randman, I can see the points others are making but I gotta say, I find myself at odds with some of the ways these points are being said to you. As I have said before, there has not been one person here that has not had their "own" challenges and had to learn what they are saying to you. There has not been one person advising you that has not weeped in despair or even wondered about their self worth too. I am willing to say that I myself had encountered situations that I did not quite know how to deal with either.

I want to honor the fact that you "are" struggling and you have come to vent it out and get "support" and perhaps some insight from others who have learned from their challenges as well. There are good points, if you can read them and try to take away the criticisms of you and just think about what these confrontations are saying, you could walk away with food for thought rather than being "crushed" because you are already struggling with that, you don't need any encouragement to feed into that.

I still see that young man that was "hurt" by girls in school and for a long time he avoided that area of interacting. Well, often when someone gets hurt like that, they actually "avoid" not really realizing it. Actually, I think that what your mother has been doing with you is a lot like what those girls did to you and you actually never learned how to get past that challenge. You were never a bad person, you always wanted to be "good" and you are also "sensitive" too. You are very creative aren't you? This project you are working on, it's something very creative isn't it? Also, I am wondering if your mother had the control over your father too and he just went along with it? Often, we learn how to be that way "unknowingly" as we are watching our parents interact with each other. Also, these other posters who are advising you came from different families themselves, and maybe one was the oldest and had a more "in charge role" he or she was allowed to have. Well, you were an only child so you did not have the kind of sibling exposure/challenges/ boundary issues that others here may have had. Sometimes people have siblings they can see experience things and they learn from that, or have siblings that they can even talk with about parents or girl issues or school things too, but you did not have that. You don't even have a sibling that says to you, "oh yeah, mom does that with me too". I think that is why you have been talking to your friends about this challenge and getting their input, I don't see that as childish, I see that as "can you believe this?", and "what do you think?".

In light of the fact that you cannot afford to see a therapist right now, and knowing you are just trying to find some support and some "how to's", I don't want you to walk away from this thread feeling bad about yourself. I taught children for years and the one thing I did not want is any of them to walk away from not understanding something right away and feeling bad about themselves. And the last thing I want you to feel is bad because deep down you just want to be a good person either. I see in this new interaction you had with your mother, you did better and it did not turn into what it did the last time and you did not have a give in tantrum with her either, that is a step in the right direction. It was good that you shared what happened and got it out in writing so you could see the places you can improve on "next time", that is how we learn, and I never expected anyone to suddenly "just know", you made another attempt, good for you. This time you had more constructive words you could use with her, so that means you thought about what others have told you and made an attempt, and I think that deserves a pat on the back because you "did" try. And actually, from what you have discribed of your mother's behavior? Well, she is passive/agressive, soooo, you should look that up and also look up how to be more "assertive" because how you have responded to her means that what you did learn from her raising you is how to be passive/agressive. Also, learning about this will serve you well in the future too.

There are dynamics in your situation that you need to understand better (as I have mentioned before). Your mothers husband died, her world has changed and she is leaning on you for a reason for life and I hear that in her responses to you. Some of this is coming from her "fear of abandonment" issues, your desire for independence is a threat to her so no woman will be good enough. You are suddenly supposed to be a specialist about all this? Losing a life partner is a "big deal". You are all she has left from that life partnership too , so yeah, that can be a challenge. The pool and gym were not an issue until you made friends and it became a threat to "her" as you wanted to be with "friends and a GF rather than her". Well, you can't give in to that. You sent some important messages to her, but you can't send the "I will give in to you message". You need to learn how to be a "good person" and have boundaries too. And I "know" other posters had to learn that as well, I will step right up to the plate here and say, I am still learning things myself, well, we just do, we learn pretty much "all" our lives. So stop being "crushed" and just commit to learning how to better deal with this challenge. It really sounds to me like "you" are going to have to step up to the plate and be the adult in this scenario. Well, you will have to slowly "learn" how to do just that, might as well be with your mother, and actually most young adults end up testing the waters on their parents, that is what my own daughter did with me and I had to slowly learn how to respond to that challenge.