Group Therapy is a relationship advice column that asks readers to contribute their wisdom. Each week, we offer up a problem for you to weigh in on, then publish the most lively responses, with a final word on the matter delivered by our columnist, Claudia Dey.
A reader writes: My boyfriend and his mother are extremely close. She was a single mother and pretty much raised him on her own. My issue is that she seems to be super-involved in his life. They talk several times a day, she discusses her relationship issues with him and is very reliant on him for emotional support. I feel like a hypocrite as I, too, am close with my mother, but I don't really know how to talk to him about this issue without pushing him away. I am very much in love with him and all other aspects of our relationship are phenomenal.
What's really going on?
I suspect there's more going on in this situation than your letter acknowledges. Ask yourself what it is about their dynamic that makes you uncomfortable enough to label it an issue and something that might "push him away."
Does the reliance you describe affect or compromise your emotional intimacy with your boyfriend? Do you resent their closeness? What exactly is different about their dynamic compared to yours with your mother? What are your expectations about the relationship between a parents and children? How much of a problem is it if the rest of your relationship is as carefree as you suggest? Make sure your concerns are clear in your mind before you open this dialogue.
- Miranda Williams, Toronto
Get in tight with mom
Without therapy, or a very long process of patient support from you, he may not be able to see that this is not good for him (or for mum - it can't be good for her to be so extremely dependent). You need to be very clear about why you believe this is a problem before you broach it with him. Work on establishing a solid relationship with her, so that both he and she know that you care about her and are not trying to squeeze her out. If, on the other hand, you feel this is annoying but not really harmful, simply working on setting some boundaries (no phone calls during dinner, say) might help.
- Elise Moser, Montreal
The Final Word
Dear Girlfriend,
You must not only accept, but support the relationship your boyfriend has with his mother. Trying to temper it would be like trying to tame a black bear. The bear has its own habitat. Intruding upon it would be dangerous.
Love can make us selfish. It can make us insatiable - wanting every private corner of our lover to be ours and ours alone. A warning: This kind of consumptive love makes for disaster; the beloved feels sequestered, spied upon, smothered and eventually, like any trapped creature, must escape.
The more common form of your desire is its fairy-tale inversion: The long-nailed, black-cloaked stepmother who swoops in and separates the father from his daughter. Do you intend to be this ghoulish presence in your boyfriend's life? Of course not. There is too much to lose; it is a relationship to which you ascribe a word usually accorded to dust storms, black tulips and blue moons: a phenomenon. Let the phenomenon be.
In a Socratic riff, Ask Yourself Williams cleverly turns the floodlights on you, presenting a list of questions - the most pressing being whether your boyfriend's dynamic with his mother impinges on your own. From your letter I glean that it does not. His mother is not arriving drunk in the middle of the night; she is not dominating his attention at your recitals; she is not acting as competition or a cipher. Instead, she is merely continuing her role as a central figure in his life - a role she has occupied for its duration. She cannot be cordoned off. She, too, is a phenomenon; to tamper with her presence would be a jealous act resulting in sure doom.
Not Good For Him Moser argues that this dependence is damaging. I counter this claim by again returning to the love he offers you; it is not a compromised love, but one you describe in supernatural terms. In fact, his relationship with his mother is an immeasurable part of who he is - and how he defines its expression in his life is for him to determine. Given your history, you have every reason to trust that he will make choices that also honour you.
Next week's question
Click here to contribute your widsom - or submit your own dilemma. (We will not publish your name if you submit a personal dilemma for the print column.)
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Claudia Dey's first novel, Stunt, was published by Coach House Books in April. Her website is ClaudiaDey.com.
