Is my mom a child predator?

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 in our family.

The now-adult guy recently contacted me over Facebook to apologize for “ruining my family,” disclosing that he was my mother’s boyfriend during his time with our family.

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 don’t understand why he found it necessary to tell me about their relationship.

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 to choose him over me, and our family.

My mom and I used to talk once a week. I haven’t spoken to her in six months.

Do you have any advice for me for how to move forward? DEAR STILL IN SHOCK >>

Of course your mother’s feelings for this boy were “strong.” But having strong feelings does 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 regardless of the legality, 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, even if he was 18 when the actual sexual relationship started? 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.