By Barry and Joyce Vissell
The mother-adult son relationship, while it can be a wonderful thing, can also be unhealthy, immature, and in need of help. Here is a real-life example of a couple who reached out to Joyce and me for help:
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Penny was truly upset.
One year earlier, her husband, Lance, had convinced her to move with him to the New York City area because his mother lived there and offered to loan them the down payment for a new home.
She was most upset with herself for going along with something that didn’t feel right for her. She felt Lance was too attached to his mother. She noticed his whole personality seemed to change when he was around his mother.
Most significantly, Penny felt Lance pulled away from her at those times, almost as if he were trying to protect his mother from the reality of his marriage.
This bothered Penny the most. The thought of living in the same area was bad enough. Adding this new level of financial entanglement almost made her feel sick.
True, they didn’t have the money for a down payment, nor the credit for a loan, but Penny dreaded what she foresaw as the constant overshadowing of her mother-in-law in their lives.
Lance, however, was convinced this was all a good idea. He felt he had attained a level of independence from his mother so that financial involvement would work.
He was wrong.
Penny and Lance felt his mother’s presence in almost every aspect of their lives. Whereas before the loan, Penny felt a scarcity of approval from her mother-in-law, now she felt none. She felt criticized and judged.
Lance painfully realized how much he himself had regressed in his relationship with his mother this past year. He was having more and more difficulty setting boundaries with her. She insisted on advising him.
His response was to shun her frequent phone calls and call her back as infrequently as possible.
In their first counseling session, Joyce and I pointed out the urgency of their need to extricate themselves completely from any financial relationship with his mother. Their odds were very slim of being able to change the relationship while still owing her money.
Armed with this awareness, it took them only three months to find another lender. The extra interest they had to pay for a traditional mortgage was a bargain compared to the emotional/spiritual interest they were paying his mother.
Without the financial indebtedness, we could then work on the deeper issues.
We asked Lance if he had told his mother how much he loved Penny, and even that she was the most important person in his life.
He cringed. He had never done this, feeling that somehow it would be hurting his mother too much.
He knew about his mother’s deep attachment to him. Even as a child, his mother depended more on him for emotional support than she did on her husband.
As long as she could pretend Penny was really not the true love of her son’s life, perhaps she could always be the most special one in his life.
Lance knew what he had to do. For him, Penny was clearly No. 1.
When he next saw his mother, he took her aside and let her know how much he loved Penny. He shared some of the special gifts he had received from his wife.
Then, in a moment of true compassionate wisdom, he thanked his mother for being such a good mother — and for accepting Penny into her life as well.
Lance couldn’t help but notice a hint of sadness in his mother’s eyes mixed in with an acceptance of the inevitable.
In that moment, a son was truly growing up. The relationship between all three of them took a turn for the better. His mother could now let go of the false hope of being the most important person in her son’s life. Lance no longer needed to protect his mother from the truth. And Penny could have a marriage with a more mature man.
Not all mothers and grown sons are this enmeshed, but too many are.
It is ultimately a mother’s responsibility to prevent this level of enmeshment. She does this by holding healthy boundaries with her son, by not confiding too much deeply personal information, especially by not using her son as a surrogate husband.
This can become emotional incest, where a boy/teen is encouraged or even forced to become the man of the house.
A mother who uses her son as her deepest emotional support is not a healthy mother.
Like Lance, grown sons may need help to separate from their mothers in a healthy way. This may not be seen to be a problem until he has an intimate partner, who deserves to be prioritized over his mother.
Like Penny, Joyce, in our early relationship, was hurt by the ways I sometimes made my mother more important than her. And like Lance, I needed to consistently choose Joyce over my mother, and let my mother clearly know how very important Joyce was to me.
And I too saw my mother’s pain from realizing that she was less important to me than Joyce. But I also saw her grow up, and realize this was healthy, and something she needed to let go.
There was a special gift in this process. Because Joyce was so special to me, she also became special to my mother, and their relationship thrived. I will always remember how my mother would say to me, often in front of Joyce, “Barry, I hope you know that Joyce is the best thing that has ever happened to you!”
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Joyce & Barry Vissell, a nurse/therapist and psychiatrist couple since 1964, are counselors in Aptos who are passionate about conscious relationship and personal-spiritual growth. They are the authors of 10 books — including their most recent: A Couple of Miracles: One Couple, More Than a Few Miracles (Semi-Finalist, Book of the Year, Online Book Club) — and a free audio album of sacred songs and chants. Visit their web site at SharedHeart.org for their free weekly inspirational videos and monthly e-heartletter. A Couple of Miracles is available at Amazon.com.