Reply To: How to Balance Parent’s in Relationship/Jealous Mom

You have started to pull away from super-close ties to birth parent(s), as all adults must do, if they are to live a happy and successful life. Your mother has become overly dependent upon you and is manipulating you to force you to re-establish your ultra-close and more-than-a-little unhealthy former relationship. Her complaint is a false one. From what you wrote, you are spending significantly more time with your parents, especially your mother, than you are with your bf’s parents. But to her, the split of time is not adequately unequal in her favor, because it represents a change.

I have witnessed far too many friends and acquaintances, mostly women but including one man, throw away the best years of their adulthood and lose very promising relationships with bfs/gf, because they were unable to ration down the time spend with a parent and live a largely independent adult life. These cases weren’t as bad as yours, because in each of them the parent had lost their spouse to death, divorce, or institutionalization. Your mother has your father for support and companionship. There is no physical or mental need for your mother to cling to you so strongly. She is capable of living independently, with your father. She doesn’t require your physical care. She should be able to establish a network of friends and enjoyable activities, with or without your father. You still plan to see her in person frequently and, I’m sure, have frequent phone and digital contact with her. She is being totally unreasonable in her demands on your time and dishonest about you and your bf favoring his parents in your time allocation.