‘Sometimes it seems like my boyfriend is in a relationship with his mother, instead of me’

If you think you’ve played chess with a nice man, you get his mother to join him. “When he comes home from work, he first calls di mámma.”

She should have known: he was even on his Tinder profile with his mom. But she ignored the red flags and now Bianca, 36, runs a blended family with a mother’s forty-year-old child. The household is the biggest source of quarrels in relationships, with Bianca it is her mother-in-law by far.

“We argue about it at least twice a week. My daughters aged ten and eleven jokingly call grandma di mámma, after the Italian mothers from mafia movies, who treat their criminal sons or be babies and run their families until they die. Sometimes it seems like my boyfriend is in a relationship with her instead of me. It’s driving you insane.”

‘Just call mommy’

Of course she noticed in the beginning of their relationship that her boyfriend called his mother a bit much. “In fact, during our first date, he reached for his phone as soon as I went to pee. ‘Just give mommy a call,’ he said, ‘she’s sitting on the couch, biting her nails, waiting for a report.’ I thought it was a joke: my mom didn’t even know I was dating at all.”

But it wasn’t a joke. Bianca’s friend turned out to be besties with his mother. “Amazing, I thought at first. Logical too, because only child. But we have been living together for a year – he also has a four-year-old son – and he speaks to her every day. Several times. When he gets home from work, I get a quick kiss and he calls his mom first to discuss the day.

She often calls him again in the evening. To tell them that All you need is love watched, or had a nice chat with a friend. Call home from work in the car, I think. That way no one is bothered by it and he still has his time with her. But they don’t think that’s enough. No wonder his father pulled on his props ten years ago; she probably hadn’t had time for him for thirty years by then.”

“Wouldn’t you want that too?”

Eva (34) also lives with a mother’s child: “If I make stew once, I am told that his mother’s version is really much tastier. When we are on holiday in France, he insists on eating at that one auberge where he used to come with his mother as a teenager. When his son is ill, he calls her before assuming that a sliced ​​onion next to the bed will help with a stuffy nose. Why a typical case of ‘grandma knows better’? I’m raising two damn daughters myself; I do know how to take care of a sick child. But every argument we have about his ailing relationship with his mother ends in misunderstanding. He has always had a good relationship with her, he says. Wouldn’t I also want my daughters to call me every day later, when they’re out of the house? Well, no, not necessarily.

daddy

I wonder if his mother is actually waiting for that intensive contact. ‘Daddy,’ she once said jokingly, when he asked her at a dinner party how long the chicken should be in the oven. “Luckily he has you.” He is genuinely a very sweet person. Accepts my children as her own flesh and blood and is always there for us. Puts fresh bread rolls on the counter when we come back from vacation, catches the dog during winter sports… And when we bought a caravan, she was standing on the sidewalk a week later with tailor-made curtains. Hideous, but I couldn’t bring myself to reject them. So I’ve been lurking against some frumpy paisley pattern all summer.

We celebrate Christmas Day with her, and I’m already looking forward to it. Not because of her, but because of him. Because on Boxing Day with my family I’m guaranteed to hear that his mother’s hare pepper was really much better than mine. I don’t even get it in my head to cook elaborately at home; after all, I can’t do it nearly as well as my mother-in-law – even if I got a Michelin star for it.”

look like his mother

Vera’s husband, 35, was immediately clear when they met ten years ago: if a woman ever wanted to grow old with him, she had to look like his mother. And damn: even in appearance, Vera comes close. Her friends asked if she was sure she was waiting for this. “But I was really only happy with her emphatic presence in our lives. My mother passed away when I was nine, and my mother-in-law filled the place I had felt for so long as a void.”

Vera’s husband even lived with his mother when she met him while going out. “He was 29 and had just ended a relationship, his mother was a widow with huge burdens. So he had moved into his old room and before I knew it I was sitting on his mother’s couch every weekend. At 25.”

‘He tells her everything’

He quickly exchanged his old nursery for Vera’s house. “Their relationship isn’t that sickly, it’s more like one of best friends. He tells her everything, including about us. Every fight or argument, that getting pregnant was difficult, the dreams we have together and even details about our sex life; they all come to her.

He selects our holiday destinations with her, because she goes with her every summer and I think any place is fine as long as the sun is shining. She’s also my best friend. And I find those holidays together not only fun, but also very practical, because she takes care of our daughters aged six and seven with love, while we make the nightlife of Ibiza unsafe, or the après-ski in Austria. My mother-in-law is the mother I no longer have, although I also realize that I would never have let my own mother come so close.”

mammonia

The Italians have a real term for men who remain dependent on their mother into adulthood: mammonia† The Italian Supreme Court even ruled three years ago that Italian women have a valid reason to dissolve their marriage if their husband maintains an emotional bond with his mother after the wedding. Thirty percent of Italian divorces are now said to be due to excessive interference by the mother-in-law, if we are to believe the president of the Italian Association of Divorce Lawyers Gian Ettore Gassani.

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Abandoned

Imke (40) also abandoned her husband for that reason: “Well, I didn’t really abandon him of course, I left him with his mother,” she says. “I thought I married a grown guy. With a strong character and a heart of gold: a man with whom I could start a stable family.” That he was a little less able to stand up to the mark, became apparent when he did not dare to sign the purchase contract for their home before showing the house to his mother first and letting her choose the color of his new lease car.

“A good relationship with your mother is up to that point, but her meddling in his life casually continued when we were three children richer, was the beginning of the end for me. She visited us almost daily and took over my entire household. If I had just put the potatoes on, she drained them because she thought I had added too much water. If I had dressed my children, I found them in a different outfit half an hour later. She even once managed to rearrange my kitchen cupboards while I was away.

‘Nobody loses their mother’

And if you think my husband sided with me when the bomb exploded one day, forget it. No one loses his mother, not even his own wife. He took her side—once again—and as I walked out of the room furious, she kissed him on the mouth. My father-in-law stood by and looked at it. I just didn’t go over my neck yet.”

There was more crookedness in their relationship, Imke says now, but the bond between mammonia and his mother was the main reason she left her husband three years ago. “A win-win-win situation. I was freed from the eternal meddling, my husband had complete free play with his mother, and his mother had the apple of her eye under her wings again. For the children it is a party that they go to stay with grandma and grandpa every other weekend – although it is almost always with dad there. His sister hasn’t been there for years, she thinks the situation is too freaky†

What early

It also requires a superhuman dose of resilience, such a mother’s child in your bed, Gertine (38) thinks. “Actually, I was fed up when my mother-in-law yanked my child out of the maternity nurse’s arms right after giving birth to my youngest son, before I even really held him myself.

After being stitched with my son on my chest, I took a shower while the maternity nurse with my husband dressed our son. When I returned, my mother-in-law had already arrived to admire her grandchild – then the scene unfolded. Me in tears, she amazed, and my husband clumsily next to it, with no idea how to solve this. Luckily the maternity nurse intervened, after which my husband pulled himself together and told his mother that it might be a bit early for a visit.

Cosy together

She doesn’t even mean badly, her pushy behavior: my mother-in-law is just a family person through and through. She behaves exactly the same with my brother-in-law. And there are also advantages: she cleans our house every week, is always ready to take care of the children and in general she is a pleasant daily presence.

I do think it’s a thing that she spontaneously does our laundry. “Well, you’re still having a good time together,” she said when she had changed our bed without being asked. Hello, you don’t say that! On the other hand, she accepts that I set my boundaries, just as she went home without a murmur after the birth of my youngest. Okay, to be the first at the door the next morning for rusk with mice, but then I could handle it again.

Don’t want to miss out on anything

His mother is the most important woman in my husband’s life, and all in all I’m fine with that. She’s a lightning rod for the things I’d rather not burn my fingers on. His fishing hobby, for example. ‘John dear, those poor beasts; just stay with your family on Sunday’, she says. Or his hated season ticket for the local football club, which means I never have it to ourselves at the weekend at all. “Put that thing away and look at your girl instead of those hairy guys,” she invariably yells.

She is close friends with my mother, and because she re-briefs everything she hears and experiences with us with more or less the same intensity, it saves me endless telephone conversations. I wouldn’t miss my mother-in-law for anything. Besides, before we know it she’s gone, and my own daughter-in-law is talking about me like that. I better lead by example now.”

This article was previously published in Kek Mama.

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