Advice: My Girlfriend Overprotects Her Son

How an overprotective mother can hurt her children.

By Hara Estroff Marano, published on July 01, 2009 - last reviewed on August 04, 2009

I have been in a relationship with a single mother for eight years. Her ex-husband was a drug addict who now lives in an ashram. When our relationship started, her son was 13 and disrespectful to his mother. The boy is our one source of conflict. I tried to help her understand that her overprotection was going to hurt him, and now it is happening. He is very intelligent, well-read, a great debater, has a great sense of humor, but has no respect for authority, is irresponsible and lazy, a slob, and has never had a job. He has been a loner, rarely having friends over, but appeared to have a normal social life in school. After 2.5 years of university he was asked to leave because his grades were so low, but he is now in community college to get his grades up. Over the years we have seen three different counselors and one tried to get my girlfriend to set boundaries with her son, but she never followed the advice. She also won't live with me or marry me because she doesn't want to have me set rules the boy would rebel against. What I don't understand is the boy's laziness. He doesn't want to work, and he doesn't want to drive, even though he has his own car. He prefers to have his mother drive him around. Do you know of an outreach or intervention program anywhere that can help him?

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There are some things that can't be outsourced; expectations and ground rules for living in a household are among them. Why, on the cusp of adulthood, must the boy be protected—and from what? There's no more "trauma." The father is no longer a source of instability or harm, if he ever was. It does seem that in some ways, the boy's behavior is more functional outside the home than inside it, and it's important to consider why. Which leads directly to the big question: Why does your girlfriend focus on making allowances for any difficulty her son might have experienced and not on his abundant strengths? He is doing an excellent job of living down to the low expectations his mother has for him. In that sense, his behavior seems more "rational" than hers. She must be quite a devoted mom to drive around a healthy adult son , especially when the boy has a car of his own. Drug addiction was probably no fun to be around, but that doesn't consign a child to a life of dysfunction. Children are resilient if given the opportunity to see their strengths and if there is an adult who encourages them. The trauma in this family is being inflicted by the mother, who is clinging unyieldingly to a pattern from the past that no longer fits anyone. Although it is definitely taking a toll on his age-appropriate life right now, the boy seems to be doing what he needs to do to survive in that household. Just as your girlfriend keeps her son from growing, so is she keeping herself from moving on, into the relationship you have offered all these years. Your patience is remarkable, but it's not a force for health in this situation. And by seeing the boy as the sole problem, you are collaborating in maintaining the status quo. As far as interventions go, it seems it's your girlfriend who is badly in need of good, tough help—to get past the old patterns in which she is stuck and in which she is so intent on miring her son along with her. If you really want to be of value to her, you might make getting—and heeding—therapeutic help a condition of your continued relationship.