A Third Wheel in the Family Budget

"He was 27 when we started seeing each other. An intelligent, successful analyst from Miami, from a highly respected community family. On our first two dates I was charmed by his manners. But by the third meeting a sense of unease began to grow in me.

No matter what decision we were making — from choosing a dessert to discussing plans for our future life — he constantly slipped in the phrase: 'Well, my mom thinks...', 'Mom says the bedroom wallpaper should be light-colored,' 'Mom is sure a young couple shouldn't buy a car right away.' When I jokingly asked whether the two of us could go away for a weekend alone, he answered seriously that he'd first have to ask his mom whether she'd be offended. I realized that if I married him, his mother would always be invisibly (or rather, very visibly) present in our family. He wasn't ready to become an independent head of the household — he remained an extension of his mother. I closed this shidduch. Girls, pay attention to whose voice a man speaks with on a date — his own, or his parents'."