My Girlfriend & Family Don’t Get Along. Now She’s Distant

What you can do if your girlfriend & family don’t get along & now she’s being distant.

In this video coaching newsletter I discuss an email from a viewer from Macedonia. His parents usually visit him twice per year. His girlfriend and parents don’t get along. He tried to mediate between them both, but it blew up into a big fight. She was supposed to follow him to Germany for work, but is now distant.

He is mentally drained and doesn’t know what to do now and asks my opinion. My comments are in bold italics like this below in the body of his email.

Well, this is the kind of situation that I often do in phone sessions, and I’ve done quite a few emails over the years where guys are in this situation.

This particular emailer is from Macedonia and he’s now living in Germany, and he had been living in Macedonia with him and his girlfriend. So his parents come to visit like twice a year and something you guys have to remember, if you’re going to involve your girl with your family, your sisters, your aunt or your obnoxious uncle who’s always talking shit, as a man, it’s your job to make your girl feel safe around your family. The worst thing you can do is kind of throw her to the wolves, so to speak, in your family and let her fend for herself. Or even worse, if she’s being attacked or insulted by members of your family, not standing up for her, because if you don’t do that, she’s going to feel attacked. She’s not going to feel safe. She’s not going to feel like you’re being a man. She’s also not going to feel like you’re able to protect her.

The other thing that you got to keep in mind is that when it’s the two of you, the two of you come first, your relationship comes first. That includes first and foremost, above the relationship that you have with your children, because if you don’t have a strong relationship with your girl, you guys got to present a united front. Those of you that are watching this that are fathers and parents, you know what I’m talking about. Those of you that have been stepdads like I have, it’s you and your girl. When you got kids involved, you got to have a united front. You can’t have your kids coming to you, then you say no and then they go to your girl and she says yes and then pitting the two of you against one another, because that creates problems. If your relationship with your significant other is solid, whether it’s your own family members, her family members, your business partner or whatever it happens to be, you cannot let your parents interfere in your relationship. That’s kind of what this particular guy did, was that his girlfriend, whenever his parents were around, would be really quiet and not really engage with them. So he got the bright idea to get them together and just basically let his girlfriend and parents interact and just speak their minds and he was just going to be like a referee, which you’ll see, his girlfriend kind of got torn to shreds by his dad. Now he’s a doctor in Macedonia and he moved to Germany just because there’s much more opportunity for him there, but she’s still in Macedonia and has the attitude of, “Well, you kind of abandoned me and left me here.” She already doesn’t feel safe, like he can protect her. I think if I remember right, his parents live in Germany as well. So she doesn’t feel safe, now she’s getting kind of distant and it’s kind of creating problems in their relationship.

A woman’s got to feel safe and comfortable with you, that you got her back, basically. This guy makes a mistake of saying, “Hey, family comes first.” It’s like, if you’re in a relationship, your girl, she’s your closest immediate family and you can’t allow members of your family to beat up on her, that’s just going to go over like a lead balloon and can definitely lead to the end of your relationship.

I remember a couple of years ago I had a situation with a client, very successful guy, had a good relationship with his girlfriend. He and his dad were business partners. So his girlfriend came into the office and he wasn’t there at the time, or he was further up in the office, he wasn’t towards the back, and his father got all over his girlfriend for coming in the office or coming in on employee entrance, that kind of thing. It really pissed him off, so he chewed her ass. Then my client made the mistake of not really standing up for his girl. So after we did a phone session, he went and talked to his dad. He’s like, “Dad, it would really help me out in my relationship if you do me a solid apologize to my girlfriend for what you said and how you treated her because you were out of line, because now she doesn’t feel safe coming to the office. She doesn’t feel safe around you and it’s creating problems in our relationship. She resents it, and until you resolve that,” like in this guy’s case, until he gets to a place where he makes his girl feel safe, like he’s got her back and he’s not going to just throw her to the wolves, so to speak, and let her dad or mom or whoever else shred her and just sit there and let it happen, it’s going to create problems, and it will eventually lead to the end of the relationship. If a woman doesn’t feel like you can protect her or you’re going to keep her safe, she’s not going to feel comfortable opening the legs up to you. Then eventually that will deteriorate. A lack of intimacy. Then you become kind of like roommates, and then she just kind of ends up leaving the relationship because again, she doesn’t feel safe with you. This is why when a guy acts like a beta male, a woman’s just not going to feel safe with him.

So let’s go through his email.

Viewer Email:

Hey Corey, 

I am a 27-year-old doctor and I have a problem with my girlfriend. I have to admit these past few months I have been slacking off and haven’t been reading the book. Before that, I was on my sixth read. I’ve been together with my girlfriend for one year and 10 months. We love each other, but a few months ago something bad happened in our relationship that involved my parents.

I live in alone in North Macedonia which is in southern Europe, and my parents live in Germany. My girlfriend also lives in Macedonia but in a different city, and my parents come two times a year to visit me, and every time my girlfriend was with me and them, she was always quiet and never wanted to create much of a relationship between her and my parents.

You know, one of the things that Tony Robbins said many years ago when I was a platinum partner, I thought it was brilliant and it’s true. He said, “Love your family, but choose your peers.” In other words, you choose your business partners, you choose your friends, you choose your girlfriend, your lover, your wife, whatever, the mother of your children, your baby mama, but your family you’re kind of stuck with because their blood. Just because they’re blood, you can’t allow them to attack your significant other if you want her to be happy, in love, to trust your leadership and to feel safe in your presence.

She always went on and on about how she wants us to always be alone and to live alone in the future, and every time she was in the room with my parents or around them, she always had been in a bad mood for some reason. Mind you, she only ever had small interactions with my parents and didn’t want to get to know them.

Well, that’s not helpful if she’s not making the effort initially. Maybe she got a bad vibe. Maybe your parents didn’t make her feel welcome. Maybe she’s got mommy and daddy issues of her own, but at the end of the day, you’re her man, and it’s your job to make her feel safe. So what you should do instead of having the attitude of, “Oh, I got to shoehorn and force my girl into a relationship with my parents because I love my parents,” you just ignore the fact she doesn’t feel comfortable. As a man, it’s your job to open her up. So what I would have said to her is like, “You’re pretty quiet when my parents are around. What’s going on? Why do you become so shy when they’re around? Do you feel uncomfortable? If so, what’s the reason? Has anybody said anything? Did my dad say something? Did my mom say something?” These things are going to happen.

I mean, I grew up in an environment where neither side of my parents’ families kind of liked each other. Like my grandfather, my mother’s father, when my dad and my mom got engaged, drove to my dad’s parents’ house when he was still living there and begged my father not to marry my mother and offered him money just to go away. Of course, the windows were open and my grandmother, my dad’s mom, heard all of this and that really pissed her off like, “Who does this guy think he is? Buying my son off to go away,” because he doesn’t feel worthy of marrying his daughter, and that just created a whole series of problems that just made things difficult during the holidays. Eventually I remember, I think it was when I was in sixth grade, seventh grade, basically my mom was like, “I’m just done with those people. I’m done with her.”

I remember one year in particular, my grandfather was in the merchant marine, sailing around the world, and my mom felt bad for her because she knew that my grandfather was basically hooking up with whores and hookers at different ports he was going to and writing home about it to my my uncle. Then my aunt would see the letters and then call my mom and tell her about all of his escapades. So she felt bad for my grandmother because she’s home alone during the holidays, because my grandfather would be gone for six months at a time.

I remember one year my mom bought her this little tiny Christmas tree. It was a real tree and had got lights and decorations and made it really nice. Then my grandmother never took care of it. She never put water in it or anything, and I remember she came over probably about a month, month or so after she’d given it to her. My mom saw it and it was completely dead. All of the needles had fallen off. It’s like my grandmother just left it there on purpose to let it die. Didn’t water it. Didn’t take care of it. Now keep in mind, my grandmother had a green thumb. She had plants every where, but the one thing that my mom bought for her during the holidays, she just let it die on purpose. That was her way of saying, “Hey, here’s what I think of you and your family.” So after that, my mom was like, “Fuck her, I’m done. I’m done with this,” and she never wanted to go over or spend time with my dad’s parents and my dad acquiesced. He tried to mediate, but you know, his parents were just assholes. I mean, I love my grandparents, but they were kind of assholes. They were definitely assholes to my mother. It didn’t help during the holidays, so I can totally understand and relate. At the end of the day, and in the interest of my dad trying to keep the peace in his own household, he was not going to force my mother to spend time with his parents, especially when my grandmother kind of had contempt for my mother because of what had happened when they had gotten engaged all those years ago before my brother and I were born. That’s just the way it was.

So it’s like my dad realized that my grandma ain’t going to change and he just said that affected his relationship. He didn’t see his parents very often, even though they lived a couple blocks away. He only saw them maybe once or twice a year, if that. They just weren’t close. Then my mother’s parents, they died. My grandmother died when I was in sixth grade, and my grandfather died when I was like six, seven years old, so they weren’t around for very long. My dad’s parents were, and they were just kind of unbearable at times, and it created a lot of tension in the house and between the families. Like I said, my dad just kept the distance between his own parents and my mom and us, just because he didn’t want to deal with the bullshit, because he knew his parents weren’t going to change. That’s kind of the way they were, and sometimes you may have to do that. Sometimes, like in this case, this guy is going to need to sit down with his parents. I mean, I’ll get to the point where there’s a blow up that happens here and you’re like, “Whoa!” So you can just imagine, it’s pretty bad what happens. I’ll continue on with the email.

At the end of the day, it’s this guy’s job to make his girl feel safe and he can’t allow his parents to abuse his girlfriend. Unless of course, he wants to lose his relationship as well.

Back in September, my parents came, and she was over for the weekend, and since I couldn’t take the tension anymore, I sat down with my parents and her and started a conversation about how I want them to get along and lower the tension.

Well, I would have talked to my girlfriend first and then I would have talked to my parents as well separately, and then get all of them together. Like in this particular case, I wouldn’t just throw them together because you’ll he got everybody together and he just kind of leaned back and he just figured his dad would lead things and it would resolve all these things, but you see it gets out of hand pretty quickly.

My girlfriend started to attack my father verbally saying that he had a huge grasp on me, that I didn’t have the space to make my own decisions and that whenever she wanted to start talking with my parents, my father always dismissed her and didn’t let her talk because he was talking all the time.

So it would have been better if he would have asked his girlfriend to explain exactly what the issue was, instead of just dumping the three of them together and going, “OK, fix your relationship.” You’re supposed to be the leader at the end of the day.

What I would have done was when she said, “Well, the reason why I’m so quiet around your father is every time I speak, it’s like he thinks I’m stupid. He’s dismissive. He talks over me. So I’ve just learned to kind of keep my mouth shut, to keep the peace.” After that, “Well, I’m sorry he made you feel that way. He’s probably not aware of it, or maybe he is and I need to talk to him.” I would say, “Dad, we got to talk. My girlfriend’s upset. She says every time you guys come over, you make her feel uncomfortable. If she starts talking, you cut her off. It’s like you don’t let her speak. You talk over her and she’s just always quiet, so there’s always tension. I only see you guys once or twice a year. I love you, I’m glad to see you, but my girlfriend, I’m with her all the time and when you guys are around, she just doesn’t feel safe. She doesn’t feel like she can be herself. So she’s just quiet and I don’t want to deal with attention. So in the past, when I sat down and talked to her, this is what she said. You can be kind of overbearing. You don’t let her speak and you kind of talk to her sometimes and you make her feel like she’s an idiot. So you can’t do that.”

“I need you to do me a solid when you are here. Sit her down and just say, ‘Hey, I’m sorry if in the past I’ve cut you off at times, or I was dismissive or I made you feel like I made you feel uncomfortable to speak your mind. That was not my intent. I’m sorry if I was a little abrasive. Maybe I was in a bad mood or whatever, but I’m sorry I made you feel uncomfortable. I want you to feel welcome in our family,'” but that didn’t happen. Again, he threw them together. I mean, the fact that the girlfriend goes in on the dad, this guy set it up like this. He’s like, “Well, fire your first salvo to my dad,” and then so she just blows him up. Of course, the dad head goes over like a lead balloon with him.

My father got mad about that and he started telling her to leave the house and never come back.

You can’t do this. This is your castle, bro. Your dad comes into your castle and kicks your girl out.

Shit went real sideways and I learned my lesson never to do that again.

Well again, if I’m sitting and watching, I would be like, “Dad, you need to stop. Don’t fucking talk to my girlfriend like that. If anybody’s going to leave, it’s going to be you. This is my girl. This is our home. You can’t come in here and tell her to get the fuck out.” I don’t know, maybe this guy’s parents are paying for the house or something, but even so, it’s like, “You need to apologize or you need to leave.” That’s what would happen. I mean, this is all on this particular guy.

Now before all this, my plan was eventually to move to Germany because Macedonia is not a great place to live in order to make a good life for yourself. I had talks with my girlfriend about moving to Germany and at first she was hesitant, but then she agreed to me moving, and eventually she would join me and live together in Germany, but after the fight she started having second thoughts.

Yeah, because now she doesn’t feel safe. She doesn’t feel like you’ll protect her. Again, you threw her to the wolves. You let your dad shred her, and then you didn’t do anything. You didn’t stand up for her. You didn’t protect her. It’s just like a stranger coming around and slapping your girlfriend around and then you just sit there like a beta male and watch it, but after the fight she started having second thoughts.

We patched things up somehow, talked about things, repaired our relationship. I told her that eventually my parents would come around and we would all get along.

Well, the way you gotta handle is, “Honey, I’m sorry things got out of hand. I should have stepped in, and I didn’t. I let my father walk all over you, be dismissive of you and be harsh and kick you out of my house.” Again, I can’t believe, as a man, you fucking sat there and you let your dad do that. That’s on you. That was a bitch move on your part. I can understand, maybe you were too afraid to stand up to your dad or whatever, but he was way the fuck out of line, because this is your house, this is your girl. He can’t come into your house and kick her out like that. He just can’t. That’s why you would have had to raise your voice to your dad. Like, “Don’t fucking talk to my girlfriend like that in my house. Don’t tell her to leave and never come back again.” Maybe it was their house. If your dad said, “Well, this is my house,” “Well, fuck you. You don’t talk to my girl like that, so you can leave. No, you leave. This is my house.” At the end of the day, you got to stand up for your girl and stand up to your dad in front of your girl so she feels safe, and you didn’t do that, so that’s on you.

So a week ago, I moved to Germany since I quit my job as a doctor in Macedonia, and for the past week I have been on video call with my girlfriend and she keeps saying that I left her in Macedonia and that I didn’t care about her and that I couldn’t live without my parents, which is not true.

Oh by the way, just so you know, she’s got a little bit of Australian Shepherd, and that’s why she’s very, very mouthy. Kind of like her fucking mother, who never stops running her mouth.

What’s really the problem is that you still haven’t resolved this issue. You let it fester. You let your parents attack her. He doesn’t say if she left the house that day or whatever and went back home or not, but the fact that you allowed that, that’s one of the dumbest things you’ve probably ever done in your life. You can’t do that.

All these things make me resent my parents, and my relationship with them is suffering because unknowingly I always start fights with them about the smallest of things.

Well, you have an unresolved issue, so you need to talk to your dad. You got to say, “Dad, I love you. We got to talk about what happened when you guys came to visit me last time, because it’s created a real rift in my relationship, and I need your help to fix it. So what you said and what you did with my girlfriend was way the fuck out of line, and you just can’t speak to her like that. If you’re going to be around me and her, you’re going to have to apologize for the way you’ve treated her because you treated her like she’s stupid and that her opinion doesn’t matter. You’ve been dismissive of her to the point. It was my mistake for not talking to her first and then talking to you guys first and then getting everybody together. What happened last time just got totally out of control and that was my fault, I shouldn’t have allowed it, but at the same time, for you to berate my girlfriend in front of me and then kick her out of my house, like that’s absurd. You can’t do that. You’re going to have to apologize to her because she doesn’t feel safe, she doesn’t feel comfortable and it’s creating problems in our relationship.”

I know that family comes first…

“Love your family, but choose your peers.” So your dad’s going to have to fix this. You can’t just let your parents come in and bully their way into your life and blow your personal life up like this, dude. That’s not being a man. That’s being a little bitch. It’s not good.

…And she has no right to talk bad about my parents since I have never talked bad about her parents…

Well, that’s not the issue, dude. This is a communication issue, and you threw everybody together and you made this fucking mess. So that’s on you.

…And I have a great relationship with them.

Well, you HAD a great relationship with them, but that is totally inappropriate. I would never tolerate that shit from any of my friends or any of my families ever in my life. Anybody talking to my girl that way, no fucking way that would be allowed. If anybody was leaving, it would have been my family, my friends or whoever is talking shit or causing problems. You got to make your girl feel safe. You can’t just throw her to the wolves like that.

I don’t know what to do. I want to keep my relationship but I’m afraid that I’m just wishfully thinking and trying to keep a relationship who clearly doesn’t respect my parents, or maybe she does respect them but she doesn’t want anything to do with them.

Well, after what your dad said and did, I’m surprised that you’re just going, “Gee, I don’t understand why my girlfriend is upset. Like come on, dude. I would say what your girlfriend said to your dad was actually truthful, was that your parents run your life, and you’re too much of a pussy to stand up for yourself and your girl. So now you’re on the verge of losing things, losing your relationship with your girl and you’re the one that brought them together and basically said, “OK well, let’s just talk about our problems honestly and openly.” You should have met with each of them one-on-one before, understood where each of them was coming from and then got everybody together, because once you understood where your dad was coming from and why he behaved the way he did, then you could have intervened and said, “Dad, you can’t talk to her like that. You can’t treat her like that. She doesn’t feel comfortable around you. I don’t want to deal with this tension, and if you’re not willing to fix this, then you’re just not going to be around me and my girlfriend, and it’s going to affect our relationship in a negative way.” Again, maybe this guy is totally dependent on them. I mean, he’s a doctor for Christ’s sake, so at some point, like I said, what your girlfriend said, despite the fact that it was harsh, you didn’t know where she was coming from and that was on you. Just like he said, “I’m never going to do that shit again.”

You need to talk to all parties. You need to talk to your dad. You say, “Dad, I need you to apologize to my girlfriend,” and if he’s not willing to do it, it’s like, “Well, I’m not going to have a relationship with you until you apologize to my girlfriend because you really fucked my relationship up, and it was on me because I didn’t speak up at the time, but I can’t allow this. You can’t come into my home and disrespect my girl in front of me and and do that to her. So if you want to have a good relationship with me and mom, you’re going to have to call my girlfriend, and you’re going to have to apologize to her.” Ideally, it’d be better to get him and everybody together in person once you’ve talked to everybody ahead of time, but this is just a hell of a mess that you created here.

I can’t take this anymore. I’m just mentally exhausted from being in the middle like that. I hope you come across my email and give me your thoughts.

Best Regards,

Bob

Well, that’s because you’re sitting there acting like a chick and you’re not resolving anything. You made this mess because you allowed it to fester.

Like I said, first things first. You need to have a heart-to-heart with your dad and you need to let him know that he was way the fuck out of line. He can’t ever come into your home and berate your girlfriend like that, and he doesn’t have the authority to kick your girl out of your house. The fact that your girlfriend said that to him, you should apologize to her as well. You should say, “You know what? I didn’t really know you felt that way or that was your perspective. I should have talked to you ahead of time, and we could have approached my parents in a more diplomatic fashion. It’s on me. I should have asked you. I didn’t really take the time to understand your concerns. I’m sure it didn’t make you feel safe and I understand why you’re apprehensive and you’re unsure of our future together. I’m going to resolve this. I got your perspective now, and I’m going to talk to my dad, and I’m going to get him to the point where he’s going to call you and apologize because he needs to. The way he handled things was just totally out of line, and if he’s not willing to apologize, well then my relationship with them is going to suffer. We’re just not going to be around them until he says he’s sorry, because that’s the right thing to do. I’m sorry I didn’t make you feel safe. I’m sorry I didn’t stand up for you when this happened. I was just so shocked at the time that it escalated like that that I just didn’t know what to do. So I’m sorry that I put you in that position. I made you feel uncomfortable, but I’m going to rectify it one way or another. Either my dad’s going to apologize and we can talk it out and hug it out in the end, or we’re just not going to be around.”

I mean, he’s going to know the reason why his relationship with his son has suffered is because of his behavior. So it’s you and her against the world, bro. You can’t ever throw your girl to your family like that. You can’t allow your boss to do that either. I’ve had situations where guys have allowed their employer to get a couple drinks in them and they’re browbeating their girlfriend or their wives and then the wives and girlfriends don’t want to hang out and do company events anymore or whatever. So this is something you got to resolve, but your dad’s going to have to eat some crow and he’s going to have to apologize. You’re going to have to let your dad know, “Dad, you totally fucked my relationship up. Now I’m unsure whether she’s even going to come see me, come visit me or come move here in the future. So I need you to fix this. You can’t just let this shit lie and you can’t tell me it’s not your problem, because if it’s not your problem, then we’re just not going to talk anymore and I’m not going to see you guys. So at that point, you’re going to have to man up and you’re going to have to solve this and you’re going to have to help me work it out with my girl, because if we’re going to get along and be a family, this shit’s not going to continue. If you’re unwilling to resolve it, then I’m just not going to have a relationship with you until you’re apologetic.” That’s the way you’re going to have to handle it, bro. That’s the only thing that’s going to make your girl feel safe, because right now, if you don’t resolve it, your relationship is on the verge of ending and you just you can’t do this.

So, if you’ve got a question or a challenge and you’d like to get my help, go to UnderstandingRelationships.com, click the Products tab at the top of your screen on any page, and book a coaching session with yours truly. Until next time, I will talk to you soon.