The agony and the ecstasy of: Introducing your partner to the family  

Over the long weekend I attended a long-awaited family reunion. We piled into the car, made sure we had enough snacks, and drove the 6 hours to Mildura.

My partner was joining us and would be meeting everyone for the first time. This brought up a few issues:

The Agony

Name calling

How am I supposed to introduce him to people when I have significant issues with remembering people’s names? I managed to call my second-cousin the wrong name. After apologising profusely, we laughed it off. My bad. This was ok for now, but what about the main event? When there would be 185 of us? (I’m Italian, clearly) We ended up having name tags, but it’s hard to greet someone warmly, while surreptitiously reading their badge.

Story time

“Remember that time we stole those watermelons?” How many of these types of stories are shared at family gatherings? And my poor partner doesn’t understand any of them. I try to retell the stories, but I never quite get them right and they definitely don’t seem as funny as they’re supposed to be.

Point and laugh

At family functions, tales of your childhood inevitably come out. These are never tales of your courage and fortitude, but only ever tales of you falling flat on your face. My partner is now privy to many stories of my failures and embarrassments as a child and as a grown adult. It’s fine, I wasn’t hiding them…really, I wasn’t.

The Ecstasy

Getting social

I can’t quite explain the warm feeling I felt as a watched him venture out and mingle on his own. I’d introduced him to a few family members at this stage and was so proud to see him taking everything in his stride. After ten minutes or so I snuck over to join the conversation, but they were talking about soccer and I was bored within the minute and I promptly left again.

Thumbs up

I know I don’t need my family to approve of my partner. I approve of him and that’s all that matters. But c’mon, it’s SO much easier when everyone gets along. Throughout the weekend I was told several versions of “He’s just so lovely!” which is nice, considering my last few boyfriends were not met with the same report. I guess somebody around here is growing up and making better choices (read: Me).

Officially in

The whole weekend was enjoyable and I’m glad he was there to share it with us. Not only because he got to meet everyone and they got a chance to meet him, but being a part of the reunion means he’s a part of us now. And it also means he’ll know the reference when we say, “Remember that time we saw Dame Edna?”

Any other agonies or ecstasies I’ve missed?

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