A good friend of mine is in a situation in which I don't know what advice to give her anymore. They've been dating 18 months...6 of which they've discussed being married. He bought her wedding ring in December, but still has not given it to her. He says he is ready for marriage, but there's no action.

Here's her questions...

<small>[ July 10, 2002, 05:08 PM: Message edited by: HURRICANE SWEETS ]</small>

Hurricane Sweets,

I'm a guy. If a guy is ready to get married, just me he'll go ahead and "pop the question".

As far as dead lines, don't give him one. Set a deadline to yourself, without letting him know. If he does not meet this deadline, then you start weighing your options.

I agree with you, and that is what I try to tell my friend. I really think her boyfriend is a "Mama's Boy". He's 23, lives at home, works with his dad, and has his parents pay for everything. He doesn't want to have to grow up and face life without his parent's financial support. Thanks for your reply.

Your last post says a lot more than him not giving her the ring. My husband waited a long time to ask because he was afraid I would say no.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> I really think her boyfriend is a "Mama's Boy". He's 23, lives at home, works with his dad, and has his parents pay for everything. He doesn't want to have to grow up and face life without his parent's financial support. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Based on this I would say run and don't look back. A mamma's boy can be a lot worse than annoying. Never having lived on their own they will probably not be very responsible or know how to manage money. Financial problems alone could tear the relationship apart. Not to mention that (in my experience) mamma's boys tend to take mommy's advice over any other - whether that advice is helpful (or even rational) or not. Chances are their relationship would never be between the 2 of them. Mommy woud probably always be in the middle.

I could tell a few "horror stories" about being married to a mamma's boy <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

JW,

Any horror stories might be helpful in convincing my friend to run. Thanks.

My exH was a mamma's boy and worked for his dad too.

If he still lives there his mom is probably helping him be a mamma's boy and doesn't want this to change. (this is my experience from my exH and a couple of exboyfriends). She will very likely fight to keep this place in his life. My exH mother was very nice to me at first and treated me like I was her own daughter - to my face. Then behind my back it was different. I did not find out what kind of person she was until after my exh and I had been married a couple of years.

I made the mistake of agreeing to move in with his mom in the beginning for financial reasons. She used to wait for him to come home from work so she could give him a report of anything I did or did not do that she did not like. Of course he took everything she said very seriously.

I kept telling him we needed our own house and we even looked quite often. He would never buy a house though. There was always something wrong with it. I even stayed in the same general neighborhood as his mom lived and he still said no. Finally I put my foot down and told him that I would leave if he didn't sign on a house in a year (at the time he kept telling me that all of our problems were due to the fact that he felt insecure because he was not taking care of his own family and he was still living in his mom's house). He agreed but when he found out that a house 2 houses away from his mom's house was getting repo-ed he refused to look at any others. He insisted on buying that house. I told him that was fine as long as we fixed it up and sold it. He agreed to that. Well we finally bought that house. It needed work and he drug his feet getting it done. When he finally finished enough so that we could move in he drug his feet on finishing. He did not want to leave. Well I moved out about a year later and he moved back in with his mom and stayed there for several years. (now he goes back and forth from living with his mom to living with his girlfriend - it has been almost 10 yrs since we got divorced).

Another thing was when he got off of work he went to his mom's house first (after we had our own house). He would stay at her house and watch TV all night and come home at 1 or 2am.

We could never make a decision on our own. Any time we talked about something he had to go ask his mom and whatever she said was what he did.

We could never go out by ourselves. This didn't happen while we were dating. It only started after we got married. Everytime we talked about going out to dinner or to the movies he said "let me call my mom and see if she wants to go." If I insisted that we go ourselves and let her watch the kids he would get sick to his stomach - literally. He even did this on anniversaries.

I just thought about something else. My current husband isn't a major mammas boy but he was very babied by his mom. If you want to get an idea of what that is like then read this thread.

Birth Control?

jw,

Thanks so much. I think I'm going to start a new thread on Mama's boys. Maybe I'll get lots more feedback about them. Thanks a lot!!!