Boyfriend’s mother constantly there
Dear Abby: I’m starting to worry about my boyfriend’s relationship with his mother. He’s deploying at the end of the month. He’s 31 and lives with his parents. We had just gotten a place together before finding out about his deployment. The problem is, his mother comes over constantly, and she waits on him hand and foot. She tags along to his sporting events and cheers him on as if he’s a 6-yearold. If he’s hungry, she rushes to fix his food. She makes all of his doctor’s appointments for him and is on his bank account. She also texts me to find out where he is if he has been out of touch for a few hours.
At the beginning of his deployment, he will be in Texas for a month. During that time, he will get a week off. He told his mom the dates of his time off prior to telling me, and she booked a flight for the entire time! This means I will have no alone time with him or time to say a private goodbye.
Coming in Second Dear Coming in Second: It appears that when your boyfriend was born, the umbilical cord, instead of being severed, remained securely in place. If you should marry him at some point, you will be getting a husband who never learned independence, and you will be expected to take up exactly where his mother left off. Your problem is not that you are “coming in second,” honey, it’s that he appears to be already married — to Mom! Dear Abby: I have lived with my girlfriend for three years now. She works; I’m retired. She’s 52; I’m 62. She insists on having her 10-year-old grandson stay over every other weekend and holidays. It is a 70-mile round trip to pick him up. This means that half our weekends are consumed with babysitting him. He’s a good kid; I just feel that 26 weekends out of the year is extreme. Her ex — the grandfather — gets the boy for a more reasonable amount of the time — maybe six times a year.
Miffed in The Midwest Dear Miffed: I assume that you have already discussed this with your girlfriend. She may want to see so much of her grandson because she knows that in another few years he won’t be as available to her as he has been. (How many teenage boys really want to spend weekends and holidays with their grandmother?) While I don’t blame you for wanting more child-free time, if she isn’t willing to compromise, perhaps you should rethink your living arrangement so you can plan adult activities on your own.