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Dear Jody: Psycho mom!

Q: My partner "Gerald" and I have been together for four and a half years. We get along very well. Life has been good with him. But there is one area that we are now having a problem with. It is about his mother. His mother lives in another state…both physically and mentally. I won't mention the physical state other than to say that it is in the Midwest. Her mental state is f-ing crazy. I mean, she's certifiable.
Gerald goes to see her once a year and stays at her home for three to four days. It always makes him feel bad to be there, so I don't know why he even goes, other than he tells me he feels "guilty" if he doesn't go. I sure don't know why someone has to feel guilty by not wanting to go to a "nut" house, but he does. When he goes by himself and comes back home, he's a basket case. It takes him about a week before he's OK again.
But in the last two years, I've gone with him, and I see why he comes home like he does. His mother is all over you – both physically and verbally – like black flies in the U.P. It's like she doesn't understand that people require space. She talks non-stop, repeats things, and you can never get a word in edgewise.
I can't believe that Gerald is as healthy as he is, given what he grew up with. His father died when Gerald was 10 and he had no other sibs. (His father probably died from staying in the house with that woman. I swear, death would look good after a week with that woman.)
Anyway, as I said, the last two years I've gone back with him. The first time because I didn't know better, and last year because I couldn't believe my first trip there.
Well, here we are again. Gerald needs to make his pilgrimage home, but I don't want to go with him to the nuthouse. He says that it is easier for him when I go, and I can see that. Though he has a hard time, it does help by me being there and he doesn't have as long a recovery time. But I just don't want to go. It's not that I don't have the vacation time to do it; I just feel like I'm entering a kind of hell – one that I don't deserve or, at least, I don't think I do.
Gerald and I had a big fight about it. He says that if I loved him, I'd want to go and support him. He brought up how he does better with me there. My question to you is: How can I get out of this? As you can see, this is not your normal going to in-laws situation.

No Way To the Nuthouse

A: Relationships work well and thrive when we give as well as get, and when we are there in the good and bad, and in the times that life is fun and when it is not fun and just plain difficult. If all you are there for is the good moments, your relationship will be flat and one-sided, and probably won't last or won't have depth and be satisfying to Gerald. And if he's healthy enough, he won't stay in it.
If he's not already, Gerald needs to be in therapy for what he's gone through with his mother growing up, but that's another issue. Now, Gerald is asking for and needs your support by going with him to his mother's. Having said that, I think that it is imperative that you figure out ways to survive the ordeal. You both need to find ways to get a break while you are there at his mother's, like getting a motel and visiting during the day. Or schedule times away from mother during the day, both some place outside the house as well as escapes into the bedroom or den to "do some work" during your time in the house.
I'm hoping you will be there for Gerald. And if you are, with a survival plan, things will go better for you both.

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