Dear Margo Advises a Man How to Deal With Mrs. Robinson

DESPERATE writes in to Dear Margo:

I am a 32-year-old man. After a string of older women, I have happily, though uncharacteristically, been dating a woman eight years my junior for about a year.

She may be a little too young to be mature enough for commitment.

I am deeply in love with her, and we have been seriously discussing moving in together.

Shacking up is a very bad idea.

She is unusually close to her mother and sings her praises every chance she gets.

Uh-oh. Being close to your parents can be a good thing. But will she be closer to her mom than you if you ever married – you know, assuming you’d be stupid enough to marry her even though she’d move in without being married? Married couples need to “leave” their parents and “cleave” to each other.

Her mother gave birth to her at 16 years of age and still managed to give her a pretty good future, even as a single mom.

The better thing would have been to give her up for adoption, because 1) married adults could have given her a better homes; 2) she clearly regrets missing out on her younger years, as we’ll see, and; 3) she makes bad decisions, as we’ll see.

Unfortunately, her mother has made some obvious passes at me. It started with affectionate behavior and light flirtation, which included playful allusions to my former lovers and how they were her age rather than her daughter's.

And she knows about that because??? You told her? Mistake. Her daughter told her? That is none of her business – your trust was betrayed. I know it is common for a lot of girls to do this with their girlfriends, sisters, and mothers, but it isn’t right.

Do you really want to be with a young woman whose mother does such things? Think about that carefully, because this woman was her main role model, raising her alone. And I know something about this, because I was once infatuated with a girl, who it turns out wanted to be “just friends”, but her mother took up an interest in me.

Part of me is thinking "bail out," but I don't want to lose my girl.

That's because you are lazy and "getting some" regularly. Maybe she isn’t right for you, but you can't see that because you're thinking with your penis.

I also want to avoid damaging her relationship with her mother if at all possible.

Too bad her mother isn't as concerned.

She should be told what her mother did. What if it happens with the next guy, and the next guy?

Dear Margo responds:

Here's what you do to keep your girlfriend and not blow the whistle on her mother:

Yeah, notice that Margo agreed to your qualifications. You should move on, and you should tell the girl why.