I’m in love with a mama’s boy

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Cary’s classic column from TUESDAY, DEC 10, 2002

She not only lives with us but also comes in and lies on our bed and watches TV with us.


Dear Cary,

I’m in a great relationship with a good man. We have been together for a year now and he is good to me, he treats me with so much respect, and he’s kind to everyone he meets and knows. I’ve never had a better relationship than now. He is a hard worker and has a great job. Never been married or has any children. So that eliminates a lot of drama in our lives. We have the greatest sex life ever! But … he’s a mama’s boy!

It’s just the two of them. The brother died a few years ago and the father has been out of the picture for many years. These two act like they are in love with each other. It’s not your typical mother-son relationship. She is absolutely possessed with him. She’s made the comment to me that whatever is hers, is his. And whatever is his, is hers. And that has included this relationship.

When I met him I lived alone with my two children in a rented house. He began to spend the night, then it turned out to be every night, until he eventually moved in. Things were perfect and life was just great, until about six months ago, when the homeowners sold the house that I was renting. I had to move and it was a great opportunity to move into a place together and split the bills and rent with him.

The weekend of moving into our new house, his mother decides she isn’t happy with her relationship with her boyfriend whom she has been living with for the past two years. So of course the loving man I have invites her to come and stay with us. He lets me know his mother will be staying with us. And I was fine with it, thinking it would only be for a few weeks. Well, those few weeks have turned into the past six months of hell!!

At first she was very helpful. She was out of work because she became sick and was too weak to work. That was the main reason I was OK with her staying with us. She would clean the house every day and have dinner ready when we came home from work and school. We never asked her for any money for rent or bills. She was receiving Social Security at the time and we told her to just save her money and get into her own place.

Now, six months later, she is back to work and has absolutely no intention of moving out. The house cleaning and dinner came to an end. She has even loaned all of her furniture to friends so that she won’t have to pay storage fees each month. She sleeps on my couches and stores her clothing in boxes in a closet. And she has not contributed one dime to the rent, bills, or food for our home. She has never bought a roll of toilet paper, a bottle of shampoo, or a box of laundry detergent. But she does manage to wipe her ass, wash her hair and body, and wash her clothes.

She’s even become so comfortable that she wants to spend more time with us in the bedroom. She comes in and lies on our bed and watches TV with us and smokes her cigs in my room. When I tell him how much it takes my privacy from me, he thinks I’m just bitching and having a bad day and want to take it out on her.

Anytime I bring the subject up to him he gets his feelings hurt, defends his mother, and tells me not to talk about his mama like that. I ask him how can she not have any shame. And it causes problems between us.

I’m not a cold person, but people like her don’t even want to help themselves, so why should I? I won’t kick her out before Christmas, but how do I make her leave without hurting his feelings and keep the flame between us going?

I realize she will always be in our lives. I’m not asking him to choose between me and his mommy. I’m just asking to live in my own home without her always being right there taking care of him. What it has come down to is that she can’t have him all to herself, so she sure the hell isn’t going to let me have him to myself.

How do I get rid of the in-law without being an outlaw?

In love with a mama’s boy

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Dear Reluctant Daughter-in-law,

I think you have to throw them both out. But let’s explore the option of just getting her to leave. First, you would have to speak to her directly. You could not ask your boyfriend to do it. You would have to sit her down and evict her. And no explanation could possibly make it seem just in her eyes. Any explanation you give her would only give her a basis for a counter-argument. If you say it’s for financial reasons, she’ll offer to contribute money. If you say it’s because she doesn’t do housework, she’ll promise to do housework. If you say she’s interfering with your relationship with her son, she’ll promise not to interfere. And then where are you? Then the burden is on you to prove the truth of your accusations. So I don’t think reasoning with her or giving her a long explanation is the way to go. I think you just have to throw her out.

But if you just throw her out, you place your boyfriend in an untenable position. He’s already demonstrated that he has an emotional blind spot when it comes to his mother. He can’t hear criticism of her. He has no judgment in this matter. So if you throw her out, he will see you as the villain who threw his mother out. I think it will destroy any happiness you might have in living with him.

So, strange as it sounds, I think to save your relationship with him, and his relationship with his mother, you have to throw them both out. If he lives separately from you, he can still be your boyfriend and salvage some pride in telling himself he’s simply being mistreated by his woman. He can tell himself that you’re a hard, hard woman, but since he’s taking the hit, he needn’t feel like he’s being a bad son; in fact, it gives him the opportunity to do what he not so secretly wishes to do anyway: to live with his mother and take care of her.

I have a feeling, however, that evicting them might put you in a tough spot financially. Your house probably had lower rent; it would have been reasonable to trade up when you knew your boyfriend would be helping out. So now you may not be able to afford the rent on your new place all by yourself. That is a sticking point. But if you relied on your boyfriend’s income in renting your new place, and he has now broken your tacit rental agreement by inviting his mother in, I don’t think it would be out of line to expect him, who has a great job, to at least help you financially, with first and last months’ rent, or a little monthly assistance for a few months, so you can find a place you can afford by yourself.

It’s much easier for a man to live with the burden of supporting two women than it is for him to live with the guilt of having abandoned his mother. It’s not like the choices are pretty, but I think you have a better chance of keeping him as a boyfriend if you throw the two of them out.

3 comments

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  • I thought I had met the love of my life. My soulmate. I should have seen the warning signs……He is 54 and lives with his mother. His 26 year old son lives there as well. We are now engaged but, we can’t marry because neither of our homes are large enough to accommodate the two of us, his mother, son and my 18 year old son. He has told me upfront that he doesn’t want his son to move out. His son wants to be near his grandmother and has the same unhealthy attachment to her that my fiancé has. He is a slob, lives on unemployment all fall and winter and his grandmother caters to his every need.
    So, we have two men that won’t leave this woman. She is 74 and needs some care, but not as much as she lets on. My fiancé helps her pay her mortgage that she took out for unknown reasons and does all of the housework. She calls and texts him all day.
    We were suppose to be married in the spring, but she won’t let the house go. The mortgage is twice the amount of the worth! He even suggested we get married, but he still live there and help,her with her bills. Leaving me to pay my own!!!
    If I voice my concerns about her to him, he becomes very defensive and says, ” how could you say anything bad about my sweet mother?!” All I said was that I feel he’s being taken advantage of! He works hard and does everything for her and his son. Their needs come before mine……it hurts and I feel we’ve reached a dead end. He loves me dearly and treats me well, but when it comes to us getting married and starting a life his family comes first. If I say how it will be difficult for me to move to his city, next to mine, because I have lived here for 20 years and my life and work are here, he says ” what about mom? She has lived here for 50 years!” He does not acknowledge my feelings. Instead he speaks of hers…..It’s like he’s already married. To his Mother!!

  • LW describes her partner as a great guy, and he has: “Never been married or has any children. So that eliminates a lot of drama in our lives.”

    Except, of course, that he is still a child, himself. Which certainly helps to explain why this wonderful catch has never been married.

    This situation with his mother is certainly very tangled, and I see no easy way out. I think that Cary is right, and they both have to go. When you are in an otherwise empty house, you will have some silence and privacy – time to reflect. I get the impression of noise and drama, and overcrowding, in the present situation. Having someone sleeping on sofas all the time blurs the nature of living space, and makes the whole house into a makeshift camp.

    I am concerned for the LW’s two children – they are very likely to be living in a situation where they are treated with little consideration. Children need security, and to know that the adults in their lives are honest and living balanced lives.

    The relationship of this man to his mother does sound unhealthy. Of course, we only have one view of the situation, but the mere fact that the mother ditched her boyfriend the very weekend that her loving son was about to move in with the LW, is strongly suggestive of obsessive love.

    It might be worth looking for a new place to rent. Moving out, yourself, would make for a clean break. Then, you can negotiate your own terms for sharing the new residence, if you wish to. Try to learn from the errors in this situation. I fear that the LW’s partner will break it off with her. But, as Cary says, it is quite obvious that he wants to live with his mother.

  • I don’t know why people consider relationships successful before they’ve undergone any tests. While the going is good, any relationship can look great!

    He was neither kind to the LW, nor treating her with respect. Let’s see, how do we now? Here’s how: When she tried to talk to him about not having privacy, he saw that as bitching. Not very kind. When she wanted to assert what she needed, he would, passive-aggressively, get his feelings hurt. Not much respect there. As to communication, you know you’ve got good communication when you can talk about something difficult and both people look at both sides of the issue.

    While everything was easy, things were good, when it got complicated everything changed and the respectful, loving and kind BF turned into a selfish, inconsiderate stone-waller. Them’s the breaks. Such sudden changes are often hard to detect and even harder to believe. I don’t imagine this lasted very long. Not without considerable changes.

By Cary Tennis

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