Hello all, I'm back with well...some apparent parental misconceptions that I feel like I just want some opinions from other people on this. During my relationship with my partner...I've found my mother making comments that while I try to ignore, I'm like is there any truth to it or does it come perhaps just from like....her own past perceptions of relationships. First off, she constantly doesn't understand why my partner and i primarily communicate when apart through text. We do phone calls once in a blue moon, but I'll admit I'm a total "millennial" in that I'm just not a fan of talking on the phone. I run out of things to say with anyone. It works for us but is it weird my mom judging that? Could it come just cause she grew up in the age of phone calls not texting? and secondly, when I'm staying at his place or his at mine, she some reason thinks we should come up with sort of agreement that say he's out at an event with a sport team (I've gone once or twice but it's not my thing to go weekly) or I may have to step out for a concert that say he wasn't in the mood to go (we each have our own interests after all), we clean the other's place. Like not every time, but like if we're bored. She has this weird misconception I think that if we're not cleaning each other's homes, when we move in we'll squabble over it. And I'm just thinking....it's one thing if say I'll do the dishes or toss garbage, I use so one less thing for him to have to deal with, but I almost feel like cleaning your partner's home completely is almost an invasion of their privacy? Like...am I right in thinking this just comes from their generation? I know this is such a weird question to ask but while I trust my gut...I don't mind another opinion or two.
I'm almost sure she is coming at this from a place of good intentions. Its maybe something of a generational thing too, if she is the main homemaker and your father is the main breadwinner. She maybe doesn't understand what your relationship might eventually look like from a distribution-of-responsibilities perspective when you live together. I think it is probably good advice though. When I first moved back home after university, my then boyfriend of ~3 years, now my fiance that I live with, he helped me to buy and then do up a gutted flat. It went really cheap at auction because it wasn't habitable when I bought it, but it meant I couldn't get a mortgage. He stumped up the cash, we did the place up together in a few weeks and then I had it valued, took out a mortgage on it and repaid him. But he wouldn't take anything for his time, even though he could have been out working and earning. There was no expectation of me owing him a favour, but over the next couple of years I helped him with similar jobs on evenings after work and on weekends, we did up more flats and I took two weeks holiday from work to help him build a log cabin one summer. Working together for each other's benefit, even though we weren't married or financially one unit definitely brought us closer together.
It just sounds like your mom is being a mom, and has a hard time wrapping her head around the dynamics of a gay relationship and the younger generation. She is having a hard time relating her values to yours, which makes her act over-motherly. My mother and sister have a hard time relating to me sometimes when I talk about relationships even though they accept me, because they view men and marriage in a different light.
Thanks Chillton and JT, yeah I know she's coming from a good place. I think it just sometimes is that feeling of like she's trying to run my relationship is all. Do this, you should be doing that, etc. I think it comes from a mixture of trauma she had from her first marriage (nothing abusive, just not a good man), and maybe just different perceptions of things. She didn't take me coming out well at first (over a decade ago). She has come to terms with it, thinks my partner is great, but then she'll say things where I'm like why does it matter? I know she just wants to make sure I'm happy and cared for, but just I think has a cardboard cutout of what my relationship should be. Also will just note, my mom actually was in my opinion equal with my dad in breadwinner (in fact I think she may have ended up making more before both retired). I'm happy with how things are with him, I don't see the need to clean his home, it just has been always a thing where I can't help but kind of want to push back gently lol.
I recall my mother acted this way as you described when my sister started dating her now husband. They didn't have a traditional dating experience and engagement the way our mother experienced it. She was mad they moved in together before marriage and shared expenses. She was afraid if the relationship fell through my sisters finances would suffer as a result, and she didn't want her to accidentally have an opps baby. They fought like cats and dogs sometimes until our mother realized there was more than one to pursue a relationship. So your mom might be afraid of you taking risks or not enough measures to balance a productive relationship like the way she understands it. Maybe even more so because she is attracted to men too, and is comparing both of your standards. It probably puts her in a weird place of acceptance so she acts weird.
Well, since you ask for opinion. You're 35 (read: "notta little kid anymore"). i think everyone's being generous here? Not that i don't think it's great that you are being gracious and giving her space because she's your mom, i think that's really nice and mature. But to question yourself seems to far to me? Parents get used to being an authority in their kids life, As i see parenting, the responsibility is to help them become responsible, independent, adults. By the time they are out of the house and on their own, it seems to me the authority role pretty much ends and as a parent you hope you didn't FU to badly. i think part of being a parent is letting your kids be their own people when they become adults. Every generation always has differences. Imagine the generation that had the first car and the parent had ridden a horse? One can argue there are good and bad points to each, but i don't believe it's not up to the parent to dictate to their adult child how to live. i'm guessing there were issues between the first young adults to have a phone when their parents didn't? Now it's texting instead of talking on the phone. There's actually some interesting studies on that topic. The point to me is more why? Would she treat other 35 year olds this way? Or is she saying things because you're her son, not because she's right, but because she's reaching back to authority that maybe she should have released at this point? Here's an interesting one i encounter as a critical care nurse ... adult kids becoming the decision maker for their elderly parents. Some very interesting interactions there.
I'll admit big issue...is that when I went through rough periods in my life even during adulthood, I leaned on her. The issue is...in doing so I think it made her think I can't take care of myself even though I'm living on my own, own my own home. But it's a weird thing with her, she tells me to be resilient but to rely on her when tough times come up, don't do it alone. But then she...sort of takes it too far?
