Dear Amy,
My fiancé can't seem to let go of his mom. I have no choice in matters. Its always what mommy wants or thinks best. He has to have surgery to repair a valve.. Its where mom wants him to go. He won't even explore other options. How can I marry someone who has no regard for my feelings? Am I wrong in thinking his mom should not play such a big part when he has his own family? Dear Marrying, What comes most to mind in reading your question is boundaries, boundaries, boundaries. Have you talked to your fiancé calmly and honestly about how you are feeling? If not, now is the time. In my experience, mama’s boys tend to have a major lack of boundaries with their mama and, as the mother of a boy, I can kind of see the temptation to treasure this quality in a son. I mean, what mama wouldn’t love to have a son who hangs on her every word and does exactly what she says all the time! Ok, but seriously, at some point we mom’s usually realize that raising sons capable of making their own choices is way more important than total compliance (as much as it may pain us to admit this). But in some cases those boundaries are never really defined. This can have to do with a lot of things: culture, family make-up and history, personalities, etc. But at the end of the day, being in a relationship with an adult mama’s boy requires two things: boundaries (yep, there it is again) and empathy. Let’s start with boundaries. You need to sit down with your fiancé and have a frank discussion about how you feel. From your question, I gather that you are generally feeling second in his life and that’s probably not a great position to occupy going into a marriage. However, I’m not advocating that you give him what for and expect him to fall in line. Actually, having a husband who loves and respects his mother is not the worst quality he could have. But part of any healthy relationship is communication and respect. He’ll need to understand how you feel and you can expect him to not only respect, but also to enforce your boundaries with his mother. So, we’ve dealt with your feelings. Now let’s deal with his. His mama has been the center of his emotional life forever, literally. And habits like that are hard to change so give him some time. If you’re going to have a long and happy life together, it’s going to include her and I’m sensing some serious resentment on your part. You can’t hate your mother-in-law (well, I mean, you can but it makes it really really hard, especially when your husband adores her). Do you get along with her? Is she the type of person you could bring into this conversation at some point? Because part of setting boundaries is also clearly stating them to the people who will be part of abiding by them and that means your future mother-in-law. So now let’s move onto the empathy part. Because I’m concerned that you’ve gotten yourself into such a state of head-butting with your man’s mom that you might be having a hard time seeing his point of view in this. For instance when it comes to the valve repair, while you two should be openly discussing this, it ultimately should be his decision (no matter how he arrived at it) as to where, when and how he chooses to have medical procedures done. I would say the same thing to him about you, so what I would suggest in this situation is to put the mama tension aside and respect whatever decision he’s made. He’ll need your love and support regardless. Ok, reality check time. Your mama’s boy isn’t going to let go of his mother completely, nor should he. But her role in his life should change now that he is beginning his own family and yes, your feelings should be respected (even if he doesn’t always do things the way you want him to either). But those kinds of changes don’t happen overnight and trying to take on mama head-on is not only going to cause a rift between you and your fiancé, but is also likely to breed numerous problems down the road. You guys need to talk to each other and as long as you’re both making an effort to listen, understand and empathize with one another, you’ll be fine. Tuck this advice away, because I promise, when you have a son, you’ll have those moments where you want him to live and breathe every word you say and you’ll need to stomp that tendency down into the ground so that he can grow up to be a capable, self-reliant individual who makes his mama proud. Amy Comments are closed.
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