How do I grow up? I'm 35 for gossake!?

Question

So why does it suck to be a teenager? Besides your hormones playing tricks on you? It's because you're no longer a kid but not quite an adult yet.
I can't make my own decisions. Never learned. More than that, my mom (yes, my mom, laugh at me please) constantly tells me what to do, who to date and who not to date. Once she starts to say her stuff I can't get it out of my head. She badmouths all my dates that I chose for myself and then I just can't get her stinging words out of my brain. I live on my own, but she gets me over the phone all the time. I don't know what I want, and it's getting too late to want anything. I'll be old soon.
I was married (my mom told me who to marry, he seemed like a nice guy), I'm separated now. Luckily, I don't have children to participate in this mess that I call my life.

So... How do I grow up? I can't go back in time and hang out with teenages and make all the teenagers mistakes and learn to be normal. Any help on that? Pretty please

Ahhhh, I've been to therapy. For years. I wasted a fortune on it. Sorry.

Answer 1

May I recommend a self-help book? The one I am reading is BOUNDRIES by Henry Cloud and John Townsend.

Throughout the book are numerous examples and reasonings depicting how the use of boundries in our life works like fences in our yard. Once you recognize where your mom is standing in your yard, you will also recognize where you are standing in your mom's yard. The time has come to make some changes in your life to define what is yours and what is not. Excellent book and widely read.

Maturity is possible. Take small but effective steps.
Do consider limiting your phone calls with her to 3 minutes, no more than once every day or two. Possibly change your phone number to keep her from calling you. Keep your visits with her to maybe an hour once a week or every 2 weeks.

If you have been in counseling for years, without adequate progress, change counselors to one more oriented to brief counseling with results.

Answer 2

Buy a caller i.d and limit your mothers calls to you - you tell her too much and she plays everything aginst you this way she keeps her little boy right under her thumb!

It is good of you to have alwyas listened to mother but now you are a growen man that has to make his own decisions! All of them!!! Your mother will not sleep and marry the women you will and do so why are you treating her as though she will be?

Old habbits die hard and you listened to your mother like a good little boy should have but now you are a big boy and big boys makes their own decisions! Stand on your own two feet and do not ask her opinion and do not let her tell you how things will be or cut down the women you datet or want to marry it's time for a break through and only you can make it happen! This is YOUR life now not moms so do something with it!!!! I'm not saying to be mean to her just let her know that things are changing and that you feel confident enough to make your own decisions! Back away from her slowly!

Answer 3

THERAPY. Therapy, therapy, therapy. You need to have someone help you figure out how to do these things. Also, you need a little, or maybe a lot, of separation from your mom. I know it will be hard to make that change but it is necessary if you want a life.

I'm 33 and I still feel like a teenager sometimes. And I do sometimes make teenage mistakes, but other times I see the possibility to make those mistakes and I avoid them. And I go to therapy and my shrink helps me figure it all out. And actually, my life is going pretty well.

Some lives (obviously) don't go the way "normal" lives go. Try to accept this. Find friends whose lives are not typical. Lots of people are single after 30 and 40. It's not the end of the world!

Answer 4

You need to tell your mom to butt out. Explain it to her that you have to make your own decisions and if she doesn't accept you making your own decisions you will no longer confide in her. Explain to her that it is your life and you will have to deal with the consequences, not her.
I feel for you I really do. But you're going to have to learn to stand up to her. She can't run your life forever, and so far it doesn't seem like she's done that great of a job of it anyhow.

Good luck to you!

Answer 5

my mom is the same way she would have me move back home if i wanted...LOL i am 33.....

my husband & i got in a huge fight so i needed some one to vent to, so i choose her...now she cant stop bad mouthing him...it's worse cause we work together....he & i reconciled....but she kept bad mouthing him...so one day i had enough i looked at her & said look i'm done with you..do you want me to divorce him or what...just stop..or you will lose me cause i'll start to hate you for putting my husband down......she has stopped...

the point of the story...make a decision.....STAND YOUR GROUND!!!! you are 35 years old....you are a full grown woman......you are enabling her to act this way cause you put up with it...just cause she calls doesnt mean you have to answer the phone.....

start living your own life WITHOUT your mother....

she's a big girl she will get over it......

GOOD LUCK!!!!!!

Answer 6

I think you need to change your number and not give mom the new one. Then you need to start practicing making your own decisions. Just think them through. Your mother is a problem, but you are enabling her, so you are at fault. You need to cut the apron strings and cut them now.

Answer 7

i think you have to want it bad enough. since you say you have had years of therapy and its a waste... try looking for books that addess the issues you want to conquer. read them and use or take what pertains to you and apply it to your life.

the bottom line is that you have to stop and pay close attention to what upsets you and ask yourself what you need right at that time. then do that. be kind and loving to yourself and do not take on what is projected onto you. it is not yours to own, leave it be with mom. this means a whole lot of retraining yourself on how to react. learn to put yourself first, this does not mean you have to end or cut off the people you love and care about.

Answer 8

you need to stop listening to your mum you need to do stuff that makes you happy see people who make you happy the point is its your life and your in charge of it 35 is not old and you have plenty of time to meet someone special if that's what you want.maybe take a step back and think about what you want make a list and see if you can achieve it good luck hun.xx

Answer 9

Your mother is co-dependent. So are you. Move out, get counseling--fast. Read a book by Claudia Black--on Co-dependency. You will think she has been watching you your entire life and wrote your story!!! Do it--you must DO--or you will not escape this trap you are in. Do you want out? If so--then do it.

Answer 10

Move far, far away from where you are now....