Research reveals it takes 3 months to get your dad’s approval on your partner

We’ve all been there – the sweaty palms and excited butterflies that inevitably comes when bringing a new partner home for the first time to meet the parents, hoping they approve of your beloved.

A new survey1, conducted by greetings card marketplace, thortful.com, has looked to reveal the time it takes for dads to approve of their children’s partner, revealing that the average amount of time is 3.4 months. The study quizzed 1,000 dads across the UK on how long it took for them to approve of their child’s partner, as well as the attributes that are most important to them.

How long do dads take to approve our partners?

It was found that a quarter of dad’s (25%) said they actually approved of their kid’s partner from the first moment they met them, with just less than one in 10 (9%) taking 7 months or longer to approve.

The survey also went on to reveal that almost two-fifths (37%) said that they are happy with who their child is in a relationship with. More than one in 10 (11%) went on to say that they don’t believe their children need their dad’s approval on their partners, with it completely being their choice.

On the other hand, almost one in five (19%) said they would tell their child if they didn’t like their partner, and 16% said they have actually told their child in the past if they haven’t approved of who they are with.

The top ways to gain dad’s approval

When asked about the most important things that their child’s partners should do to get their seal of approval, the most popular attributes were:

Show respect to my family (24%)
To be family orientated (24%)
Take the time to build a relationship with me (18%)
Be there during tough times (17%)
Show desire to learn more about my child (15%)
Looking at some of the other important factors, 8% said that their potential child-in-law should laugh at their jokes, spend lots of money on their child (8%) and go to the pub with them (7%).

What to avoid in front of your partner’s father?

When asked when their child’s partner/spouse should avoid doing in order to the get their seal of approval, the top answers from the dads surveyed were:

Being disrespectful (26%)
Have a bad attitude (22%)
Being fake-nice (19%)
Forgetting manners (15%)
Being a know-it-all (14%)
Not speaking to our family (14%)
Some of the other attributes that are best avoided were, getting drunk (13%), swearing in front of them (13%), and having sex in the family home (10%).

Commenting on the study, a spokesperson for thortful said, “Introducing your partner to your parents for the first time is a massive milestone in a relationship, and sometimes it can be extremely nerve-wracking for both sides of the relationship when wanting to make first impressions count as well as get their all-important seal of approval.”

“With this in mind and Father’s Day just around the corner, we were interested in seeing what the optimum time is for dads to approve of their potential future child-in-law. It was interesting to see that on average it only takes a few months, with a large portion of father’s actually approving of their child’s partner from the first few moments of meeting them!”