My Mother Doesn’t Like My Boyfriends

Reader’s Question

I was wondering if you could help me. I am a teenage girl who experiences stress from honors classes, varsity sports, and relationships. I have trouble going for the nice guys and go for the guys who will treat me bad instead. My mother, who is my best friend, gets angry at this and takes it out on me. This causes me to be mean to her, and this has been going on for almost 5 years. I feel like there are no nice guys for me to like, and when I find one I pick out his flaws. I don’t know if I’m just going for the wrong guys for me or what. But when my mom gets angry it always results in a fight that escalates very quickly. Then we won’t talk for hours or days. I don’t think it’s fair she takes my not liking the right guys out on me.

Our Consulting Clinical Psychologist’s Reply

Your situation is very common in high school students. While you are trying to find your identity and preferences in people, your mother is terrified you will make the wrong choices and ruin your life. In high school for example, about fifteen percent of the freshman class doesn’t make it to graduate — they drop out, fade out, get kicked out, get sidetracked by pregnancy/drugs/jail/alcohol, etc. Parents of teenagers are terrified that their son or daughter will be in that fifteen percent.

Where you may be having the most difficulty is in selecting a good partner. This is especially difficult if we are stressed out as, ready for this, we tend to pick partners who treat us at our level of self-confidence. If you feel bad about yourself for some reason, you are likely to pick partners who treat you poorly.

As an honor student, I’d recommend an interesting approach. High school is the only time when all your peers will be together…and that’s good and bad. Six months after you graduate, there is a massive separation of your peers — some to college, some to marriage, some to job/armed services, etc. In high school you have the possibility of picking someone who will be a future physician/attorney/businessman OR a criminal, wife beater, dead-beat as an adult. You are destined for college. My advice — casually date and relate in high school, have fun, enjoy this time — and wait until you get to college before seriously considering a romantic relationship. About 80% of marriages under the age of 19 fail. Waiting to college improves the chances you will find not only an intellectual equal, but someone with the same career and future goals as you have.

Talk with your mother and help her feel safe. Right now, she’s afraid of your judgment. It may also be helpful to enlist the help of a family counselor to help the two of you figure this situation out. I think you both have your heart in the right place here…it’s just a difficult time when there is so much at stake…like your entire future.