Dear Bossip: He Moved In, But He Won't Marry Me Without His Mother's Approval

Dear Bossip,

I am wide awake and I am in tears at 2:26am laying next to my boyfriend whom I’ve been seeing for almost 5 years.

I am a divorced mom of 3 kids. I came to the United States from South Korea when I was 14 years old, and now I am a successful attorney. He’s also from Korea. When I met him he was still living with his mom who raised him alone. He has two older sisters.

When we started dating, he hid it from his family because I was a divorcee with kids. His mom would not approve of us. When it had been about a year, I told him that it had become an issue for me. He then finally told his mom who right away told me she didn’t approve of our relationship. We had so many fights. We broke up about 20 times because of this issue. I finally got him to move out of his mom’s house in our 3^rd year. About half a year after that, we moved in together. He never told his mom. When she visited his apartment unannounced she walked in on total strangers.

There are so many ridiculous stories. Why am I hanging onto this man? I really don’t know why. When I’m with him I keep hoping he will marry me. I keep picturing myself being in a family again. But, he won’t. He keeps telling me he will need his family’s blessing. The two sisters also refuse to meet me and keep telling him to break up with me. I feel like I’m stuck in a nightmare. I feel so alone and helpless even when I’m with him. How can I break up? I can’t picture myself without him now that it’s been so long. And, my kids like him too. I know it’s so pathetic, but I really truly do not know how I can get away from this relationship. – Feeling Stuck

Dear Ms. Feeling Stuck,

He is never going to marry you. I don’t care how long you wait, how much you invest in this relationship, how much you love him, and how much you desire to be married to him and be a family. He is not going to marry you. His mother and sisters will not allow him to marry you, and he is going to do what they tell him to do.

Sweetie, you moved a grown boy into your home. You are now taking care of four kids. You inherited another woman’s child. Why? You are that desperate for a man that you forget your better judgment and do something so asinine and stupid. Why would you invest your time and energy into someone who can’t think for themselves? And, why oh why would you convince a man who has been living in his momma’s house to move in with you? He is a momma’s boy, and he can’t function without a woman telling him what to do, and how to do it. Therefore, he is going to do what his mother and sisters want him to do because he was raised by all women. They control him. They tell him what to do. He doesn’t know how to think on his own. He doesn’t know how to make choices on his own. All his life he has had women in his life telling him what to do. He is not his own man. And, in all reality, you are nothing but his surrogate mother. You boss him around, tell him what to do, and you are the one who made him move in with you. Hell, though it took you three years to get him to move out of his momma’s house, he reluctantly moved in with you. And, why the hell would you beg and plead to have a man move out of his momma’s house and move in with you?

You don’t have a man, you have boy/man. A grown boy in a man’s body. SMDH! Now, you are sitting in your bed crying and boo-hooing because you realize he is not going to ever marry you, or be the man you hoped he would be. You are sitting in your bed, up at 2am, and thinking about how such a fool you are. You are fighting for a relationship that isn’t worth fighting for. He is not invested in you. He is not invested in your relationship. He is only using you until he finds a woman his mother will approve of him marrying. He is laying in your bed, in your house, and living rent free until he figures out his next move. Yes, he is with you until either you end and send him packing back to his momma’s house. Or, he meets another Korean woman who is single, no kids, younger than you, and meets the standards of his mother and sisters.

Right now, you are fighting to win a man’s heart that belongs to his family. YOU. ARE. NOT. GOING. TO. WIN.

The real problem is that you don’t want to lose to his mother and sisters, and you desperately want to prove to them that you are a worthy good woman, and if only they got to know you then they would really like you. Thus, you are in this relationship to prove something to them. You keep going above and beyond because you want to show and prove to them. If you would have been paying attention, and really looked at your situation from the very beginning, then you would have saved yourself the headache and got out of this way before it began. There were so many red flags, and red signs, yet, you ignored them. And, I bet it’s because you were a divorcee who was desperate and didn’t want to end up alone, so the first man to show you any attention, and some affection, you invested in him. Despite the warnings – He lives at home with his mother. His mother and sisters dictate his life. His mother and sisters do not like you. He listens to them. He does what they tell him to do. You keep asking about marriage and he keeps telling you that he can’t marry you unless he has his mother and sisters’ approval. It was a losing battle from the very beginning.

So, instead of crying in your bed, and wondering what to do next, how about you tell him it’s over. You are not looking to be in a relationship with a grown boy/man. You need a man, a man who can make his choices and decisions. A man who can decide for himself what he wants, and how to do it. He doesn’t need his mother and sisters’ approval. You need a man who has his own, and not living in his mother’s house. You need a man who is not a momma’s boy, but a grown man who is responsible, independent, loving, smart, challenging, and his own man. Now, pack his things, and send him back to his mother’s home. Recognize that you don’t have to prove anything to anyone. You shouldn’t be fighting with your man’s mother to win his heart. – Terrance Dean

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