I'm a happily poly woman in my thirties with a couple of kids and a wonderful husband. I also have a GGG boyfriend whom I love. We've been together about a year and he gets along well with my spouse and kids. We're all very happy with the way things are and it's starting to look like it's going to be a long-term arrangement.

Here's my issue: my boyfriend is a full-time student in his early twenties and he still lives with his parents. About five months ago, he told his mother that he was seeing someone, and the plan was to follow your usual advice and let her meet me and get to know me before rolling out the news that I'm significantly older (I am 35 but can still pass for late twenties), that I have kids, and that I'm married with no plans to change that. However, she apparently facebook stalks her sons and she connected my first name with my Facebook profile and immediately discovered that I am married. She was just as horrified as we expected and it has been the subject of much tension between my boyfriend and his mother. (His dad is remaining characteristically disengaged). I have met her once and she was polite, but I know that she strongly disapproves of our relationship, and honestly I can empathize with her position. I have a son myself, and if he were in a similar situation I would be very skeptical. She has refused to meet with me a second time and it's been almost six months since he first came out.

The holidays are nearly here and my boyfriend wants me to join him for some of the holiday family stuff, and my husband is amenable. However, though I really want to meet the rest of his family, I'm hesitant to attend because I don't want his mom to feel needlessly uncomfortable.

My boyfriend says he'll discuss it with her beforehand and make sure she's OK with it, but I'm still afraid this will make things worse for him. On the other hand, I also know that she'll never come around if she never gets a chance to see that I'm not a monster who wants to hurt her son. I love him and I only want what's best for him—just like she does. Should I go? If I do, how can I show her that we're on the same team?

Not Mrs Robinson

My response after the jump...

Go.

I once met a newish boyfriend's family for the first time at an Easter Sunday brunch. His mother was a very proper Catholic lady; a progressive Catholic lady, but a prim one. She served ham. It was a tense morning: I was the "older man" (by two years) who was sodomizing her son, I was the first boyfriend of his that she had ever welcomed into her home (her daughters' boyfriends had been welcomed before me), and while I wasn't the reason he came out—he came out the year before we met—I might as well have been.

I knew there was drama going on behind the scenes, NMR, a lot of "discussing it beforehand," but I wasn't involved in those conversations. And I knew his mother was uncomfortable with the whole scenario—one of her sons being gay, her gay son having a gay boyfriend, that this gay boyfriend of her gay son was coming to her house for brunch. My boyfriend had some long, involved, and tense discussions with both of his parents in the run up to that Sunday morning. All I did was show up, smile, and try to be polite. I complimented his parents on everything from the ham to the slipcovers to the grandchildren. I didn't get everything exactly right—I said "fuck" at dining room table (I said I tried to be polite, NMR, I didn't say I succeeded)—but I was invited back for Christmas that same year so, hey, I got enough right.

We eventually broke up but my ex and I stay in touch and I know that all of his subsequent boyfriends have had an easier time of it thanks to me—no, scratch that. My ex's subsequent boyfriends have had an easier time of it thanks to him. He did all the heavy lifting: he talked to his parents, he insisted that his significant other be welcome at family gatherings just as those of his straight siblings had always been welcomed, and he demanded that they treat me with respect. And it worked: his mother became comfortable with his gayness because my ex-boyfriend forced her to work through her discomfort.

I realize that you're poly, NMR, not gay—but this Easter Sunday brunch took place in 1986. Gayness then was roughly where poly is now: mostly closeted, barely tolerated by the families of the few who risked coming out, grounds for estrangement/disowning in too many cases. To change things poly folks will need to have those difficult conversations, you'll need to risk making some moms uncomfortable (needfully uncomfortable, not needlessly uncomfortable), and you'll have to show up, smile, be polite, and eat the fucking ham—do it for your boyfriend, do it for his mom, do it for the girlfriends in your boyfriend's future.