Why Does My Boyfriend Hide Me From His Family? (+Solutions)

Families are the most important parts of our lives. They can be the rock we hold on to, during difficult times. They can also be difficult to deal with. Families can be many things, but they are a reality that can’t be ignored. Most of us can’t stay without our families. They are important for our mental health. We depend on them for many things (even when we turn adults). The truth is, they are always for us through thick and thin.

Now let’s focus on your problem.

Your boyfriend hides you from his family. It is quite a distressing scenario. We understand your situation, and we empathize with you.

However, to deal with your problem, we will have to understand the situation your boyfriend is in. You see, some families can get really difficult to deal with when it comes to relationships. They meddle in their children’s affairs and do irreparable damage in the process.

Your boyfriend could hide you from his family for a plethora of different reasons. Some may sound harmless but some can be annoying or even hurtful. Certain families have an unwritten rule about relationships. They only allow people of the same status to date their children, and if that does not match, a conflict of interest occurs and tension ensues in the relationship, announcing the beginning of the end.

We have seen this social evil being portrayed in many movies and TV series. The popular sitcom F.R.I.E.N.D.S. dealt with such an issue when Phobe started dating Mike in one of the later seasons. Mike came from money and his family had an elevated seat in the social hierarchy. Phobe, in contrast, was brought up on streets with muggers and homeless people. She seldom had her parents around, but she turned out to be a fine woman. Most importantly, she was a good person. For obvious reasons, Mike’s parents disapproved of her with a passive-aggressive demeanor until he snapped at them for being mean to the love of his life.

Now, this could be like a case study for us as we progress towards the sections where we try to understand what is going on with your boyfriend.

What is making him behave this way?

Is it his problem, or is it his family’s?

In this blog post, we will discuss this issue in detail. We will also go through some effective ways for you to deal with the problem. Jump in.

Reasons why your boyfriend hides you from his family

As we have discussed earlier, your boyfriend can hide you from his family for a number of reasons. He might not disclose the reason behind his action fearing a rift in his relationship with you. However, to solve a problem you will have to get to the root of it. You will have to understand with whom lies the actual problem: Your boyfriend, or his family.

We have curated a list of possible reasons why your boyfriend hides you from his family. Let’s go through the list to find out behavioral patterns that match your boyfriend. Read on.

#1 He is not that close to his family

There is no reason to introduce you to his family if your boyfriend is not that close to them. The hiding here is not intentional. He just avoids mixing his romantic relationship with his family. He wants the two to stay separate. He must have reasons for that. His reasons for doing so can be serious. However, they can be petty as well.

More people than you think do not get along well with their families. They focus on creating their own perfect families, instead. Your boyfriend wants to focus all his attention on you. That is because he probably wants a future with you, and wants his family to not be a part of this.

Such things could happen if his family has been a source of disappointment for him He never got anything good from being with his family. His adulthood freedom gave him the opportunity to move out, and he drifted apart by choice.

Let’s digress here for a little bit, to explore a less-explored but quite realistic scenario. He can also choose not to be close to his family because of a sheer lack of sense of responsibility. You can turn a judgemental eye towards him, but that might change nothing. He does not want to be close to his family because he is not up for the social responsibilities of being a part of one. He fled that life on purpose. Now, this could mean he might also leave you when a question of responsibility arises in your relationship. A situation like this will require you to tread lightly.

Coming back to where we digressed from, I must say your boyfriend is not really hiding you from his family when he is not close to them. He is not interested in that part of his life (whatever the reason may be). He knows his family. He could even have their contact details saved in his, but he still might not contact them about anything. He has left them in his past, and he thinks his future lies with you.

Not being close to one’s family is not a crime. He may have trauma associated with his family, just like Maeve from the Netflix show Sex Education, whose mother was shown to be the source of all her agony during her growing-up years.

We have Phoebe from F.R.I.E.N.D.S. who found a new family in her group of friends. Her own blood never became her own. The people whom she called parents lied to her all her life about their identities. They were seldom available for her during the years she needed them the most. She struggled to maintain a normal relationship with her (identical) twin sister Ursula. Her family failed her. It was normal for her to put all that behind in search of love and a new family in Mike.

Your boyfriend hides you from his family. That does not necessarily mean he is not into you. He just does not consider his family worthy of meeting you. He thinks they might misbehave with you just as they did with him. This is not about you. It is about him and the deep-seated problems he has with his family.

#2 He is afraid of the cultural or religious difference

Since time immemorial, cultural differences have been acting as barriers in relationships. Your boyfriend hides you from his family because of cultural or religious differences. These differences are often based on the way people think, the way they dress, their beliefs, their food habits, and their general lifestyle choices.

Most people around the world are serious about their culture. What is cool for someone can be offensive to someone else. Cultural and religious differences are capable of causing wars.

Your boyfriend never makes you meet his family because he wants to avoid the inevitable conflict of interest. Based on his knowledge about you and his family, he knows you people will never get along. You are important to him, but so is his family.

He is getting crushed between the two most important aspects of his life and it can cause him immense mental agony. He can’t choose one of the two, and that is why he has chosen to keep you and his family apart. That way, he will not have to deal with the conflict that might occur.

Families can be rigid when it comes to culture and religion. Traditional families always tend to interfere in their children’s lives. We have seen numerous such examples in books and on screen.

Think of Lady Cathrine de Bourgh from Pride and Prejudice. She chided Elizabeth Bennet (the female protagonist) for being in a relationship with her nephew, Mr. Darcy (the male protagonist) solely on the basis of the young woman’s social status.

Cultural differences can destroy relationships. Your boyfriend hides you from his family because he does not want to lose you. It can be emphasized that you are an important part of his life, and nothing is worth jeopardizing his relationship with you.

#3 His family does not like you/ does not approve of you

Now, this can happen in two scenarios.

One refers to a situation where his family already knows who you are. They have met you at some point in time. However, they do not like you. That is when your boyfriend has to hide you from them. He must have told his family that you two are no longer in a relationship. He wants to hide you from possible insults that they might hurl at you.

He can attempt to hide you from his family if they do not like you. He does not want to get into conflicts that this truth may give birth to. He won’t tell you anything about his family’s hostile feelings towards you. He thinks you will get hurt (quite reasonably), and might even end up breaking up with him. He is scared of losing you over family issues.

His family may not like you if they think you are not the right person for their son. They won’t approve of you suspecting that you will not be able to uphold their family values in the right way. Old families or the ones that come from money are often very strict about who they let enter their world.

They have their own set of principles and values. They have secrets that can’t leave the dining hall. Your boyfriend’s family does not trust you with their secrets yet. Here are a few ways to know they do not approve of you:

• They turn awfully quiet whenever you enter the room.
• They are cold and formal around you.
• No one talks to you about their lives.
• Their smiles seem more terrifying than the roar of a lion outside your tent.
• They do not let you alone with your boyfriend whenever you are at their place.
• They do not even let you sit beside him.
• They are awfully reluctant about you spending the night at their place.

The other situation refers to the one where his family is not aware of his presence. However, you are not the kind of person they like. They would never approve of this relationship and your boyfriend knows that better than anyone. Therefore, he does not even try to mend things. He chooses to keep things the way they are with his family, by hiding your existence from them. He just wants to avoid the unrest that this news might bring to his family.

He wants them to stay oblivious to your presence in his life. He is procrastinating, and in the process, he is jeopardizing the future of this relationship. By now we have realized that your boyfriend assigns a lot of importance to his family. Chances are there that he will not do anything that they disapprove of.

Do you realize where I am getting with this?

This relationship might be a dead-end one. It may not have the future that you dream of. His family is overtly involved in his life and getting past that is not his cup of tea. His family may never approve of you, no matter how hard you try to win their hearts, and your boyfriend will keep hiding you from them.

Do you really want to be in a relationship that is this hard to deal with?

#4 He is not serious about you

Your boyfriend hides you from his family because he is not serious about you (or this relationship). All of this is a casual fling for him. You two are clearly not on the same page here. The tragedy about this situation lies in the fact that you are probably in love with him. You are calling him your “boyfriend.” That is quite a heavy responsibility you have assigned him. Now, the questions are:

Does your “boyfriend” feel the same way? Does he consider you his partner (boyfriend/girlfriend)?

This is something to think about. A keen observation of his behavioral patterns will let you know much about his true intentions. The conversations you two have, the amount of time you spend together, and a lot of other parameters can help you determine what he thinks of you.

Hiding you from his family is already quite a big red flag. The reasons we have discussed earlier are genuine problems that have difficult or no solutions at all. This problem is all about the person you call your boyfriend. He does not consider you worthy enough to meet his family. For him, you are just another person to fulfill his desires.

He probably does not even think of you when you are not around. For him, things between you two are totally physical. He thinks you know that, therefore, discussions about the relationship have never really taken place. However, he may do this to you knowingly. In that case, he does not care about your feelings. He just wants to have you for his carnal pleasures. He is never going to have a serious relationship with you.

His casual attitude towards you could mean he has similar relations with other people. He may have a dozen partners and you are just a part of the group. He likes that life and, so far, is quite successful at hiding one from the other.

#5 He thinks you are not serious about this relationship

Now, this is the reverse of the situation we have discussed above. Your boyfriend is serious about you but he hides you from his family because something about your behavior tells him that you are not serious about this relationship. He won’t let his family know anything about you because he does not want to look like a fool after you dump him.

He wants his family to meet the only person he loves. He wants a relationship that has a future. He sees no future with you yet. Now, that can happen because of your genuinely unruly lifestyle or your prejudiced ideas about what an ideal partner should be like. Both are valid reasons for problems in a relationship.

He thinks your behavior is not up to the mark. He believes that you just want a casual fling with him. He wants you to prioritize him; to treat him like the most important part of your life. He wants recognition. That means, he wants you to admit (in front of the world) that you two are in a relationship.

His behavior can be a result of past heartbreaks. He hides you from his family because someone who once met them broke up with him after a while, or cheated on him shortly after. He is afraid of history repeating itself. He wants to be doubly sure about you before he makes a serious move like letting his family know about the affair. He wants to make sure that you are the one.

#6 His family wants him to be with someone they have chosen

Certain families are strict about whom they want their sons to be with. They tend to have a lot of opinions about their children’s lives, and in a way, they control them successfully. Your boyfriend knows the kind of influence his family has over his life. He can’t get rid of that easily. That is why, for now, he has chosen to hide you from his family.

Hiding you from them does not always mean your boyfriend is not in love with you. At times, like the one we are discussing now, it could mean he is scared of his family members. He dreads how they would react to your presence in his life. His family would probably never accept you as you are not the kind of person they want for him.

Your boyfriend’s family will likely oppose the idea of you dating him because they want him to be with a partner of their choice. They probably have someone in mind. The fact that you are in his life could be distressing for them to know. Your boyfriend hides you from them because they might make his life (and yours) difficult if they find out about the affair. The relationship needs to stay a hush-hush affair until your boyfriend figures out a way to deal with the fiasco.

Old families with old money and ancient traditions often have a tendency to plan the perfect life for the members (especially the young ones). They get their children betrothed to young members of other similar families with rank and money.

An example of this can be seen in the popular Netflix series Bridgerton and The Crown. One is fictional and the other one is based on real events. However, both have something in common. Both shows depict older members of the family as people who often control the younger ones.

Your boyfriend’s decision to keep you away from his family is not a bad one in this case. He just wants to protect you from any possible insult or humiliation they might throw at you. The fact that he cares for you proves that he is the right person to be with. As time passes, he will probably find a suitable solution to this problem. We can only hope for that.

#7 He is cheating on you with someone his family already knows

Your boyfriend hides you from his family because he does not want to take the risk of letting his secret out. He is dating someone else (the number can be more than one) people behind your back. His family probably recognizes someone else as his partner and your presence in the equation would confuse them into telling you that he is cheating on you.

Your boyfriend is not just cheating on you. He is using you to cheat on the other person (the one whom his family recognizes). His family is not the problem here; your boyfriend is. He is being dishonest with so many people in his life. His entire life is filled with lies and treachery.

Situations like this occur when a person is fickle-minded. Your boyfriend is incapable of sticking to one relationship. The word “loyalty” holds no meaning for him. He likes to jump from one relationship to another. Sometimes he dates multiple partners at a time (like what he is doing in your case). He hides his affairs from all his partners (and his family) with expertise. The partner that his family knows about is blissfully oblivious to his true nature.

Things to do when your boyfriend hides you from his family

Your boyfriend hides you from his family, and that is rightfully supposed to make you mad at him. It is okay for you to feel angry as situations like this often make you feel unimportant.

Feeling unimportant, or unwanted in a relationship is one of the worst kinds of feelings. Sometimes it makes you rethink all your decisions (pertaining to this relationship). However, situations like this require you to act with maturity.

Conversation is key. You can try to resolve the issue with an appropriate conversation.

There are other ways as well to deal with your problem.

I have carefully curated a list of effective ways to sort out the situation you are in. Scroll down to read it.

#1 Talk to him about the situation

You have a problem with your boyfriend about the fact that he hides you from his family. Talk to him about that directly. You guys need to have this conversation. He needs to know how you feel about the situation. Letting him know will probably solve a considerable part of the problem.

You can talk to your boyfriend about the following issues.

• Why isn’t he close to them?

He does not seem close to his parents. He never even mentions them. This is not a normal situation. Why is it so? A candid conversation about this issue can reveal more than you think. Try to get him to talk about his issue with his family. Ask him about his childhood. Create a safe space for him to open up about his feelings.

However, let him share at his own pace. Never force him to tell you something that he does not want to. People often have childhood trauma that they are unable to deal with all their life. For most, it seems impossible to be comfortable enough around someone to share boundlessly. Leave your boyfriend alone with his thoughts if he feels uncomfortable sharing his problems with you.

Is he treating you badly?
Is he loving you less?

If the answer is “no,” I do not think you should nag him anymore about it.
Let him share when he wants to. Ask him to try out the therapist’s office if you really want to help him.

• Why don’t they approve of you?

You can ask your boyfriend why his family does not seem to approve of you. Tell him that the fact that he hides you from them makes you feel unimportant. Tell him that you are having second thoughts about this relationship because of his behavior. Ask him to explain his actions.

There must be reason why his family does not want you in his life. Ask him if they have selected someone else for him to be with, or is it about your culture?

Tell your boyfriend that cultural differences seldom form a barrier in the twenty-first-century world. Ask him whether he has true feelings for you or not. If he says something affirmative tell him that is enough to be in a relationship. This relationship is only about you and your boyfriend. No one else’s opinion should matter here. Tell him that it is his job to convince his family to accept you as his partner.

• Whom have they chosen for him to be with, and why?

It is quite difficult to accept the fact that your boyfriend’s family has chosen someone else for him. This conversation, too, is going to be a difficult one ─ the one with probably a lot of tears and harsh truths. Nevertheless, you two need to have this conversation as soon as possible for the sake of your own mental health.

Ask him about the person his family has chosen to be with him instead of you. Ask him what makes his family think that person is better than you. However, do not badmouth the other person in the process. That will make you look jealous and needy.

Try to be gracefully dejected while talking to your boyfriend about the issue. Never leave the high ground for him in a situation like this as the entire family fiasco is on him. You can ask him to show you the other person’s social media presence. Try to know as much as you can about them. All the while, do not forget to observe your boyfriend keenly. Try to notice his behavior, and his expressions whenever he talks about the other one. Your final decision about the future of this relationship might depend on that.

He decided to be in a relationship with you, and therefore, it is his duty to convince his family about the credibility of the relationship. I know, this can be a difficult thing for him to do, but the issue lies within his family and he needs to solve that as soon as possible.

#2 Ask him if he is serious about you

To be honest, he would never say he is not serious if he holds the intention to exploit you. However, he might talk about his true feelings if he honestly wants a casual fling. Have a conversation about this. Ask him if he is serious about this relationship. Tell him why you have doubts. The fact that he hides you from his family has made you believe that he is treating you casually.

It is important to tell him how you feel about him. If you are serious about this relationship, tell him that his behavior hurts your feelings. You feel invisible in his life as he keeps his family in oblivion about your existence. Tell him you want to be seen ─ you want recognition.

Your words might be able to change his mind. However, do not expect much from him. He may stop cheating on you, or seeing you at all. Breaking up with him is the best option you have if he is not serious about you. You deserve someone better ─ someone, who shares your feelings

Try to learn more about his problems and inhibitions about letting his family know about you. However, this relationship should not be all about you and your convenience. A conversation happens both ways and you need to listen to his problems too. Try to understand his plight. He can be serious about you and still have to hide you from his family to save you from their hostility. Try to put yourself in his shoes and evaluate the situation.

It is okay to have casual flings as long as it is consensual and does not hurt another person in any way. If he wants one, he should have communicated with you about it at the very beginning of the relationship. The long way things have come can only mean mental agony for you who have been serious about him all this while.

However, give him the benefit of the doubt. Things like this can happen because of misunderstandings and misunderstandings occur due to a lack of proper communication. He probably mistook you for a person who is interested in a fling when you clearly wanted otherwise.

#3 Do not contact his family behind his back

Do not contact your boyfriend’s family behind his back. That can be extremely detrimental to this relationship if he is innocent. He keeps you away from them because he has his reasons. Try to respect that. Let him deal with this issue in his own way.

He hides you from his family, but that does not necessarily mean he is not in love with you. He can love you and be scared of his family at the same time. You do not know his problems. You do not know what he has been through in his past years and what his family is capable of. Go with the flow if he wants you to stay away from them.

Trying to contact them behind his back might trigger an emotional outburst in him. These things often escalate quickly and go out of control. Also, do not think he will now get to know that you contacted his family. Trying to act smart might tangle you in a sticker mess.

If you think this relationship will not work out if he keeps on hiding you from his family, talk to him about that. Watch if he tries to find a solution to keep you in his life. How he acts to this will determine the future of your relationship. If he makes a choice that you do not like, feel free to terminate this relationship. You have someone better waiting for you.

#4 Check if he is lying to you or cheating on you

He hides you from his family because he is cheating on you. He will make excuses like his family may not approve of you, or he is not really close to them. Your goal here is to find out if he is lying or not. A person who cheats on their partner often makes up elaborate lies to hide the wrong thing they are doing. They want to look innocent before their partner’s eyes.

Your boyfriend, who hides you from his family might be cheating on someone else with you. He is deceiving you both. Try to look for unnatural aspects in his behavior. Here are a few things you can do in this situation.

• Track the time he meets you and leaves. Choose the time he is generally not with you and ask him to meet you immediately. You can even offer to video call him or meet him in person. He will decline both offers if he is cheating on you. You can give the benefit of the doubt here. He might be working. In that case, try to notice if his voice quivers, or if he says something irrational ─ something that just does not add up. That is how you catch him.

• You can casually ask him difficult questions like: “Where were you?” or, “Who were you with?” Ask these questions at irregular intervals and track his answers. A lying person will falter at some point and that will be your moment to catch him red-handed.

• Now, this one is a bit extreme. That is why you should use this only in extreme situations. I know I asked you not to do that in the previous section, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
  Here is what you can do.
  
  You can track down any one of his family members (social media is the best way to do that) and strike up a conversation with them. Tell them who you are. Ask them whether they really have problems with you being his partner. If your boyfriend is cheating on you, his family will be taken aback when you contact them, as they know someone else as their son’s partner. They will realize he is cheating on both of you. They might get shocked at how he portrayed them in front of you.

• Try reading your boyfriend’s expressions when he is speaking over the phone, or texting. Check if he goes out on the balcony or in the hallway to talk to someone while he is with you. These are classic signs of infidelity. His goal is to hide his life from your unsuspecting eyes. He will even hide calls from his family so that you get to know nothing about them.

• You can get a bit dramatic by suddenly saying: “I know who they are.” Try to catch him off guard with the sentence. Your voice should be loud and a little rude. Make him think that there is something wrong. He should think you know something that you should not ─ something that he intended to hide from you. The suddenness of your action might make him spill out the truth. The job is to convince him that you know his secret with just one sentence. However, this technique is absolutely not failproof. The chances of failing are rather high in this one. But if you are able to succeed, you will get to the truth in one go.

#5 Try to learn more about his culture

If the problem is in different cultural backgrounds, you can attempt to learn more about his culture. Your boyfriend hides you from his family because he thinks you guys will not get along because of cultural differences. Prove him wrong by taking an interest in his culture and traditions.

If you two are from different countries, you can start by trying to learn his native language. Speaking in his vernacular might make you look cool to his family. You can ask him to talk to you about his childhood days, the festivals he used to celebrate with his community, etc to learn more about him and his people. You can talk to him about your culture.

Try finding similarities in both cultures and remember the topics you should avoid to avoid offending them or hurting their sentiments. Steer clear of any sort of opinion about their culture. Try to convince your boyfriend that no conflict will occur from your end (if you are not spurred badly by his family to burst out).

Tips and life hacks

A few points to be noted:

• Never ask your boyfriend to leave his family for you. Ask yourself if you would ever do that for him. It is normal for people to love their families. It is normal to love their partners too. A choice between the two can be extremely stressful for the one in the middle. Every problem has a solution. That is what you two should look for.

• Try not to nag him into meeting his family. He can have serious issues with them and meeting them can act as a trigger for him.

• He could be dealing with a lot when it comes to issues about his family. Do not try to contact them behind your back. Try to respect his boundaries.

• Try to deal with the problem one little step at a time. Help him deal with the problems in his family. Try to find unique solutions that will help him resolve the issues.