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‘He makes outlandish claims, like that he has cured his own diabetes,’ writes a 42-year-old reader who finds his widowed mom’s boyfriend profoundly annoying. Our advice columnist weighs in.
Hey Abigail,
My dad passed in 2022. He wasn’t perfect—nobody is—but he was a good man. My mom, who’s 64 now, was understandably a wreck for years after she became a widow. She moved states to be closer to family, including me, and settled an hour away from my house. My wife and I would try to visit her every week, or invite her over. She often complained it wasn’t enough, but we tried to be understanding; being lonely is hard. My brother lives out of state but did what he could to try to be present and in touch with her. We encouraged her for years to make friends and even consider dating again—something she was initially 1,000 percent against.
Eventually she did start making friends, and that was going really well for a while. Then she started dating, and I thought that was good. She met a guy who’s 71 that she wanted to “go steady” with, and since then she has kind of gone silent on my brother and I. Neither of us are hurt or offended; we’re glad she’s no longer lonely and seems happy.
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Abigail Shrier is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the New York Times bestselling author of Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up.