Close Bond with Son Threatened by New Boyfriend…Or Is It?

Reader’s Question

I am a divorced mother of one son. My husband and I divorced when our son was 12 (he was in the 6th grade). We came home one day after school and found the house stripped of our possessions and him just gone. His father has had very little contact with him ever since. Due to its being just him and me all these years, we have a VERY close bond. I have literally put my personal life on hold raising him and throwing all my energy into being a good mother. My life revolved around my son for all these years. He is now 22 and in his 4th year of a college 2 hours away. Since he has been away at school, I have met a man and it is looking like marriage is imminent. This will be devastating to my son. He feels like he is the “man of the house”. How do I handle telling him while he is 2 hours away at college? To complicate matters, I will be moving out of our only home known to my son. I don’t want him to come home to a vacant house when I move in with my soon to be fiancé. Again, I cannot stress the close bond my son and I have. Any advice on how to handle this?

Our Consulting Clinical Psychologist’s Reply

From your email, you may have a close bond with your son, but it’s a restricted bond. How could he possibly come home from college to find the house vacant? That would only occur if you didn’t tell him you moved. In a close bond, how would he not know his mother is dating, looking at marriage, and might be moving out? This would suggest that you are keeping your relationship with this other man completely separate and secret from your son.

Other aspects of your email suggest that you may be having difficulty reading the close bond you have with your son. He has been attending college, two hours away, yet still feels he’s the man of the house? You and your son now have separate lives. Unless he’s driving home every weekend, the bond isn’t that close anymore. It still feels close due to the history you’ve shared, but in real life he’s living two hours away and now visiting Mom when he can.

To handle the situation, first recognize it. You’ve both grown up. No matter how close you were, you’ve both moved on. It might be both of you are keeping your other relationships secret — yours at home and his at college — perhaps out of fear of hurting the other’s feelings. It’s important that you both recognize that the original relationship has changed. He doesn’t need that much mothering anymore and you don’t need him to be the man of the house.

Talk with him about how you’ve both grown up and survived the turmoil of years ago. Let him know that the Close Bond you used to survive those difficult years has been successful and is no longer needed. We can allow it to change. Don’t talk to him Mom-to-Son but rather adult-to-adult. Let him know that both of you will continue your close relationship but as adults now — you in your life and he in his life. Remember that bringing a new partner into a family threatens the current table of organization — who’s the man of the house, who does what, etc. Your son may be threatened by this addition to the family — which it is in truth. Let him meet your boyfriend and get to know him. Your son should be introducing you to his friends as well.

You both may be hiding things from each other in an effort to protect a bond that is no longer needed to survive. Once you begin changing the relationship, a new bond will form, maybe not as close as the original bond, but more mature and healthy.