My mom is a 70+ yo lesbian who recently moved to my town to retire. Mom's financially comfortable, and she enjoys traveling, and lives close by. She also enjoys moving from one hot-and-heavy relationship to the next suddenly and regularly. I'd say her median relationship time is under a year, and she's been known to use the phrase "soul mate" within the first week of dating.

She's been dating someone here since she arrived about six months ago. Mom's currently pressuring her new girlfriend to sell her house, which the GF bought a long time ago, and which is now worth a lot of money. It's also full of renters that are friends of the GF, and includes the GF's adult son. I think the GF really likes her house. If she sells it, however, she could buy a house near my mom and then use the extra money for travel with my mom.

Normally I try to stay the hell out of mom's relationships, but this is a classic mom pattern—create as much drama as possible once the initial gooey period in a relationship has passed, and then abruptly end the relationship once the drama well has been tapped out. I'm afraid that this time that process is going to leave her with an ex-GF who might be righteously rather pissed at her, and who is living one or two doors down from us.

The GF is an adult and adults get to make their own decisions. I'm not sure, however, that she is aware of how quickly my mom cycles through relationships, so her decisions may be in this case based on misleading implications about how long mom intends this relationship to last. (The aforementioned "soul mate" lasted less than a year.) Is the information about how quickly my mom moves through relationships something that I should provide her GF with, before the GF makes a huge decision that she may rapidly regret? Or should I continue to stay the fuck out of it?

Perturbed In San Francisco

Say something, PISF.

Your mom is an adult, yes, but she's an elderly one. If you haven't already reached the stage of life where you're gotta parent your parent, PISF, you will soon. And that's presumably why she moved closer to you—not just so you could see more of each other, but so you could keep an eye on her, keep her out of trouble, and keep her from making trouble. (I can't believe I just used "parent" as a verb. My parents parented me better than that!)

First, say something to your mother: "Mom, you shouldn't be pressuring 'Barb' to sell her house—not with your track record. If you're still together a year from now, maybe Barb could sell her house and move closer. Or maybe she can continue to rent the place and move in with you. But you gotta stop pushing her to make what amounts to a huge and premature commitment. You're not an asshole, mom, but that's an asshole move. Stop it."

Then... say something to Barb. You'll be taking a risk, of course, because there's a chance whatever you say to Barb will get back to your mom. But you know your mom's MO and you can't stand idly by while she selfishly upends the lives of her new GF, her GF's son, and her GF's tenants. Loyalty to family matters, PISF, but there are limits—and allowing a family member to manipulate and (perhaps unconsciously) mislead someone into making what could be what will be a huge mistake falls outside those limits. So give Barb a call and strongly urge her to wait at least a year—preferably two—before she makes up her mind about selling her house.

"My mom a wonderful person, and a passionate one, and she's really into you," you might say to Barb, "but my mom has a history of short but intense relationships. Enjoy the ride, Barb, and enjoy my mom, but don't upend your life for her at this stage. Don't sell your house."