Mother’s affair with exchange student is a shock

Dear Amy: When I was 16, our family had a foreign student come live with us on a summer exchange program. He was also 16.

He wanted to stay beyond his visa, so my parents arranged to take legal guardianship of him.

It was very stressful having him move into our family. My mom and I constantly fought about his presence in our home.

Six months following the guardianship, my dad moved out and my parents divorced.

Eventually, my siblings and I grew up and all left home, except the boy, who lived at home with our mother until he was 24.

My siblings and I all moved on from this stressful, fracturing time.

The now-adult guy recently contacted me to apologize for “ruining my family,” disclosing that he was my mother’s boyfriend.

In shock, I called my mother, and she insisted that this relationship was consensual, and that the relationship occurred “only after the guardianship had ended” (when he had turned 18 years old).

I feel shocked, hurt and betrayed — oscillating between considering that my mom is a child predator (grooming and taking guardianship of him), to realizing that she must have had very strong feelings for him.

I haven’t spoken to my mom in six months. Do you have any advice for how to move forward?

Dear Still in Shock: Your mother’s “strong” feelings for this boy do not justify her behavior.

Because she was his guardian, with all legal parental control over him until he turned 18, what your mother did was creepy, wrong and possibly illegal. And her actions also seem to have directly led to the breakup of your family.

Your mother’s former lover may have contacted you because he is having his #MeToo moment. Perhaps he is trying to take responsibility for the impact of his own behavior, while also grappling with the impact of your mother’s behavior on his own life.

Do you think a foreign student who was basically in a powerless situation — legally and physically — was able to fully consent? Or does this man believe that he manipulated and used your mother? (It’s a possibility.)

Don’t let your mother’s normalizing or denial negate your own natural reaction. Yes, communicate with her. Be honest about your conflicted feelings. But your biggest job is to find a way to accept the truth and to cope with it. A therapist could help.