Making a relationship work can be difficult even when controlling mothers aren’t involved. The partners have a variety of issues to deal with, ranging from money to religious views to whether and how to raise children. If the couple is mature, healthy, and reasonably compatible, over time they will find ways to work together to solve their problems and use their differences in complementary ways.

But this whole process of looking for compatibility and creating a sense of teamwork can be frustrated by the control of the mothers of the couples.

We often hear about relationships in which at least one partner has a controlling mother who pressures or even tries to force her son to choose a partner she approves of and to have relationships the way she prefers. When your child is young, this may be appropriate. But when the child is an adult and the parent continues to insist on her point of view, she can prevent the person from maturing and forming a lasting adult relationship.

This leads to a very challenging situation. Children raised by controlling mothers have not had the opportunity to solidly form their own identities and assert their own wills. And as adults, when their mother interferes in their relationship, it means that they are not able to defend themselves and establish the necessary limits.

However, this is what the adult son must do to protect his maturing process and allow a healthy adult relationship with a partner to emerge. Her partner may blame the meddling mother for ruining the relationship with her tactics. And to some extent this may be true. She now not only is she causing trouble, but she set the stage for trouble with her years of overbearing behavior. But ultimately, the adult child will have to be the one to finally decide to move on to their adult partner and reasonably separate from the parents.

When a parent has exhibited a lifelong habit of violating child boundaries and imposing their views on their children, that pattern is unlikely to change unless they admit their own anxieties and take responsibility for resolving them internally. Unfortunately, this very often does not happen. So as unfair as it is, the adult child simply has to be the one to change the pattern.

The good news is that once the adult son moves into his adult relationships and becomes increasingly separated from the authoritarian parent, the situation has to change. It cannot remain the same when one of the participants, the adult child, refuses to play the same role any longer. There are many resources to help adult children take on this task of separation, and the help of a good therapist can also be essential. With commitment and work, adult children can break away from controlling mothers and develop healthier, more satisfying relationships.