Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man

Now, “Did I Marry a Man or a Boy?” waited almost eleven
years to have her say, but if you’re just now getting into a rela-
tionship with a man, you’re going to have to get this thing out
on the table. Tell him that you don’t ever want to come be-
tween him and his mother, but you sure don’t want to compete
with her, either, so he’ll have to do what he has to do to let his
mother know that (a) under no certain terms are the needs of
his girlfriend/fiancée/wife ever going to come second, and
(b) she should respect his need to be a protector and provider
for the woman to whom he’s professed his love. Don’t worry, he
understands his need to do this; no real man anywhere needs
his mother more than he needs his woman. He recognizes
pretty early on that the support he gets from his mother—
clothes, housing, education, nurturing, and so on—needs to
come to an end when manhood is full throttle, and that if he is
to have a true, loving, lasting relationship with a woman, he
needs to cut the proverbial umbilical cord from his mom so that
he can give life to his new family—his own family.
All you have to do is speak up.
Tell him straight up: “I need you here to protect and provide
for us, to give us security in our lives, to help raise these chil-
dren, to set an example for this boy, who needs to see what real
men do, and for this girl, who needs to know what a real man
is so she can find one of her own someday. I need you to be the
head of this family.”
Lay it out like this, and your requirements will trump his
mother’s every time.