Those Cougars are in the news. Wait to you read this letter.
DEAR MARGO: I am a 32-year-old man. After a string of older women, I have happily, though uncharacteristically, been dating a woman eight years my junior for about a year. [Given the stories these past few days, we couldn’t resist this one. As for how to handle this? Margo’s advice is right on target.]
I am deeply in love with her, and we have been seriously discussing moving in together. She is unusually close to her mother and sings her praises every chance she gets. For the most part this praise is well deserved. Her mother gave birth to her at 16 years of age and still managed to give her a pretty good future, even as a single mom.
Unfortunately, her mother has made some obvious passes at me. It started with affectionate behavior and light flirtation, which included playful allusions to my former lovers and how they were her age rather than her daughter’s.
One might dismiss those as mere jokes, but a few recent incidents can’t possibly be dismissed as such. I’m not at all sure she would believe me if I accused her mother of hitting on me, and I fear she would believe it if her mother chose to reverse the accusation, especially given my record of dating older women.
Part of me is thinking “bail out,” but I don’t want to lose my girl. I also want to avoid damaging her relationship with her mother if at all possible. / DESPERATE
DEAR DES: Here’s what you do to keep your girlfriend and not blow the whistle on her mother: Treat all the flirting like a joke. Just laugh … in a good-natured, friendly way, of course.
Nothing will tamp down these passes like laughter and an implied “no, thank you.” And by the way, this phenomenon is not all that unusual. Sometimes the mother is not seriously flirting; she is just being reflexively competitive.
— MARGO, TACTICALLY For the whole story go to: Dear_Margo