Moderation, boundaries can mend things with mom

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This article was published 12/05/2023 (1196 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: My recently widowed mother, who’s a former advertising exec from Toronto, invited herself to visit me for a whole month recently — a 28-day sentence. I left Toronto to get away from her, because she befriended all my friends in high school and college.

Anyway, I gamely staged a little party for her at a restaurant, so she’d meet a few people. My friends loved her! She got them playing a mixer game, and everybody had fun.

But then, she went too far. She actually took down some of my girlfriends’ phone numbers on a little list and jotted a couple words on what they liked to do — like the super saleswoman she is. The next day she made lunch and touristy dates, for when I was at work.

A few days later one of them called me and finally spoke the words I didn’t want to hear: “Your mother is more fun than you are!” I blew up! I said back to her, “Well then, how come she had to leave Toronto and come way out here to Winnipeg to steal my friends?”

My mother came in the room at that moment and said, “I heard that.” She flew home that day, and there’s been no communication since. Deep down, I love my mom. How can I handle this?

— Getting Very Upset, Winnipeg

Dear Upset: It’s interesting you had a kind of “mom party” to introduce her to all your girlfriends, which re-activated the same old problem you had in Toronto. Your mom is both a blessing and a curse. She makes you look good, by association — at first. She certainly impressed your friends with her fun-loving nature, and you felt great — but you were soon back in her shadow again.

So, what can you do? You still love your mom after all this. If you truly disliked her, you never would have let her visit your new distanced world, but it seems you do need to be in control of what happens when you’re together. That means you have to organize short trips from your world in Winnipeg to her world in Toronto.

Plan to do some things together with her, and then do things alone with your old Toronto friends. The trick is to cheerfully leave before things have a chance to get sticky. Just go for short visits, hitting special times of year like Mom’s birthday or a holiday celebration. Four days might be a nice length of stay.

You two need to make up and do this — for the sake of both of you — and it’s up to you to start the healing. Moms get older and don’t live forever, so don’t wait too long.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I insulted my best friend’s bigger girlfriend when we’d both had too much to drink recently. I’m a historian and referred to her (she was not with us) in what I thought was an admiring way — calling her a “modern-day Amazon” after the mythical country of woman warriors. He drunkenly fought back by referring to my slim girlfriend as “a skeleton!”

It was just a stupid drunken conversation that shouldn’t have lasted more than three minutes, but he pushed it and said, “So you think my girlfriend looks big and fat?” And I said, “Not really. She’s a bigger girl, yes, but very beautiful.” He didn’t buy that. It went further downhill from there and we called each other a few names before leaving the bar angry!

I think drunken conversations should be excused and forgotten — just blamed on the booze — but not this guy! My friend of many years is not answering any of my messages. What kind of friendship ends because of three wrongly interpreted words?

— Perplexed, University of Manitoba

Dear Perplexed: Your friend may not have done much reading about the Amazons, so he just pictures a female brute. You’d do well to read up on those admired Amazon warriors in detail, and send him a few links to online historical excerpts, so he can stop being hysterical about this. Hopefully he’ll finally realize you weren’t insulting his woman.

As for his comment referring to your girlfriend as a “skeleton,” big deal! Don’t even fight back on that! This upset needs to be resolved, so just take that knock. He’s the hurt and offended one, so you should do the soothing and save a friendship that’s valuable to you.

Please send your questions and comments to lovecoach@hotmail.com or Miss Lonelyhearts c/o the Winnipeg Free Press, 1355 Mountain Ave., Winnipeg, MB, R2X 3B6.

Maureen Scurfield
Advice columnist

Maureen Scurfield writes the Miss Lonelyhearts advice column.

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