Say you’re born from a loving family. It is close to perfect. Your own den of support, love and care, providing security and a sense of belonging. With open communication, making each person within the family feel important, valued, respected and esteemed. Then you meet, connect and fall in love with someone amazing. Someone you’re not only attracted to physically, but emotionally. This person is in touch with their sensitive side, tender-hearted, and always warm or friendly towards others. The person is smart, funny, drives conversation and adds value to your life in one way or another.

Now, whether you were born in a family like the one described above, or it is complicated with them, (like many families actually), one thing is certain, you love them and value their point of view. Whether you’re in a relationship with someone who is as perfect like described above, or whether, like many of us, they also have shortcomings, it is also certain that you love them and see yourself with them in the future.

In a scenario where you love someone who is not accepted by your family, how do you choose between them and your lover? In the worst case, your parents may even give you an ultimatum. You’ll be told to choose between the love you have for them and the love you have for your ‘other half’. This is a dilemma that is apparently not very rare. How easy would life be if love was just right and accepted in any of its forms? Whether it is ‘eros’ (erotic, passionate love), ‘philia’ (love of friends), ‘storge’ (love of parents for children), ‘agape’ (love of God), you name it. Why does one have to choose which one to keep at the expense of the other? Someone once told me that it is something that will probably happen to anyone at least once in their lifetime. That you’ll fall for somebody that your parents don’t like. Sometimes their disapproval will be valid, other times it will be irrational. But no matter the reasoning behind their disapproval, it will be hard for you to deal with it.

Evan Marc Katz, a dating coach, writes that one should first consider why their parents are opposing the relationship. Most of the time factors like religion, ethnicity, habits like alcohol and drug consumption, among others, are the main reasons parents may oppose a relationship. Katz suggests that people are most happy because of independent choices, not predetermined plans foisted upon them by overbearing parents. According to him, the choice is clear. You should choose the one you want to make life with. He emphasises that one is better off without parents who find it more important to be "right” than to be supportive. He goes by the thought that you’re the architect of your own life, hence, have to live daily with the consequences of your own decisions. That other people’s opinion in your love life is irrelevant.

One may also wonder if agreeing with Katz would not be dismissing parental wisdom. What if you’re so blinded by love that you’ll steer your life into a ditch. What if choosing them (your lover) turns out to be the worst mistake you ever made? Of course there’s a difference between a parent cautioning you against engaging with the heroin-shooting rock star and them commanding you not to marry someone because they don’t have a master’s degree or don’t go to the same church. But what if your parents are right?

But then if their love is so big, why wouldn’t they make room for one whom your heart longs for? Even if being with your lover is a mistake, why don’t they embrace you for who you are and all your mistakes. If later it turns out that they were right and that it had been a gross mistake indeed, then they should be able to welcome you back forgivingly and lovingly as a good family should.