Hello PsychCentral,

I'm new here, so I hope that my first post isn't going to be to overwhelming, and isn't considered too much from a first timer. I suppose it's best if I start from the beginning though, so here it goes.

I'm 36 years of age, I think I've realized that my Mother can be somewhat over-controlling, and has decided that she's going to make the decisions for certain aspects of my life, specifically when it comes to dating and having a relationship with the opposite sex.

Now I'm an only child, and my Mom is as well. I grew up in a pretty normal middle-class American style family. I was a good kid growing up, rarely got into any trouble, and always respected and obeyed my parents. I was also somewhat of a spoiled child; not that I was showered with whatever I wanted, but my parents made sure that if there was something worth having, they would try to accommodate.

I was a kid who pretty much stayed home most of the time; I didn't have that many friends, and was pretty much branded a geek/nerd. And when it came to girls, I always knew even at a very young age, that I liked them. And I always believed that having a girlfriend and getting married was a noble pursuit in life, but also something I very much wanted.

But something happened to me when I hit puberty, something drastically changed my attitude towards them. I became incredibly afraid of them. One reason I know for a fact, is that the girls in school would tease me into thinking they liked me, only for it to be a joke, to which I guess was to embarrass me as their end goal. So by the time I got into high school, I had a hard time trusting them, and my confidence and self-esteem was very low. But there was always another factor in the back of my mind - "what would my parents think and/or do to me if they found out I liked a girl, or had a girlfriend?" Especially my Mother.

At age 19 I moved away from home to pursue my career in the entertainment industry; a very, very difficult business to even try to get into. But both my parents fully supported my decision, especially my Mom. And that's one thing about my Mom, she's always been very supportive it most everything I chose to do in my life, or so I thought.

I spent my 20's living by myself in my own place, working on my career, but working a "real" 9-5 job to pay the bills. My parents had access to my apartment, and I would see them at least once a week when they came into the city (they lived out of town on a farm, and I was in the city). I had no problems with them coming and going as they pleased, because I never felt I had anything to hide from them. Though my Mom never did say anything specially to my memory, but it felt that there was always this underlying unsaid rule, "No girls allowed".

By my mid to late 20's, I built some confidence back with women, and did meet the occasional girl. There was one girl I met, to which we began talking to each other a couple of times per week over the phone. But immediately as our relationship began, I kept it a secret from my folks. I felt embarrassed and scared of what they might think or say. So to say the least, this girl and I didn't last long.

In 2008 my father became ill. So girls and my career were no longer a priority. I ended up working full time at a job I extremely disliked, but it had to be done in order to pay the bills and keep things afloat. In 2010 he passed away, and my Mom and I decided that it would be best if she sold the farm, and moved into the city. I ended up quitting my job, and started to refocus on my long-term career once again. By doing this and my Mom selling the farm, we both fell onto financial hardships. We decided to help each other by selling each of our places, and moving in together to help save some money; but always with the intention of be being on my own again at some point.

In the past eight years, I've been going to a gym a couple of times per week, and in those eight years, I've made some friends there. And for the first time in my life, I met someone who I felt very comfortable to be around, and who I genuinely really liked. We'd known each other for a while, but because of a social outing with the people at the gym one evening, we ended up really hitting it off. When I would get home from the gym from time to time, I would mention this girl to my Mom, to which she never acknowledged, she just sat and listened. And I figured regardless of my fears and speculations I have about my Mom and me dating, at some point in my life I'm going to have to get over this, and just do it already.

So the night before our first official date, I mentioned to my Mom that I was going out for dinner tomorrow night with this girl. Her eyes got incredibly wide and she angrily asked me who was going to be paying for dinner, because it certainly wasn't going to be me. I was taken back by this, and really didn't respond, because I didn't know how to to respond to that - I was kind of stunned. In my mind, this was a date, and a guy always paid for the meal on a first date. So I just shrugged my shoulders and that was the end of it.

So Friday night date night arrives, I'm getting ready and proceed to head out the door. My Mom asks me where I'm going. I said I'm going out with this girl. And in a growling angry tone told me, "Fine, go out with your HOOKER!" I was absolutely shocked, and felt I was doing something wrong. But I went anyway, and my dinner with this girl was fine, but in the back of my head the entire time, all I kept thinking about was how my Mom yelled at me for going out.

When I got home that evening, I really got it from her. She said that she was surprised that I even came home, and that I had no business going out and buying "some woman" dinner, when she's sitting at home eating leftovers. And that I had no business going out on a date, especially when finances are tight. And it didn't matter that I paid for her dinner with my own money, it's money that I shouldn't be spending, especially on a girl. What's interesting about this, is it's fine when I go out with my guy friends, and if I happen to buy them dinner. But this, this took the wind right out of me.

I met with a friend a few days later, and told him what happened. He suggested that it truly may be financial, and that my Mom was worried some girl might be just stringing me along for a free ride. I felt that it might be possible, but deep down, I said to him I think there's something bigger here; I've always speculated about this with my Mom, for nearly 20 years.

Another week went by, and I kind of mentioned what was going on with my Mom to this girl. Now mind you, this girl has a full time job, lives on her own, and is very independent. But she understood what might give my Mom this impression, so she had no problem with her buying me dinner. So the next date we went on, she said she'd pay. I told my Mom that we were going out again, and that she was paying, and this girl wasn't interested in me for anything financial. Surprisingly, my Mom said nothing. In fact, she calmed right down over the course of the next several weeks, not saying much at all about this girl, and let me go about my business with her. I thought maybe my friend was right, this was all really about finances, and now that we're over this hump, her and I could freely see each other, which we did for the next several weeks. She even invited me to her cousin's wedding, where I met her wonderful family.

So it finally came down to the point where I wanted my Mom to meet my girlfriend, and my girlfriend wanted to meet her. So plans were made and the three of us went for dinner. I really couldn't gauge how things were going throughout meal, and I was nervous about the entire situation, but things seemed to be going okay, or so I thought. At one point, my girlfriend gently and briefly touched my arm, twice. No other physical contact was made between us during that time. And my Mom was cordial and polite, and that was that. But when the evening was over and my Mom and I went home, the next couple of days were a disaster.

My Mom called her everything in the book, and how she was just using me for sex (even though we hadn't slept together). Or that she was too old for me (she's four year's older than I am), and that she expected better from me. Or that she just was using me to get pregnant, because she's getting close to 40, and that her biological clock was ticking. She kept making all these accusations about her, none of which were true. And then she brought up the fact that she put her hand on my arm during dinner, and that "she kept pawing at me". My Mom said she had no business touching me like that, especially when we've only been dating for a little over a month. (The flip-side to that story is, when I told that to my girlfriend about what my Mom had said, she told me that her Mother, who I'd met her at her cousin's wedding, told my girlfriend to "give that boy some attention", when it came to public displays of affection. The complete opposite of my Mom's attitude). But god forbid my Mom knew about the hot and heavy make-out sessions we've had in my car.

My Mom also started crying and complaining that she was sick, and to take her to a nursing home to die already. (My Mom's 61, and she does have some physical issues going one, but nothing to the extent of what she said she was really feeling). And she kept doing this over the course of the next several of days, making me feel guilty and depressed.

When I saw my girlfriend at the gym a few days later, she said that she suspected that my Mom didn't like her. She told me that our dinner felt like a date that my Mom and I were on, and that she was left out of the conversation entirely; it was my Mom telling her about all the places we'd been on family vacations, and so forth. My girlfriend was upset, but said we could continue seeing each other if I wanted, but she wouldn't be kept a secret from my Mom. I agreed, as I wanted to continue seeing her.

In the meantime, throughout the course of me dating this girl, some things finally prospected in my career in a big way. My friends kept saying things were finally turning around for me, a girl in my life, and my career aspirations finally paying off. But little did they or I know, the girlfriend thing was about to completely collapse.

I had gotten a call to go on a trip for a new work endeavour, but before I was to leave, my friends and I were going to lunch and to see a movie. I invited my girlfriend to come along, because I wouldn't be seeing her for a few weeks, and I wanted my friends to meet her. Perhaps they might see something in her that I didn't, and maybe my Mom was right about her. My friends thought my girlfriend was lovely, and that my Mom was just being overprotective and overstepping her bounds, and that I should continue to see her regardless of what my Mom thinks of her.

The day before I get on a plane, my girlfriend calls me to wish me luck and say good-bye. My Mom's head explodes. She asked why she was still calling me, and told me that I should have ended it with her over a week ago, like she told me. My Mom then asked if she came to lunch and the movie with my friends. By this point I felt that didn't have a choice, so I lied and told her that she wasn't with us. She then proceeded to tell me that she was going to start chaperoning me with my friends, to the gym where I met my girlfriend, and even threatening to get a hold of my cell phone records, as she wanted to know what I could possibly be texting with this woman all the time, and that if our texts are that secretive and private, we must be hiding something. She then started lecturing me about sex, as if I was 14 years old, and telling me that I needed to find someone who was my own age, and who was still a virgin. I told her that she's got some fantasy woman in her mind that doesn't exist, and that she'll never approve of anyone. She told me that's not true, and that there's a that specific woman out there. I then told her that she had it in for my girlfriend before she even met her, to which she replied, "she knew in her gut that there was something wrong with that girl from the start."

It was at this point I realized there was no way I could continue this relationship with this girl. I got on a plane the next morning, and was miserable my entire trip. When I got back, I told my girlfriend we couldn't continue seeing each other, and that my Mom went completely nuts on me for seeing her. My girlfriend was hurt, but understood the situation. She did however leave me with one thing that I took to heart. She told me that she knew the kind of girl my Mom would approve of... her (my Mom). Not literally her, but "her".

This all happened in September, it's now December, and I've been absolutely miserable since. Work has been good, but I feel my personal life is in shambles. My now ex-girlfriend has moved on, to which that really twisted the knife in deeper. The gym where I met her and had been going to for eight years, I stopped going. For one, the pain of seeing this girl really hurts. And two, the friends I made there, well my Mom considers them awful people and doesn't want me hanging around them, because in her mind, they encouraged our relationship. And in the last few weeks I haven't gone, my Mom hasn't said one word. And she seems completely content about it actually, that things are now back to the way they're supposed to be.

And here's the thing. I've always been very close with my Mom, and she's always been supportive in everything that I've chosen to do with my life, obviously except this. Some of my friends who've known me since childhood, and my Mom, didn't seem surprised in many ways that my Mom would do this to me, and have all said that my Mom overstepped her bounds far beyond what's rationale or reasonable.

I'm incredibly hurt by what she's done to me, and I feel very resentful of her as well. Not only in what she did to my relationship with this woman who I deeply cared for, but for hurting friendships I'd made at the gym. And then there's the overall idea that she seems to want to have complete control in my love life. And as I said from the very beginning, it's something I always suspected of her since I was a teenager. And if that's the case, I think she would be happy with me being single forever. Even though she has said occasionally in the past, "when you get married." But how I am supposed to get married if I can't even date, or barely leave the house.

Everyone is telling me I need to move out and to take charge of my own life, and not to let her control me this way, as it just enables her by letting her get her way. And I want to move out, very badly. But that's not something I can do tomorrow or next week. Based on both our financial situations, I'm unable to do that for at least another year. But I'm making plans (without saying anything to her of course), and trying to strategize a way out. But even when I do move out, how do deal with her and my wanting to have a relationship with somebody? I honestly believe she'll never approve of anyone, which really hurts. But I don't want to cut her out of my life either, as she's really the only family I have left.

So any advice would be so helpful. Thank you for your patience.