My grown son and I have always been close. Our mother-son bond is built on a mutual love of debate, bad puns, and cooking. I don’t know what most adult sons text about with their moms, but Paul and I often exchange pictures of what we made for dinner.
One evening in the run up to his wedding, my iPhone pinged. It was a photo of a plate, captioned: “Tomato herb rice with white beans and spinach—not bad.”
“No meat?” I reply.
“Protein in beans,” followed by a heart emoji.
I was filled with a rush of joy, with some hope and fear added in. Hope that we could always have these wonderfully casual exchanges, and fear that, after he was married, everything might change.
I couldn’t help think of that well-known ditty:
A son is a son till he takes a wife.
A daughter’s a daughter all her life.
Testing My Own Theories on the Mother-Son Bond
When Paul was a teenager, I wrote a book on the mother-son relationship, called The Mama’s Boy Myth: Why Keeping Our Sons Close Makes Them Stronger. Research backed up the subtitle – studies revealed that boys who have a strong emotional bond with their mothers fare better in school, in the workplace, and in relationships with friends and significant others. They had lower rates of anxiety and depression.
In interviews, many moms rejected the idea that by keeping our sons close, we’d raise wimpy, dependent – even effeminate – “mama’s boys.” As a feminist, I thought that was homophobic nonsense. I believed I had a lot to teach my son – and not just about making a perfect omelet. From a strong work ethic to empathy towards others, I wanted to model the same values to Paul as I did to his older sister, Jeanie.
Yet something nagged at me. Common wisdom held that when your son hit adolescence, it was time to start letting him go, for his own mental well being. Obviously, I didn’t want to stand in the way of my kids’ healthy evolution towards independence. But there seemed to be an expectation that I was supposed to detach emotionally from Paul in a way that I wasn’t with Jeanie. Again, this seemed dated and sexist. I just didn’t buy that our bond would prevent my son from becoming a well-adjusted man.
Read More: Hey, Over-Invested Moms! Your Adult Child’s Romance Is Not Your Business
Warnings and Stereotypes
But another warning was tougher to dismiss. Ultimately, you will lose your son to another. Separating from him will preemptively protect your heart. And, the implication is, prevent you from becoming another outmoded stereotype: The overbearing mother-in-law, competing for attention and affection with “the other woman.” Paul trading a mother for wife, only enough room for one woman in his heart. Meanwhile, Jeanie and I would be tight forever. Ridiculous. And yet…
Now Paul is getting married, and my theories are being put to the test.
First things first. I love his fiancé, Afroz. She’s moral, smart, and funny and has a great dynamic with Paul. They’ve dated for years. I’ve watched their relationship mature and had time to really get to know Afroz. We also share much in common, including a deep fear of flying and an abiding love for Jane Austen, The Golden Girls, and, of course, Paul.
Overstepping Boundaries?
The Happy Trio: Kate, Paul and Afroz.
As they fell in love, I had to adjust. Paul, who lives in another city, would call when he was sick.
“Sounds like you should rest and take some Tylenol,” I’d advise.
“Yeah, that’s what Afroz told me. She made me ginger tea with lemon and honey.”
I was happy he was cared for, but I felt a twinge that I wasn’t his first consult. Then there was the cooking.
“Mom, Afroz made these amazing potato, cauliflower, and onion patties. It’s her mom’s recipe.”
This felt like encroachment. But, hey, I really wanted the recipe.
When they called to tell us they were engaged, my husband and I were thrilled. But I overstepped—right out of the box, joyfully babbling to Afroz, “You’re going to be the mother of my grandchildren!” This was met with radio silence, followed by a polite, “Um. Someday. That’s the hope.”
Update: Find Out How the Author Fared After Her Son’s Marriage
Could We Share Him?
My future-daughter-in law is a lawyer. In college, she majored in politics and gender studies. I’d never asked about her feelings on my close relationship to Paul. Now that wedding plans are well underway, it seemed time.
Her answer surprised me: “When we started dating, I thought, ‘He’s really close to his family and his mom. This is so great.’” Encouraged, I asked if she’d ever heard the maxim that if you want to know how a man will be as a husband, watch how he treats his mother. She hadn’t. She thought it made sense, but that it was somewhat limited.
“Of course, there’s something to be said about respecting the women in your life,” Afroz told me. “But it extends beyond being a good spouse. He was raised to be an incredibly good person to all the people he’s close to.”
Pretty nice words for any parent to hear.
Paul, of course, has his faults. Afroz and I exchange eye rolls when he gets that dog-worrying-a-bone way of endlessly making his point, or, worse, breaks into his victory dance. (Paul’s not a bad loser, but he is a truly obnoxious winner.)
But you know what? I believe Paul will be as good a husband as he is a son. It’s brought me joy—not resentment—to see Paul and Afroz’s love for each other. After all, love is not a zero-sum game. There’s plenty to go around. Besides, I just remembered another proverb:
You’re not losing a son. You’re gaining a daughter.
***
Kate Stone Lombardi has been a journalist for more than 25 years. She work has appeared in the The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Time, Ladies Home Journal, Parenting Magazine and other national publications. Lombardi is the author of The Mama’s Boy Myth: Why Keeping Our Sons Close Makes Them Stronger.
Amy Lasky says
I have a question that I want to know about. My son got married this year and I feel I am growing more distant from him. He wants to spend all his time with his wife and he says she makes her happy. I want to have some alone time with him just to take him to lunch and talk but he says no because he believes I am being excluding of my daughter in law. I have tried asking while he is at work, when she has to work and he says no. Am I in the wrong? Is it okay to have lunch with my married son alone? I don’t want to be the bad MIL and make their lives more miserable. I just want to do the right thing. Please help. Thanks.
The wife says
I think you need to ask yourself why you want alone time. What type of intimacy do you require that can’t be achieved when his wife is around? Do you dislike her? Do you feel like you can’t be yourself around her? Do you want to talk with him privately about your own personal business/finances or do you want to gossip and pry into his life and marriage? To me, it sounds codependent and needy and if your son is happy when his wife is with him, isn’t that the most important thing? Why put him in a position to leave her home so he can go be with you? Don’t be needy. Respect your son’s relationship and do all you can to support him in building a stronger bond with her…not you. He is already bonded to you naturally. He will appreciate you even more. If there is a time that makes sense to spend alone without forcing it, like if she goes on a girls trip or business trip or some event where he stays home, perhaps that is a good time. If I sound forward I don’t mean to offend, but I am the wife in a similar situation and this is how I feel so I thought it might help you. I don’t understand why my mother in law wants to spend alone time with my husband. She and I have a very good relationship so I don’t really get it…to me it feels very needy and like she wants to compete with me for his attention. I should also mention that she just moved to the city where we live and I invite her over all the time and we see her a lot. So she wants alone time with him on top of the amount of time we already spend with her…
Janice Paige says
My son recommended that I read this article and the post article comments. I am glad that I did. It give me a little perspective. It is very hard for me to let go of my son and have so little time with him. I miss him. I know that he is married now and they have a six month old son that I have only seen 4 times due to Covid, even though they only live 5 miles away. I want to be more a part of their lives. I don’t know why that is so hard. My son saw my mother all of the time and they were very close. I want that for me and my grandson as well. I am happy that he is married and happy. I really like my daughter-in-law, they are a good team, but I just don’t know why this family no longer includes me. It seems like every thing I say and do is wrong. I just feel rejected.
Jeannie Ralston says
I’m so sorry to hear this. I know COVID is making it all worse. I’m glad that the article helped. It sounds as if your son is trying to talk to you about this, so that’s a good thing. Good luck to you and thank you so much for sharing your feelings. This will help others who read this after you.
Tammy says
I am struggling with the engagement of my son. He is my first born and we have always been close. I am close to all of my kids. I was initially happy about the marriage. I had prayed that he would meet a nice girl who would love him. I always told him that besides finding someone who loves him, it is important to find someone who loves his family. Well, he came over the other day to give me the count on the rehearsal dinner. The number is quite high, about half of the wedding guests. Okay. Then he said that he had included his sister and her boyfriend in the count. I responded by asking if his sister was in the wedding. He said.’no’. At that point I became really angry. He has only one sister and as it turns out, she is the only immediate family member on both sides who is not in the wedding. My heart aches for my daughter to find out that she is the only one who is left out! He said that he had fought with her about it but she insists that his sister not be a bridesmaid. I am beyond livid about it! What is one more? She says that she wants us to love her and to have a relationship with us and she does that? I believe that she is being manipulative and attempting to sever his ties to his family. They have only been dating for 7 months and during that time, they spend every Sunday at her parents’, Mother’s Day and Easter. They did spend Thanksgiving with us after I moved my dinner ahead 2 hours to accommodate her mother. Then he came to me and asked if we could eat earlier so that they could go to her house. I said no because our guest had not arrived yet. They sat down with us ate a few bites and left after about 10 minutes to head to her parents’ an hour and a half early.
I am torn about whether to speak my peace. After all, I feel like she is going to dominate the marriage and it will be her family all of the time so what do I have to lose? Or should I be gracious and get walked over by her?
After the debacle the other night about the wedding, he texted me and told me how hard he will work to make things work. That he really wants me to love her and she wants to love us. I don’t see how that can happen after what she did to my daughter. It was a real slap in the face to my son(who wants his sister in the wedding), my daughter and me. I feel like she had driven an intentional wedge to try to sever him from us.
She was engaged once before and the guy broke it off. She says that his mother didn’t like her and that she has a hard time not thinking about that where her relationship with me is involved. I think that she did this same thing to the other mother and she let her son know that it is wrong and he listened to his mom. I find it ironic that she had mother in law issues with the last fiancee and now has me riled up too!
I really feel like when he says I Do, he is also saying so long parents and siblings, it’s been nice.
Jeannie Ralston says
Thanks for your comment. Sorry you’re going through this. I’m going to make sure our author sees your note. I’d love for her to weigh in. Hang in there.
Maxine says
I raised my three children alone and they are all very successful adults and extremely close to me. My only son didn’t have many girlfriends before he met his future wife, a few years older than him who he seemed to be in awe of. From day one she made it clear she was going to break the bond between myself and my son. She actually told me this. I was shocked and let it go because I didn’t want to upset my son. Long story short. He married her 6 years ago and she made sure our family were hardly included in the wedding..she wouldn’t let his sister’s be bridesmaids, while I, the mother who worked my butt off to give him everything in life I could, was put on a table over the other side of the room. I have no photos of myself with my son in his wedding day, she instructed the photographer to exclude our family. I cried for months.Her jealousy has ruined our relationship. I tried so hard to make friends with her and but she would not let me in, she just wants him to herself . I have seen my son only about 3 times in the last few years, and the last time I saw him at Christmas was before he met her, over 10 years ago. I have resigned myself that I have totally lost him. She rules the roost. So I didn’t gain a daughter when they married, I lost my son. I’m heartbroken and will never recover from the pain. It all depends who they marry. Many women are jealous of the mother and son bond and deliberately set out to break it, it’s cruel beyond words.
Linda says
Hi! Raised my son alone…financially and emotionally and we were close. Never slashed his alcoholic drug abuser Dad but was very cautious and also no bad words about him to my kid
They are the closest father/son team now. Fine
Son has been dating a sweet girl for 10 years. He’s 30 she’s 28.
Finally pressured into popping the question last year. Her family is odd. Psychotic Mom, passive Dad and bitchy narcissistic older sister that she idolizes!
I’m an educated, common sense woman and have been expressing my concerns over some of their silly decisions and have been ignored and it hurts. They spend $ like there’s no tomorrow, not good, got a puppy for her and feed it raw diet( sisters idea) fancy clothes and Wedding shit is ridiculous!!
I’m upset I’m losing my only kid.
Millennials…who knew!!??
Seems it’s very true about the son until he finds a wife.
Only child. Wish I would have had a daughter.
Heidi L Kulcheski says
I am sorry Linda, but the last line of your comment really hit my heart hard, are you sure? My son is getting married tomorrow, he is my only son and I cannot attend (pandemic and all) and I still wouldn’t change it for the world. I will love whomever he choose to love. Your role as a mother is to support your sons choices, whether or not you always agree them is irrelevant.
Anne Nicolai says
My son and I were always close and we also maintained our independence, realizing that we were not responsible for each other’s mistakes nor could we take credit for each other’s triumphs. When people complimented my son as he grew up, I would never say “Thanks” as if it were my skill or accomplishment that merited the comment: I would say, “I’ll tell him you said so!” Then he married a woman who is a bossy know-it-all who talks incessantly. I don’t dislike her, exactly, but she irritates me, and my mother can hardly stand to be around her. Her mother was only 15 when she gave birth to my daughter-in-law, so they’re in league as if they were siblings, whereas I’m definitely the parent, and she keeps me at a distance. Since he started dating my daughter-in-law in college, I noticed the way they spoke to each other as if mimicking a sit-com, parrying smart-aleck remarks rather than conversing calmly. I talked to them about it and they said, back then, that I wasn’t the only one who had noticed the constant sarcasm and barbs, and that they were working on it. They waited until they were 29 to marry, and the sarcasm habit only got worse. Now they’re the parents of my granddaughter, an adorable two-year old, and they seem to have matured somewhat, but still, I can’t stand to be around them both together for very long. And my son won’t visit me without his wife in tow, so I have no idea whether he and I still have the same relationship or not. For several years I’ve felt sad about the distancing effect the marriage seems to have had, but recently I’ve decided to accept it. He chose her, and he seems happy, so I guess that’s what matters. My job is done, and now I will enjoy seeing my granddaughter whenever possible and hope that in time, my son and I will recover some of the easy closeness that we had for the 18 years he lived in my care!
Jeannie Ralston says
Thanks for sharing this Anne. I have sons myself and con only imagine how hard this has been for you. But kudos to you for working through it. I hope you do find the closeness again.
Rolanda says
I’m interested for a follow up. I have 2 children from a previous marriage. My husband and I have a child together, the first GC for his parents. My parents feel like their responsibility to their grandchildren is to support their parents. My husband’s parents feel like our responsibility is to do what pleases them. This causes many problems. My husband is 16 months older than his only sibling, his brother. His mother, in a fit of anger, has told me that he will always put her first. She goes to his work to cry about me and tells him not to tell me. I asked her if she would like her MIL to do that? Is keeping secrets good for marital strength? I got the silent treatment. I’m curious to know, two years later, how is it going?
Jeannie Ralston says
That’s a good idea: Have the writer do a follow up on how it’s going now that some time has passed. Thanks Rolanda. Good luck with your MIL. Sounds very difficult.
Kathy says
No, you’re pretty much losing your son. I’d like to know how this story turned out after Paul got married.
Facebook Comment says
As son is a son until he takes a wife
A daughter is a daughter for the rest of her life
Facebook Comment says
Yes.
Facebook Comment says
No! Sons love their mothers first and foremost.
Facebook Comment says
My son’s wife hates me. I haven’t seen or heard from them since his father died. I haven’t seen my grandson for two years.
I just wish I knew why…
NextTribe says
Ouch. That hurts. So sorry.
Facebook Comment says
My oldest son just got married last September (the day before my 50th birthday to be exact). I love his wife, she’s awesome! I still have my bond with my son, Andrew, but I know his wife comes first. She is always prompting him to “call your mom” “did you text your mom?” We’ll see what happens when my baby boy (he just turned 16) gets engaged…
Facebook User says
wow I wish my future mother-in law knew all the thoughtful genuine things I would suggest for my fiance (her son) to do for his Mom, he has challenges expressing emotions of our reltionaship (that its brought him so much happiness) to his Mother, as a result she has no idea how much I adore her and has since caused her to run off on her own thinking fears of my taking away her son, which I encourage him to take her out for lunch sometimes, buy her flowers, just share some plans he and I are making in order to keep His Mom and Dad included in our life and he gets so upset withe me telling me I don’t know her… later then apologizing cause he was the one who wanted to be the 1st with the thoughtful ideas & he didnt want me to take his shine. We are a work in progress… I pray that things resolve. I grew up very differently (lucky perhaps in a particular area) of respecting Mothers and showering them with love and that they have their own category. Wives have a completely different category as well. Same with Father’s and their Daughters. Plenty of love to go around. I feel if we saw it that way it would make it easier to know Wife is her own woman with her own insights and wisdom for her husband and children. I think there can be harmony and balance… I dunno, but your comment gives me hope.
Facebook Comment says
Sad to read. My only child is a 17 year old boy. Never want to lose touch with him
Facebook Comment says
My youngest son is engaged. I wrote his fiancée a long letter welcoming her to the family and letting her know that now she should and would come first in my son’s life. I promised that I would try only to give advice when asked. And I told her that they were both intelligent and competent people who could raise their children. I’m always there to help but he needs to make HER his focus. And I’ll get a daughter-in-law who won’t mind visiting me. Win/win!
Facebook Comment says
I maintain the closeness by remembering that his wife and family are his primary relationship. Never get confused…
Facebook Comment says
My son is not married yet–but I watched my mom honor the new wife as the primary focus and my mom has treated each daughter in law or partner as one of her own. She never judged, never intruded. One of my sisters in law said she feels so lucky when she hears other women complaining about their mothers in law–she loves hers. And this sister in law has never resented any time my brother gives to helping my mom.
Wish it could be so for every one
Anonymous says
This is how it should be. There are a lot of “smothers” out there.
Facebook Comment says
It should not, but of course his focus should be on his wife.
Facebook Comment says
Noooooooo
Facebook Comment says
Yup… apparently that is exactly what happens for some of us mothers of sons, sadly.
Anonymous says
Sorry to hear. Bummer.
Anonymous says
here too…my son married and within 2 years his new wife has cut everyone out of his life….parents ..siblings…etc
ForsenicDoc says
Mine did that also. Daughter in law even got him to connect with my ex, son’s bio dad that was abusive to both of us. There has been no contact with the ex in over 18 years either. My son never got a bday card, phone calls nothing for 18 years and at the wedding the ex and his wife and their kids were were actually in the wedding party and introduced formally! We never see or hear from them and it’s been over 2 years. They had a baby boy that we have never seen but they sent birth announcements so they could get a gift. They live 14 miles away. My husband is the only dad my son ever had. We tried but we are always shut out.
Jeannie Ralston says
This sounds awful. So, so sorry.
Kathleen Fitzpatrick Gulledge says
At the very end she writes that you’re not losing a son you’re gaining a daughter which is so true
Jeannie Ralston says
Yes, that’s my hope. That I’ll gain 2 daughters that I never had!
Laura Sandidge Saladino says
Robyn Saladino Sundquist
Samantha Saladino Black
Samantha Saladino Black says
Yeah yeah we shall see..