[Two Pronged] Caught between my mom and girlfriend

Rappler’s Life and Style section runs an advice column by couple Jeremy Baer and clinical psychologist Dr Margarita Holmes.

Jeremy has a master’s degree in law from Oxford University. A banker of 37 years who worked in 3 continents, he has been training with Dr Holmes for the last 10 years as co-lecturer and, occasionally, as co-therapist, especially with clients whose financial concerns intrude into their daily lives.

Together, they have written two books: Love Triangles: Understanding the Macho-Mistress Mentality and Imported Love: Filipino-Foreign Liaisons.

Dear Dr Holmes and Mr Baer,

I met this girl, named Annie, April of 2014 

I was interested in Annie and I decided to court her. I did everything I could to strengthen our bond. After over a month, it was official, we decided to go to the next level, as boyfriend-girlfriend. We experienced a lot of things, bad times, happy moments. There would be times that we would fight, but we always tried to fix the problem.

I’m in good terms with her family. She is too with mine, except with my mom. Every time my mom sees her, she goes paranoid, like she would shout at her and she would not let her step in our house. I explained everything to Annie, I told her that time will come that she will be accepted by my mother. But this left a hole in her heart.

She’s a cashier in a fast food chain, I am working as a call center agent. The time of her work varies, mornings, afternoons or at night. I am working at night. After my shift, I would go to her place to rest, not unless she there. We would go to nice places when we have free time. But since I was transferred in day shift, things got a little bit tougher. Most likely, my time is reduced because I need to go home to look after my mom. 

We were about to end our relationship a week before our anniversary. Because she told me that she let herself fall in love with her workmate. That was the time that my time was reduced. We talked about this and fixed it. And I accepted her whole-heartedly. 

She demanded that we live together under the same roof, but I refused. I told her that our jobs were not yet stable and with this, I cannot provide her a good life. Two weeks ago, she said that she couldn’t take it anymore, she doesn’t want to expect, and wanted to let go of the pain she feel inside. She broke up with me, her reasons were because I cannot give what she wants ‘yet’, and about my mom. 

Before, I would do everything to fix our relationship but this time, I respected her decision to let go. Since the day she broke up with me, I started to move on. Focus on my work. There are times that she would call and send a text message. But I chose not to respond. 

Yesterday, the last message I received from her said, “I did give up but you are still in my heart”. Again, I did not reply to her message. As I have mentioned that I am starting to move on. And I don’t want her to experience the pain my mom left her. So I decided not to hold on and let her go.

What should I do now? Is it okay, is it normal to continue what I am doing, to focus on my work? 

Regards,

Jim

 —————

Dear Jim,

Thank you for your email. 

You are not the first, nor will you be the last, person to find that you have been caught between your girlfriend and your mother. In your case, however, it does seem that you are the author of your own misfortune.

Considering first of all your account of your dilemma, you say “Every time my mom sees her, she goes paranoid, like she would shout at her and she would not let her step in our house. I explained everything to Annie, I told her that time will come that she will be accepted by my mother.”

Yet what stands out here is your total failure to explain to us why your mother is so dead set against Annie and why you are optimistic that she will come round. Then there is the issue about your “need to look after” your mother. Again, no explanation is given for your decision to spend your reduced time not with your girlfriend but with your mother – in other words, what this “need” really means.

Ok, we can all speculate about mothers who believe that no girlfriend is good enough for their son, or widowed middle-aged women with just one relative left in the entire world to care for them, or a differently abled parent reliant on adult children to do their shopping, or she is a paranoid schizophrenic etc etc.

However, it would have been so easy for you to tell us yourself but instead you have deliberately left us in the dark, which invites us to question your motive for doing so.

Later in your account, after overcoming Annie’s possible defection into her workmate’s arms, you reward her reaffirmation of your relationship and her desire to set up house with you by refusing to do so, ostensibly for financial reasons.

Annie has every right to interpret your behavior as a clear signal that she ranks very much second to your mother in your affections and she can be forgiven for then reasoning that someone as dedicated as you are to his mother is not worth waiting for, hence her decision to cut and run.

Your refusal to fight for her – spun by you as a deeply heroic and entirely reasonable decision – will only have confirmed her in her belief that you belong firmly in her past. 

So now, you ask, are you right to move on and concentrate on your job? Well, you have already chosen to show Annie the door by refusing to move in together and preferring your mother over her.

Unless you have had a change of heart or something else has happened which you have forgotten to mention it to us, there seems no obvious reason not to move on. As for concentrating on your job, that seems an eminently sensible decision as any successor to Annie is likely to suffer the same fate if you continue to treat your mother as the center of your universe. Please write again if you have further questions.

All the best,

JAF Baer

Dear Jim:

Thank you very much for your letter. You ask: “Is it okay, is it normal, to continue what I am doing, to focus on my work?” The unequivocal answer is absolutely. Not only is it ok that you do this, it is, perhaps, the best course of action for you to take.

However – and happily – you are capable of multi-tasking.  Thus, in addition to focusing on your work, it might also be a good idea to explore what is going on inside you emotionally. At the moment, your mom is the number 1 woman in your life. Nothing wrong with that.  

Under ordinary circumstances, you will, in time, fall in love with someone and this woman will then be number 1 in your life. Your mother, who loves you, will rejoice that you have found her and wish only the best for you both, including children who love their parents the way you love her.  

There is nothing in your letter that screams you have to do this – find a girl, settle down, have kids, etc – immediately. However, your letter strongly suggests that the sooner you look into the dynamics of your mother-son relationship, the better it will be for everyone.

I suspect, however, that that is the last thing you want to do in the world. I suspect that the advice you gave your former girlfriend: “that time will come that she will be accepted (by my mother)” is the advice you follow yourself: “Don’t confront; don’t force the issue. In the end, time will take care of everything.”

You were proactive when it came to your girlfriend and her workmate, so I suspect that this doormat role you take on is only as far as your mother is concerned.  

She has spent years training you – especially at your most defenseless – so it will not be easy to wean yourself from her power. But wean yourself you must, dearest Jim, or you will end up not only remaining what you are now – a milquetoast – but also married to someone as milquetoast, ie as you (as who else would be willing to be number 2 in the face of such a mean mother-in-law?) with whom you will have little milquetoast children running around in the house your mother lives in.

It will not be easy. I suspect it can be downright frightening for you, who may not ever have considered that your relationship with your mother is damaging in its present form, but it is and, happily, you can get help.  Mr Baer and I are willing to help you if you wish.  

As Dr C. G. Jung said: “ Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”  

Rather than being its victim, wouldn’t it be great if fate – and your mother – had only as much influence as you allowed them to?

All the best,

MG Holmes

Need advice from our Two Pronged duo? Email twopronged@rappler.com with subject heading TWO PRONGED.Unfortunately the volume of correspondence precludes a personal response.

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