Telling your family a plan they won’t love is hard. Telling them five years later that you never tried is harder.

The difficult conversation has a fixed cost that you pay once. Postponing it does not remove the cost; it moves it to a version of the conversation where you are also explaining why you never tried. Their disappointment now is about a plan, and later it would be about a life.

Pick the moment, say the plan clearly and let them react without managing it for them. Come back to it a week later when the first response has settled. Most families need a second conversation more than a better first one.