My Family Is Nosy About My Dating Life

How you should handle close relatives or friends who are nosy and constantly offering unsolicited advice or opinions about your dating life, why you are still single, not married, etc.

In this video coaching newsletter, I discuss an email from a woman whose sisters and mother are constantly badgering her, and inquiring about why she’s not married, why she doesn’t have a boyfriend, why she’s not in a relationship, etc. She knows what she wants, and does not want to settle, but often feels pressure from people closest to her to be like them. It’s a great email and topic to discuss because no matter who you are, where you live, or what people are like around you, you’re going to have to deal with comments about your personal life and your life choices from others.

It’s really important to know yourself, what you want, and what’s most important to you so you can resist the influence of other people who simply want you to be more like them, and make the same choices, so they feel better about themselves and their own choices. This is a really important topic for everyone to understand so they can make the right romantic choices for them, and not settle just to get busy-body friends, relatives, or acquaintances off their backs.

Hey Corey,

I am having a different kind of problem with dating. My younger sisters are both with their high school sweethearts, so neither one has ever really been single and dated. (They are not walking in your shoes, they do not know how to relate to you, and you need to point that out to them. The key is to live your own truth and do what makes you happy.) Now that I’m about to turn 30, they have become “concerned” that I don’t give guys a chance, and that I’m emotionally closed off. (Since you don’t match their expectations, they expect there should be something wrong with you, which is a narrow-minded perspective. They are trying to get you to conform to their worldview.) I know they are on a different side of it and have no clue what dating is like, but they have become quite nosy. Even my mom after one bad date said to me, “You know, aunt so-and-so never got married or had kids.” Thanks Mom, good bedtime story, Lol. (That’s her way of trying to nudge you into making a decision so she feels better about her own particular life choices.) They want to know about every single date I go on which, who are we kidding, I have lost count of how many dates I’ve been on.

I’m having trouble explaining that it’s okay if dates don’t work out, and I don’t want to invest the time and get them emotionally involved with someone they won’t be meeting. My sister thinks because a date is bad that it must be me. (Again, she has no dating experience and cannot relate to your experiences.) I just say, no a douchebag got through the filter, Lol. They don’t think my attitude about dating is healthy because I’m not getting too emotional about anyone. (Why? Because none of them deserve you. You deserve to have a man in your life who is crazy about you and knocks your socks off.) I personally don’t want to put my eggs in one basket, it’s just so disappointing. I don’t know how to explain any of this to them. I think my attitude is healthy, but now I feel all this pressure, and I know I shouldn’t. They just sucked the fun out of it. What do you think? (Yes, your attitude is right. You have to tell your sisters they have no dating experience, and don’t know what they are talking about. Tell your mom you need her love and support, not her judgement. Let them know you want the best you can get, and they need to accept you for who you are.)

Jessica

“We all have to deal with enormous outside pressure from everyone we know, and everyone around us to conform to societal conventions and be like them. In order to resist the influence of other people, knowledge of one’s self is most important. In order to reach your full potential, you must know who you are, what you want, why you want it, and what’s most important to you. Most people are insecure, unsure about themselves, and unsure about their choices. Therefore, in order to feel good about themselves and their choices, they will consciously and unconsciously try to get as many other people to make the same choices as them. It does not matter if those choices are in their best interest or not. A drug addict tries to get other people to do drugs with them. Married people want single people to get married. Single people want married people to become single again. People who have settled for mediocrity in any area of their lives, will try to get people around them to settle for the same level of mediocrity. By developing a strong internal positive and empowering belief system, you will enable yourself to resist the weaknesses and mediocrity that most certainly surrounds you, so you can rise above it, and reach your full potential.” ~ Coach Corey Wayne