Boyfriend’s mother pushes boundaries
CAROLYN: I feel like a horrible person. My boyfriend’s mother seems like a really nice person and only has good intentions, but she grates on my last nerve. Her only fault is that she talks about things that make me uncomfortable, things I only would want to talk about with people I am close with.
I don’t know why it bothers me so much. I want to get to a point where it doesn’t, because it prevents me from developing the closeness she is trying to get. I know she isn’t bad and that this is my issue, but I don’t know how to loosen up and not be so offended by her. It upsets my boyfriend that I don’t love her; he’s never known anyone not to.
— Maryland DEAR MARYLAND: Repeat after me: His mother drives you nuts; you are perfectly capable of deciding for yourself who drives you nuts; disliking someone is not an affliction to be cured, it is a reaction to be managed.
A perfectly normal reaction. Feeling pressured to reveal private information is a sign of poor social skills - on the part of the person applying the pressure.
In fact, dislike is normal in general; it’s part of social interaction. The person who believes there’s such a thing as being adorable to every soul on Earth needs to stop hanging out with the Tooth Fairy.
Do you see the lines where your skin ends, and where the air around you begins? Those are your limits. Outside those limits, you will find other people, many of whom will have ideas about ways you should live your life, including whom you should like and what you should feel comfortable discussing.
The duty of outsiders isn’t to force those ideas upon you. It is, instead, to accept that you will form opinions different from theirs; to respect your right to do so; and to form their opinion of you based on the whole - of your judgment, of your actions, of the quality of your companionship. Your boyfriend is dating a private person. Either he likes that about you and accepts it and understands that it puts you at odds with his mother’s style, or he finds someone else.
You, of course, may not even like it about yourself that you’re so private. But you are inside the limits of you, and that entitles you to scrutinize, second-guess and mess with the mechanics of your judgment all you want, in a way that no one else has any business doing. You can figure out what makes you a certain way, and whether that’s something you think you can change, and are willing to take on. If you think the problem is you’re too reticent, not that the mother is pushy, then, great, work on it.
You don’t scrutinize/secondguess/self-flagellate just because your boyfriend is moping and his mother is closing in. As long as you employ it kindly, using your own judgment does not make you "a horrible person." It makes you you.
DEAR CAROLYN: I have a friend who just hit 37 and is single. He is leaning toward dismissing the notion of having children because by the time he met someone, decided she was worth having a kid with, and conceived a child, the earliest he would likely see a baby is just shy of 40 - which he sees as being too old for kids, financially, physically, etc. How do I have a conversation that illustrates that he doesn’t need to shop for the retirement village at 37?
— Downtown D.C. DEAR DOWNTOWN D.C.: You don’t. He’s not arguing the merits of walking into traffic; he’s stating an opinion that he can’t even act on yet. And when he can, the only relevant counterargument will be the one from Her Worthiness herself. If your real question is, how to help a guy who’s 37, single and blue, then that’s a different answer though it isn’t to sketch out his new life with your words. If he’s depressed, urge treatment; if he’s just moping, then invite him along while you set an example of getting on with your life.