Let's see what can change or be changed:

His mother will never, never change. She's in her 50s and has no intimate relationship of her own. She will fight you tooth and nail to hold on to Sonny. You think it's bad now? This is just the beginning. Start a family with this man, and his mother will come before his kids.

The real problem is that this young man never emancipated himself from his mother. He probably never will. He "let several months pass" and now he wants to "keep in touch." He wants to have it both ways. He's hoping that *you* will change.

Ask yourself what happened with the last girlfriend that he had. And the one before than.

A therapist cannot remake who a person is. This man is emotionally stunted in some way. That's who he is - a product of a weird mama who shaped him into what he is.