My Mom Dislikes My New Girlfriend. Should I Listen To Her?

What you should do if your mom dislikes your new girlfriend if you’re still vetting her.

In this video coaching newsletter I discuss an email from a viewer who says his mom doesn’t like his new girlfriend of three months. She raised him and his brother as a single mom. She is very successful and tends to be in her masculine.

He doesn’t seem to agree with his mom’s opinion, but he also doesn’t want to ignore reality. My comments are in bold italics like this below in the body of his email.

Well, you obviously heard me say you shouldn’t take advice from women about women, but oftentimes when your friends or your family are like, “Hey, that girl is kind of fucked. I wouldn’t be dating her,” you often should listen to them. Moms tend to be pretty intuitive, but in this particular case, this guy’s mother met his girlfriend like one time and it seems like his girlfriend was maybe a little bit of a pleaser because she was kind of changing her opinion to match his mom’s, and she said, “Oh, she’s not sincere,” but he was raised along with him and his brother by a single mom. So he said his mom tends to be kind of masculine and a lot of boss girl energy. Now he’s kind of like, “Uhh, my mom doesn’t like this girl.” Now he’s going to be a little bit more paranoid, so he writes in and asks my opinion.

Viewer Email:

Dear Coach,

My name is Bob. I have already read 3% Man 15-20 times and regularly revisit to keep up and practice. I am seeing this girl for three months now and we are applying the 3 H’s (Hang out, have fun and hook up). She told me she loved me recently and I am continuously vetting her to understand her character. I’m a very direct and masculine, and she is more a dreamer but also sincere, feminine, sweet, intelligent and showers me with love and affection. She doesn’t display sneaky behavior, respects her parents and gets along with them. We can talk about spirituality, mental health, personal development, helping others and we have a lot of fun.

Well, if you’re talking about mental health and stuff like that, remember when you’re telling a woman something, especially in the beginning stages, if it’s not going to make you look more masculine, more confident, more calm, more together, keep it to yourself. Don’t make the mistake of turning your girl into your mommy or your therapist. It’s a bad way to go. If you want to dry her up really quickly, start talking about your mental health issues and your flaws, your faults, your insecurities, your doubts.

The number one thing that women love in men is confidence. So even if you’re having a tough time, share it with your guy friends or your therapist. Don’t dump it onto your girl unless you want to dry her up, even when they tell you that they want you to share all your feelings.

Now, because we were in the area, she met my mom. My mother raised two boys including me by herself and is very in her masculine.

Just food for thought, remember that no one will ever do or say anything to you that isn’t a direct reflection of how they feel about themselves in a moment. If your mom is more comfortable or more connected to her masculine and kind of disconnected from her feminine, she’s probably going to have a little friction with women who are very feminine. In other words, we tend to attack in other people what they’re connected to that we’re disconnected from.

So if you have a very feminine, very girly girl and your mom’s a very masculine woman, she’s going to resent on some level how feminine and girly your girl is, because she’s not that. People that are really happy often get attacked by people who are unhappy. I mean, just look at the comments in my videos, it’s pretty clear a lot of people are struggling, because people don’t come to me when things are going great. They usually come to me when things are going sideways. So they’re already upset, they’re unhappy and they look for a reason to try to bash me or the girls to make themselves feel better.

One of our six human needs is significance, and somebody that doesn’t feel very significant in their life is going to attack people that have what they perceive they don’t have or what they want. So just to kind of keep that in mind, that could be part of the reason why your mom is getting rubbed the wrong way by your girl.

So back to his talking about his mother.

She is also successful, direct and can criticize others. She gave me feedback that she doesn’t like the first impression and my mom doesn’t like my girlfriend’s makeup.

I don’t know if she’s talking about her actual makeup on her face, or her makeup as a person or a human being. Maybe she thought she had too much makeup on, I don’t know.

My girlfriend made a remark that she doesn’t get along with her own brother…

That’s sibling rivalry. That’s pretty common.

…And my mother saw that as a red flag that she bad mouthed her brother. My girlfriend really tried to impress my mom and therefore went along with what my mom was saying. My mom also saw that as a red flag that she wasn’t sincere. 

So it looks like your girlfriend has a tendency to be a people pleaser. In other words, go along with things they don’t really agree with because they want to be liked. I assume she’s young. It’s not the end of the world. It’s just like one little thing. It’d be different if your girlfriend was lying about this and lying about that and doing all kinds of dodgy shit, but one meeting, as they say, you never get a second chance to make a first impression.

So your mom doesn’t like her, but so far you haven’t seen any reason to doubt her. So what you need is more time with your girlfriend, but you should just look at what your mother said is one data point, and it definitely looks like your girlfriend is a people pleaser. In other words, she might be a little too afraid. Especially standing up to authority or in this case, your mom. She’ll always defer to somebody that she perceives in a higher authority and agree to things that she doesn’t really want to agree to out of respect for the authority of the other person. That could be perceived as being a little inauthentic.

Now should I ignore my mother’s first impression?

I would just consider it as one data point. That’s it.

Am I indeed ignoring reality?

Well at this point, you don’t really have enough information. It’s just one little thing. Usually in the past, when I’ve done emails and you have these issues, it’s the mother, the sister, the aunt or whoever, or your buddy’s wife spends enough time around your girl to find a lot of things that they don’t like about the other person, but right now, it’s still preliminary.

I am of course considering that my mom is a woman and I don’t take dating advice from her. Also, she only talked to my girlfriend for 30 minutes.

Yeah, so it wasn’t really long enough.

As a man, I of course make the decision and will walk my own path but, this initial friction disturbs my peace.

Thank You,

Bob

Well, I wouldn’t let it get under your skin too much. Just keep the data point. Notice that. Maybe you could talk to your mom after the fact and ask her, “What is it you don’t like about her?” Get your mom to actually elaborate instead of just, “Oh, I don’t like her. She’s not authentic.” Well, maybe she’s a people pleaser. That’s what it looks like to me. Maybe your mom’s overreacting.

The other thing you gotta keep in mind, in human nature, people close to us often want to see us do well, as long as we’re not doing better than them, and if your mom hasn’t had any good relationships with other men, it’s like people that are single tend to want to keep their friends single, and their friends that are taken or in a marriage would often prefer to see that person end their relationship so they can also be single. It’s just like people in a relationship or that are married want all their single friends to become married or in a relationship as well because we validate our life choices if we can get other people to agree with us or make the same choices as us. So that’s just some information to keep in mind as you continue to vet if you’re questioning why your mom, after only 30 minutes, decided she doesn’t like your girlfriend.

I don’t see enough information there, but just the fact that your mom’s very masculine and you said yourself your girl is pretty feminine and girly, that might be a reason. Plus, if your mom hasn’t dated at all, she just might not like seeing you with anyone. Maybe she’s overprotective. Maybe she thinks that no girl is good enough for you. It’s just kind of the way moms are. So take it with a grain of salt, because what you really need is more data and information to make a definitive determination.

So, if you’ve got a question or a challenge and you’d like to get my help, go to UnderstandingRelationships.com, click the Products tab at the top of your screen on any page, and book a coaching session with yours truly. Until next time, I will talk to you soon.