AIBU? Or is his mother being mean?

[emilyk315]

Just looking for some opinions please.

My partner is really sick, he's back and forth to hospital appointments with a potentially serious life changing condition. I want to take him to these appointments but his mother won't allow it. She insists she has to take him. I appreciate she's concerned, she's his mother, she wouldn't be much of a mother if she wasn't concerned. But I'd like to be there for too. I love him, I want to be there for him, to support him. She says I'm not allowed.

She doesn't consider us a proper couple because we're not married. We live together and have been in a relationship for over 7 years, but this counts for nothing in her eyes, all because I don't have a ring on my finger.

Do I have a right to take my partner to hospital appointments? Or should I step aside because I'm not his wife? Does she get priority over me?

My partner says he never wants to get married, which I accepted a long time ago. However, since he's been having medical problems I'm concerned that if it's serious and he needs care she'll insist he moves back in with her (he listens to everything she says, won't take much for her to persuade him) and I'll rarely see him, I was never welcome in her home when we both lived with our parents. Which will inevitably end up with us breaking up.

Is it easier to cut ties and end the relationship now? I don't want to leave my partner but I really can't face a life where I'm not allowed to be there for him just because we're not married. Does she have the right to dictate what I am and am not allowed to do for him? This is really getting to me and making me depressed.

I would step back too, sorry. You have effectively been made invisible.

He is quite capable of involving you (unless he has been severely incapacitated?). He is not involving you and he is not expecting / demanding his mother treats you as his partner.. His mother may be pleased with this but he could very easily stop it as he's not a child.

You feel it wouldn't take much to persuade him to move in with his mother. This is all on him.

If that's the case, I would leave.

The point is it isn't down to his mother to decide to 'allow' or not 'allow' you to go to the hospital... It's solely your partner's decision.

One of the key points about being an adult is that you have sole control and responsibility for your own life and the choices within it.

If his mother is saying you are 'not allowed' (infantilising language much?) then that's because he is CHOOSING to let her do that.

If my mum, who I love to bits, tried telling people close to me that they weren't 'allowed' to do something I'd tell her to wind her neck in. Your partner hasn't done that.

HE is facilitating this, and, tbh, it's a bit weird. Address it with him.

OP if you need further proof, see who is given LPA around health and financial decisions.

What does he say when you say 'Tell your mum to stop this nonsense about me out being allowed to come to your appointments. I want to be there with you'? And if you haven't asked him that, do it now.

Agree with the majority here. DP needs to tell his mother he wants you there too. If it were me I'd just go along, regardless of what she says. She can't stop you.

Is it easier to cut ties and end the relationship now?
Yes!
He's a mummy's boy and from the sound of it that will never change.
You will always come 2nd to 'mummy'
Get out and find a real man who is not died to his mummy's apron strings.

Will he be happy with his mum making life and death decisions for him? Mine is crazy religious and I want to get a living will so she doesn't fight with my DH over not resusitating me when the time comes. Do you and she know his final wishes?