How to Handle Not Liking Your Parent's Significant Other

Learn how to handle not liking your parent's significant other in this relationship advice video series

Speaker: What do you do if you are an adult and you don't like your parent's significant other? Gloria MacDonald: I hear stories all the time about adults who don't like their mother or their father's new significant other and they ask me what can I do. Frankly, I think for the most part it's none of your business. You need to try to be as supportive as possible of your adult parents, understand that they are an adult and they need to make their own decisions and also understand that it's difficult. I know lots of time people feel like, oh, my gosh, my mother passed away. My parents were married for 45, 50 years and my father is out there dating again, and my mother is only have been gone for six or eight months or a year or something like that. Well, we just really can't know how challenging it is to be on your own after you are with someone for so long. So, it's natural for all of us to want companionship. We want have somebody there who is special to us, who is there for us, someone who is in our corner. Don't be tough on your adult parent; try to have compassion and understand them. You know what, you might not like the person they are dating, but it's really none of your business unless there is something you think that is really serious like this person is trying to take all of your mother or father's money or something like that and even if that, you can only try to ask your adult parent a question or two about that. For the most part you need to just stay out of it and be as supportive as you possibly can be. If you think they are in any sense and any kind of physical danger or something like that that's another story, but you know what, suck it up and just try to love them and be supportive of them and understand their natural need and desire for companionship.