I wasnt going to pursue screenwriting anymore and that I was going to film school to be a professor, my parents supported me. When I told them I was dropping out of film school to promote "I Cant Believe Im Buying This Book" and E-Cyrano, my parents supported me. Thats what good parents do. I may have broken their hearts and drained their wallets and destroyed their dreams of having a professional son, but they knew that I was driven and competent and had to find my own way. Nothing could have sown the seeds of strife MORE than them putting their foot down and telling me where I was going to work and what I was going to do. Am I concerned with what my parents think? Of course. If you love your parents, you probably want to make them happy. But once you put their happiness above your own, youre screwed. Good parents recognized this. Bad parents dont. They think that because they brought you into this world and sacrificed tremendously for you that they have a right to tell you how to life your life as an adult. Uh uh. YOU are the architect of your own life. YOU are the one who has to live daily with the consequences of her own decisions. YOU are the one who is in her own mind when her head hits the pillow at the end of the night. Whatever anybody else says is irrelevant. They dont have to live your life. You do. Still, Id be remiss if you thought I was suggesting that all parental wisdom is worthless. Sometimes, we are so blinded by love that we can unwillingly steer our lives into a ditch. But theres a big difference between Mom cautioning you not to settle down with the heroin-shooting rock star and her commanding you not to marry Patrick because he doesnt have a masters degree and his family goes to church instead of synagogue. Only you know, Gili, what the circumstances are. But if your parents find it more important to be "right" than to be supportive, I feel confident that youre better off without them on your very special day. Want better results in your love life? Click here to read my FREE eBook "7 Secrets for Dating Success" and receive news about all my new articles, products and seminars.