men who live with their mothers..

[catkin14]

As the great Sir Terry Wogan used to say, 'is it me'....?
I ve been seeing a lovely man for 2 years now, we don't live together, both in our 50's. we get on well, he is good to my dc's who don't live with me. He won't move in with me, says it will ruin our relationship and will only stay one night a week at my house.
He has been married before but now lives with his parents due to money issues and helping with their care, his mother has motor neurone.
He is an only child and seems to have a bit of a mother obsession...as in 'she's so funny', she's so wonderful', 'we get on so well' etc
Is this normal?
I ask the question because I am one of 4, and don't live with my parents anymore, and due to my age, wonder if this relationship can go anywhere while mother is still so important.
Or maybe Im just being miserable old bag.
Happy to be told either way!

Catkin,

re your comment to me earlier:-

"Attila, you have hit nail on head with regards to the father/son relationship.
But putting it on here has made me realise there is no right or wrong answer, just what I want from a relationship v what I currently have".

Thought so re the father/son relationship; have seen that self same dynamic play out with my BIL and ILs. Its dysfunctional. Such men like yours (and my BIL) live with their parents because they want to, its convenient. Mother also wants her son there as her companion mainly because their own relationship with their DH is rocky. You've also stated that this man is not her carer but works full time.

Moving out is a part of personal development, do the words responsibility and independence ring a bell here?. Also your man does not want the responsibility of actually having to be an adult now and live in the outside world. He's told you all too clearly and I think you are the beard to provide him with a veneer of respectability.

He can avoid being serious about his relationship with you because he can always cite his mother. If things do not work out he can always convince himself that you did not meet up to mother's expectations or were not as perfect as you should be. For whatever reasons his mother has never let her darling boy actually grow up and they are actively dependent on one another, theirs is not a healthy relationship at all but an unhealthy and dysfunctional one.

There are always obstacles that prevent these guys from making the leap. After a while, they start making up problems about the mother so that they can stall leaving. Be careful – they may even say things to their mother’s to make things awkward for you…Next thing, you’re the obstacle.

What you want from a relationship and what you currently have are two very different things. What do you want from a relationship?. I do think you have really wasted at least a year here on him, you've overinvested in him at great cost ultimately to your own self.

Huh? Maybe try reading the posts!

He works full time, he isn't her carer. Just because he lives there doesn't mean he does any caring for her at all. It isn't all that outlandish a suggestion.

I wasn't on the thread you referred to so I'm not sure what you are mentioning it to me for?

I used the word mummy because it expresses best IMO the point about the difference between the mindset of someone capable and unselfish who cares for a relative and someone selfish and incapable who reacts to difficulties (including his mum being seriously unwell) by running home to her and expecting she look after him.

i don't know the op's BF but that is how I would make an assessment of whether the living with his parents thing would bother me, that's all.

You see, I read it as he'd been married before - so no history of commitment issues. He moved back to get on his feet, and now his mum has MND. When you are working full time and providing support to a sick relative, it is so stressful. No wonder he talks about her a lot. He's coming to terms with it all. How do you have time to have a relationship?

Offred, Have you read the original post?
"helping with their care, his mother has motor neurone."
No where does it say that he has gone home to be cared for.
You are being very judgemental about someone caring for a parent who has a terminal illness and using 'Mummy's boy' as a term of abuse here is horrible.
It sounds like you have no experience of MND.
You are also using stereotyped language to abuse someone which is at odds with the original post. It sounds like you are determined to reinforce old fashioned gender stereotypes. Not nice.

I have never said 'mummy's boy' or said he has gone home to be cared for rather than to care for her.

To completely deny that anyone's motivations in going home when a parent is unwell can be anything but altruistic is ridiculous and denies vulnerable people suffering from inadequate care/abuse at the hands of bad minded relatives help.

I'm hoping you are simply misreading my posts as accusing the op's BF of doing that and missing the point of them, which is to say I would determine which kind of moving back in with his parents it was. One is acceptable, the other is not.

I mean come on, he said he didn't want to move in with the op because it would ruin their relationship, not because he is caring for his parents. The op feels he is usurping his father's position, he is an only child and moved back because of money issues and she is uncomfortable with the way he talks about her. It really isn't beyond the bounds of anything to say she should consider why he is there - is it because he responds to difficulty by seeking her care or is it because he is actually caring for her...

I do wonder how much care he is giving his parents bearing in mind he works full time. He’s living there because he wants to. He can avoid getting serious in his relationships by having an obstacle of his mother.

Money issues" you could buy for say a year or so but the fact remains he wants to live there. He can avoid being serious about his relationship with you because he can always cite his mother. If things do not work out he can always convince himself that you did not meet up to mother's expectations or were not as perfect as you should be. For whatever reasons his mother has never let her boy actually grow up and they are actively dependent on one another, theirs is not a healthy relationship at all but an unhealthy and dysfunctional one.

My guess as well is that their son was welcomed back with open arms by his mother more than his dad. Catkin has herself suggested he does have a mother obsession, theirs could well be a dysfunctional co-dependent relationship. This man is using both his parents and Catkin as a convenience. This relationship is really going nowhere,

if is mother is ill it's okay, you must understand his situation

Actually I would consider living with and caring for (when he's not at work) a parent with a progressive neurological disease the mark of responsibility. It's the ones that cut and run who are irresponsible and afraid of commitment.

I suspect a lot of people on this thread have only a sketchy idea of MND tbh. There's no way she's ok. No way. Behind closed doors she needs more help that they care to let on. Even the OP may not have a clue. I wasn't sharing all the details of my mum's needs with my boyfriend either. I wanted to preserve her dignity.

I honestly couldn't be in a relationship with someone who was impatient with this set up.

I think that rather than analyse the situation with a man (who we really know very little about) the issue is whether you want the relationship to continue and where you both see this going. You need to have a proper talk.

It doesn't matter what condition his mother has or how difficult it is to care for someone with that condition. I wouldn't infer that just because someone lives with someone who is very ill or very old unwell that that means they actually are caring for them and supporting them. If they are that is a mark of responsibility. If they are placing themselves as a further burden on someone who is very unwell that is a deep mark of selfishness.

Too many people I have seen come for advice who are struggling with disabilities and ill health and dealing with selfish relatives who people assume are helping just because they live with them when actually they are there out of selfishness and their own dysfunction and consequently the person who needs the most help and support does not get it because everyone thinks 'it's ok her son lives with her, what a great guy!'

I've heard some shocking stories in that vein, some where relatives have crumpled under the burden of caring responsibilities and started taking it out on the person they care for and some who are simply down to deeply dysfunctional relationships and selfish people.

Like this board I only see people who come for advice and therefore have problems and my experience is going to be skewed by not seeing the relationships that go fine but I still do not think you can go from 'she has MND and he lives with her' to 'he must be responsible and caring'.

"He has been married before but now lives with his parents due to money issues and helping with their care, his mother has motor neurone.
He is an only child and seems to have a bit of a mother obsession...as in 'she's so funny', she's so wonderful', 'we get on so well' etc
Is this normal?"

Its difficult because of course we only have the ops perspective, but it does matter imo what the condition is, as mnd is pretty much the shittiest thing you could have. I am not at all surprised he has, in ops words, 'a bit of a mother obsession' in the examples she gives. It sounds perfectly normal for someone witnessing their mum with mnd.

I am not trying to start a 'this condition is worse than this one' debate. My post reads like that perhaps. Just empathising with him really. Its something i wouldnt wish on anyone and there is a reason why so many right to die campaigners have the condition. :(

It's really awful, I understand the point you were making but equally some people are just not affected in the way you or I would be by someone else's suffering. It is an awful condition and can be deeply upsetting to watch someone you are close to go through it but it doesn't mean he is actually affected by those feelings.

He may well be and he may well be being normal in the way he talks about his mother but how I felt about him as a person to be in a relationship with would deeply depend on whether he was helping or harming his mother's situation by being at home, and especially by his intentions.

I think saying he doesn't want to move in with the op because it would ruin their relationship is a strange thing to say if you are living with and caring for a close relative with such a difficult condition....

That's why I'd reflect on why he was there really. As well as what I actually wanted. If I was wanting living together and the relationship was fairly casual I think I'd consider just moving on.

I'd expect 'I have to look after mum at the moment, I haven't given it much thought' or something similar for someone emotionally invested in caring for his mum at home.

offred I don't understand why you are so willing to believe the worst of this guy? Are his compliments about his mother some kind of cover story?

It is very very difficult to live with a relative with a degenerative disease and not in some way help, or even not live with them. It doesn't sound like he is plonking himself on the sofa every night and demand dinner while his mum hoovered under his feet.

Offred,
Do you think if it was a woman who had moved back home to be with her parents because her mother had a terminal illness you would be so unkind about her? Or do you think that men are not allowed to be caring?
It is really, really hard to support someone during a terminal illness, particularly something so cruel as MND. Having experienced a parent dying (not MND), it is hard to have emotional space for anything else in your life.
I think your use of the term 'Mummy's boy' is deeply unkind.

It is nothing to do with gender. I am not making any assumptions about him. I am advising other people not to assume his interests are good simply because his mother is ill.

And please stop misquoting me. No-one has called him 'mummy's boy'.

Offred, you wrote "going home to be cared for by his mummy despite her having a serious illness". Why then did you refer to his mother as "mummy" or do refer to all elderly parents as mummy and daddy? It sounds like a term of abuse to me, about someone with a dying mother. Not nice.

Oh give over.

I'm aware caring for vulnerable people is difficult. I didn't call him a mummy's boy or accuse him of being exploitative. I simply said it would matter to me whether he was in the home to provide care or to get it.

Offred, not true that you simply said....... See above
You write"going home to be cared for by his mummy". I quote you exactly. Are you trying to say that you did not use these words? It is a very disparaging and unkind way to describe any one helping to care for a parent with a terminal illness, particularly MND.
I wondered if you would describe a woman in the same disparaging way or that you disapprove of men involved in a caring role for elderly parents?

No, I am saying I used those words, that I did not use the phrase 'mummy's boy' or accuse him of anything.

I am explaining that if you were to read the rest of the post you would see I was saying there is a difference between caring for someone when they are vulnerable and caring for yourself by exploiting a vulnerable person.

I did not say he was doing either thing. I simply said you can't assume that just because he lives there and his mother has MND that he is caring for her, has good intentions rather than bad and their relationship isn't dysfunctional.

My view of him would be affected by why he was living there as one is a kind thing to do (if you can cope with it) and the other is extremely dodgy, unkind and selfish.

You don't know that he is caring and you don't know he isn't exploitative on the scant info posted BTW. I'm not the one making any assumptions.

And it is nothing to do with gender. I imagine since there are greater numbers of female carers there are greater numbers of abusive/exploitative female carers too.

I mean are you trying to deny that abuse of the elderly/sick/disabled by 'carers' happens sometimes? IMO it is quite a significant problem in this country given the dependence on family members to provide care and private adult social care...