My Sister is Beside Herself

There's two angles to this as far as I can see.

My Nephew: In love, happy, engaged with an older woman.

My Sister: Feels like she has lost her only son to a Cougar.

Hopefully he will eventually return to the fold with or without his beau. There needs to be some extension of olive branches from both sides for this to all work out as best it can, I believe.

My sister has so far refused to meet this woman. I'll let all of you know in this thread when they do meet and the fallout from it all. My daughters are 19. I just know it wouldn't sit well with me if one of them ran off with a 37 year old man and essentially ditched the family.
 

Beezer said:
There's a couple of red flags, though.

My nephew has alienated his old friend set and this woman is answering his texts for him. He's also AWOL from the immediate family and has missed two familyII vacations so far.

This might be backlash as my sister dismissed their relationship right out of the gate as inappropriate.
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It could be backlash.
When my youngest son was around 19 he hooked up with a woman that was my age about 39-40, and made me ill but I said nothing because the main thing they had in common was drugs, he supplied her, and she was pretty. My husband was having fits but my worries were more about him drugging and I knew that he would follow her like a puppy and I wanted to stay in touch with him. They were together for several years. She had kids, a daughter that is my son's age and a boy that was about 13-14.
He finally stopped drugs and they split up. He came back home, and she came over once, he told us to say he was not there so we did, she sat in her car in my yard till I finally went out and tried to tell her to leave but she had to smart off something about him and I slapped the h_ll out of her, then somehow she got a hold of my arm and bit me. We called the law and she got out of there pretty fast( she was spaced out on something and had a bottle of Vodka. Those were some crazy years.
Personally, I could not figure out how she could be with someone so young, and how he could be with someone his mom's age.
Years later when I got a divorce both of my son's friends hit on me every time I turned around but I was not interested. I liked men my age or older;)
 

But did your nephew ditch the family or did your sister ditch her son? If your sister doesnā€™t even want to meet the woman heā€™s currently in love with and about to marry, of course heā€™s going to be angry.

If my family didnā€™t accept my husband then I wouldnā€™t want to see them either.
 
PeppermintPatty said:
But somehow society accepts that more. Itā€™s a lot more acceptable when the ā€˜olderā€™ man goes after the younger woman. Itā€™s like itā€™s natural for an older man to be attracted to a younger woman but completely unnatural for a younger man to go after an older women.
Maybe this guy just fell in love. Why are we demonizing the women?
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Agree, lot of negative judgment going on here. Beezer already said she was a nice lady, the attraction is likely not just physical and goes deeper.

The son is an adult, able to make his own decisions, a meddling mother demanding he does otherwise is just causing resentment. If it doesn't work out, like any other couple regardless of age, they can break it off by their own decision.

I don't blame the son for withdrawing, nobody likes a control freak in the family, and if he's not being with his friends much any more, that is completely normal.

I wish the son the best, and agree, that woman should not be demonized unless it is proven she has ill intentions in the relationship. The mother should lighten up, if I were the son I would not want to subject my fiancƩ to any aggressive or nasty words from her. Of course, he would back away.

He has to live his life, and make the best judgments, he knows his mother well enough to know better. We all make mistakes and learn from them, part of life, but I hope they are happy together for years to come. Time will tell.
 
PeppermintPatty said:
But did your nephew ditch the family or did your sister ditch her son? If your sister doesnā€™t even want to meet the woman heā€™s currently in love with and about to marry, of course heā€™s going to be angry.

If my family didnā€™t accept my husband then I wouldnā€™t want to see them either.
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Well said, completely agree.
 
Paco Dennis said:
You can hope that the engagement period will illuminate their different views of life. They are quite different. It could be that he still needs a "mother" figure, and she needs a "son". Not good. Nothing legal has happened yet. šŸ¤ž
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I'm just entering this thread so this may have been said before but
I think this woman is looking for someone to play with her kids on their level :ROFLMAO:
 
George1959 said:
Perhaps he has some 'personal qualities' (his bank account):ROFLMAO:
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Heā€™s 22. His bank account canā€™t be that significantly large. Maybe they just instantly got along. The woman has TWO kids. Not too many 22 year olds want an instant family. The kids arenā€™t even his. Maybe this kid doesnā€™t know what heā€™s in for but itā€™s still HIS life and his choice to make. We donā€™t even know these people . Why are we judging them so harshly? If itā€™s a mistake on his part, itā€™s his to make. We all learn from making mistakes.
 
Beezer, thank goodness you have a good sense of humor.
I'm glad you took my post 57 lightheartedly because I wasn't being serious.
It's just an engagement at this point and I'm sure in time your son will know what's best.
 
I had two friends that dated or lived with older women. The common denominator was they both wanted to be the knight in shining armor riding to the rescue and women their own age rejected them. They found love where they could.
 
@Beezer, I understand your sister's distress and would have felt the same if one of my sons got engaged at 22 to a 36 year old woman with two kids.

Unfortunately, your sister is forgetting some cardinal parenting rules:
1. Openly disapproving a relationship only makes it more appealing to your child and fuels his resentment. (I'm 22 and you're not the boss of me anymore.)
2. Openly disapproving a relationship sets up further couple bonding dynamics. She's provided a common enemy and put them in a you and me against the world postion.

From a practical standpoint, your sister is making it nearly impossible for this relationship to do what most 22 year old's love affairs do, i.e., run their course and given a little time, collapse under their own weight. Indeed, her actions will probably accelerate the calendar for their wedding date.

IMHO, your sister could use some professional counseling to help her navigate these tricky waters.
 

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