Christmas: Meeting my younger fiance's parents

Thanks, Levar. You are correct about my fiance being close to his mother. I'm not the first older girlfriend that he has introduced to his mother. However, I am the oldest. I'm also the first one he's been serious enough with to live with and propose marriage. I'm also the only smoker he's ever dated seriously. His mother has a reputation of being discreetly passive-aggressive. At least that's the way I've interpreted the stories. All this makes me feel like I have a target on my back. I feel like she will do everything in her power to sweetly poison our relationship. Avoiding her has been my strategy up until now. If he wasn't so important to me, I'd be more willing to take my chances and deal with the aftermath. It's just that we are happy where we are (500 miles away) and I'm not eager to take the risk. At the same time, I feel that not going is also taking a risk.

First of all, congratulations on your engagement. I wish you and your husband a happy life. And it sounds as if you’re on the right track, considering you’ve lived together for 8 months and have made it this far. As the older wife of a younger man, I’m very aware of the challenges and rewards that go hand-in-hand with OW/YM relationships. Especially when parents and children are involved. I fell in love with my oldest son’s best friend. We married after he graduated from high school. I was 44 and he was 18. We will celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary in June of 2022.

Secondly, if you want to marry this man, you’d be wise to develop a functional relationship with his family, especially his mother. So, I strongly suggest that you meet his family this Christmas and accept his mother’s offers.

From what you said about her passive-aggressive reputation toward her son’s past older girlfriends, you have every right to be paranoid about her motivations and intentions. Offering to put you and her son in his childhood bedroom is probably a test. Of course, his old room may be the only available bedroom in the house. However, I’ll venture that she’s trying to sew doubt and guilt by getting into both of your heads by suggesting this. I’ll say the same about her encouraging you to smoke in her house because she smokes. On the surface, it sounds generous, accommodating, and even reasonable. However, I’m assuming she has ulterior motives for making the offer because you didn’t say anything about your fiancé being a smoker. I say this from personal experience because my mother in-law tried to make my smoking an issue even though she herself was a smoker. And she did this in a very passive-aggressive way, I might add, by trying to make us feel strange about the similarities I shared with her, even though she and I were quite different.

By all means, do visit his family this Christmas and do take his mother up on all her offers, but don’t feel guilty or embarrassed by anything. You have nothing to feel guilty or embarrassed about. Don’t be confrontational but keep a tough skin about you. Hold your head up high. Your fiancé chose you and he loves everything about you, which is why he lived with you for 8 months and asked you to marry him. You’ve won. His mother knows this too. As you said, you’re not his first older girlfriend. So, you must be very special to him to have gone the distance. His mother knows this too. This may sound hard to believe, but I’d wager his mother is more afraid of you than you are of her.

In general, I know that large age-gaps between older women and younger men are more common and accepted than they were 20 years ago when my husband and I got married. But they’re still taboo. If not, you wouldn’t have found it necessary to ask for advice. On that note, I’d advise you to keep your fiancé’s feelings in mind. You may be the woman of his dreams and personify everything he’s ever wanted in a wife. But that doesn’t mean he’s prepared for the scrutiny and reality that comes with finally having everything he’s ever wanted. At 24, he’s an adult. But at 54, like it or not, you’re his mother figure and he’s choosing you over his own mother. His mother knows this too and she’s going to be jealous. Hence, the passive-aggressiveness. Just remember that you’re only one half of the couple who is dealing with the nuances of your relationship and upcoming marriage. Be empathetic and keep your eyes and ears open to his feelings and concerns.

Best of luck in your new life!

Good advice- about everything. Thank you. And kudos to you and your husband for blazing trails and making your marriage last. I’m a 2 pack a day smoker so, I hope you’re wrong about his mother getting catty about it. If my fiancé doesn’t have a problem with it, neither should she. And it’s not as if I’d ever let him start. I love him too much to ever let that happen.

This is about you meeting your future mother in-law for the first time and on her terms. I think everyone that responded, including yourself, is in agreement that meeting her on her terms is an important precursor to a successful marriage. This is settled business as far as I’m concerned, and I wish you luck. I also hope you’ll let us know how the visit went.

I’m more concerned about what you said about loving your younger fiancé too much to ever let him start smoking like you. As a woman who has smoked for more than 50 years, I understand and agree with your desire to protect him from a life of addiction. That’s maternal love and experience doing the thinking. I felt the same way about my younger husband. I knew what was best for him and I’m sure you know what’s best for your fiancé. However, that kind of thinking, regardless of good intentions, can backfire. My husband began sneaking cigarettes behind my back, shortly after we married and moved in together. He hid it for two years because he knew I wouldn’t approve. I was devastated and ashamed when I discovered he was hooked. I felt responsible- and I was. I should have been more empathetic about his feelings. If I had been, we might have had a two-way discussion about it. He might have tried it once and that might have been the end of it.

Meeting your future mother in-law is your next hurdle. I’m sure you’ll win her over or leave with some kind of truce. Managing your relationship with a much younger husband will be your next hurdle. This is where it gets difficult. Even though you’ve lived with him for 8 months, marriage is different. But you already know that. At 24, he’s an adult. Remember that. At 54, you’re older than his mother. You’ll never forget that, and neither will he. Your age difference, depending on how you both approach it, can be an asset or a liability. The lines between mother/son and husband/wife get blurry. I say this from 20 years of experience. I’m 64 and my husband is 38. We’re happily married but we went through some rough patches because I was more focused on my perspective when I should have been as equally focused on his perspective. At times, my husband needs a wife. At other times, he needs a mother figure. But he always needs to be respected as the adult that he is.