What to Do When Meeting a Boyfriend's Mother
Dating Advice for the Woman Meeting her Boyfriend's Mom
Jun 18, 2009
It’s impossible to find a man with an objective mother. Either he’s disappointed her, or she’s terribly proud of him or she hovers somewhere in between these two ranges. In any case, she’s suspicious of a girlfriend’s place in the scheme of things.
Many other factors come into play, such as whether she’s single or married or remarried, well off or hard up, a professional career woman or a professional homemaker. Even her ethnic background is going to make a difference in terms of her approach to mothering her son, and, consequently, her approach to the girlfriend.
A Boyfriend's Mother Can be a Friend
A girlfriend should forget about these inconsistencies behave as she would around any other woman with whom she wishes to be friendly. She should draw her boyfriend's mother out, engage her in conversation, and find out about her history, hopes, and dreams. The mother, in turn, may be friendly or withdrawn, intelligent or less so, but the girlfriend has to assume, whatever the evidence, that she has her son’s best interests at heart.
Toward this end, the girlfriend spends time talking to the mother about her son. Such a perspective is going to please her, hopefully, and she’s going to see the girlfriend as a pipeline of pleasant information and compliments about her offspring. Her perspective is going to give the girlfriend a lot of insight about her boyfriend’s background and, consequently, his mental health. Many girlfriends have spent endless afternoons with mothers who talk and brag about their son’s siblings, and never have anything to say about the man himself.
Do Men Marry Women Like Their Mothers?
Naturally, mother and girlfriend want to like each other, but the chances of that occurring are most probable if their characteristics and lifestyles are similar. Since the mother is a whole generation older, it is a hard match. If the mother is a homemaker, the career-oriented girlfriend can try to build a rapport based on a secret recipe for key lime pie, but essentially they’re at odds philosophically. If the girlfriend lives off of a trust fund, and her boyfriend's mother is a single mom, it’s going to be difficult to mirror the prerequisite life experiences necessary to establish closeness.
Overall, though, a mother who sees that her son is happy is going to try to like the girlfriend no matter how different she is in interests and in background. The girlfriend needs to be herself at her friendliest and see if the chemistry takes. A boyfriend’s mother has the potential to be one of her most powerful allies or her worst enemy. Although neither scenario makes or breaks the relationship, everyone’s life is a lot easier if everyone gets along.
