Comments

1
I can overlook the emoticons, but the exclamation points are killing me!!!

"My thing is that I am ready for him to move in with me, to take things to the next level, to start a future!!!"

Hmmm, the guy has (allegedly) a controlling father - but this sounds rather controlling too. LW does not say she is ready for them to move in together, but for HIM to move in with HER. On her schedule. Sure, the presence of kids may mean that moving into her existing abode is the best option, but the way that sentence is written really seems to discount what he thinks of all this. What's important is that LW is ready! For more! Right now!!!

Sounds to me like the wild oats the guy should investigate sowing include living in his own place without a controlling father*/cougar calling the shots.

*I'm not convinced the father is controlling. Could be the son just likes living rent free and doesn't want to give it up.
2
Dump the man child and set your sites on his dad.
3
I think the why he lives with his parents part might be an important bit of info to have before advising someone to move forward.
4
She seems pretty immature herself for an almost 40 mother. Which leads me to my real problem with this. is "almost a year" long enough to have someone move in with your kids?
5
He'll only sleep over on the weekends. Is that when her ex has custody and the kids are gone? Just wonderin'.
6
What #4 said.
7
For some reason I kept having high school flash backs during this letter!!!!! ;) I wonder why???

Then I gagged and got over it. I feel sorry for her kids. They are being raised by a mom who still needs to grow up herself. She needs to put them first. She also needs to look for a partner who is also already grown up. This guy is either way too controlled by his own daddy, or he is milking the system, and isn't ready to get off the gravy train. Either way, it spells disaster for the LW's poor kids.
8
What #5 said...
9
@3
@4
I agree.
10
For some reason I think this is one of the oddest letters of yours I've ever read. I don't mean most horrible or upsetting, just the weirdest.

Great answer. I wouldn't have known where to begin...
11
Yeah, @4 already said what I'm thinking too.
12
He should run away. She's creepin' me out.
13
I feel terrible for her poor children. She should not have sleepovers with a man her children will not respect. What a depressing situation to put her kids in. I can tell her this: They won't forget it!
14
Where are these guys located? From her writing, and the fact that the boyfriend is still living with his father (and also his peculiar relationship with his parents), I suspect that they are living somewhere other than the US. That might also explain the reason why some commenters are creeped out by her writing: it could be an ESL problem.
15
Take out everything about the parents and it all boils down to "I want him to move in and he doesn't want to. What should I do?"
16

Face the facts.

You're going to have to play "Mommie" to this guy.

He'll expect to live gratis, and for you to clean up after him.

If the sex is good, then you've got yourself a Trophy Boy.

But, expect at some point he'll think he's doing you a favor, and want to bring home younger women as "compensation".
17
@14: That might also explain the reason why some commenters are creeped out by her writing

For some commenters, SLLOTD is little more than an opportunity to judge and condemn people, usually based on wild speculation, personal issues they project into the letter, or no reason at all besides a "feeling" the letter gives them. It's like they were teleported here from the studio audience of The Jerry Springer Show.
18
I can't help but feel like the lives-at-home manchild is a perfect match for the 37-year-old who writes like a middle-schooler.
19
Best general advice I can give on this topic: It is always best to avoid moving in together for as long as possible. There is hardly any downside, and myriad upsides to living apart.
20
@ 14, one of my FB friends is a girl I went to high school with. We're in our early 40s now. She writes her FB updates in exactly this fashion - AND her bf is also younger than she is.

It's not ESL, it's a perpetual party girl.
21
Maybe I'm weird, but what kind if immature moron still lives with his parents at age 28? I mean, I can see if he got laid off and had to move back in temporarily, or had a breakup and had to move back in. There are any number of reasons people in their 20s have to move back in with parents for a while as a fall back. But who the hell never moves out? Is he planning on living with his parents till he's 50? That, in itself, is a huge red flag for me.
22
oh, my.

Why are her kids mentioned only as an after thought?
23
Jeez people, why all the hate for moving in together after “only" a year? Not everyone takes years and years. In fact I think the older people get, the more they know themselves and what they want in a partner and don’t need to spend eons dating and making sure they won’t change personalities drastically. Because, after a certain age you are who you are and this isn’t so hard to figure out anymore. The advice that the LW should probably dump the guy and move on is probably more useful. If he’s still living with his parents then he would be the kind of person you need to spend multiple years vetting.
24
@ 21, that can be a cultural thing. Some families expect the kids to stay home until the day they marry.
25
Those aren't exclamation points. They're indicators where the (usually female) voice goes up at the end of a sentence in that way that seems to turn every thing into a question.
26
My ears are still ringing from all the exclamation points.
27
@23: Because she has young kids. You don't bring quasi-parents in and out of your kids' lives.
28
The boyfriend's mother isn't mentioned at all - I feel bad for her if displays of affection towards her have been forbidden because pussywhippin'.
29
My guess is that she's underestimating the influence of her kids on the decision. Because if he moves in, he's effectively becoming these kid's stepfather, whether either adult wants him to be that or not. I wouldn't be surprised if that prospect was freaking him out a bit.

Plus, a lot of men are resistant to raising another man's child. The old evolutionary goal of spreading your genes but not the other guy's, perhaps?
30
I wonder if LW didn't see the bf as a project when she started dating him. It's not like she didn't realize that he, at 27, wasn't still living with his parents. And, obviously it isn't for some valid or overt reason like prevention of spousal abuse, or injury, or caring for the elderly. It's for some wishy-washy reason, or else she might have mentioned it. This is classic "I can change him" / "He has to grow up some time." And, chances are, LW, it won't be with you. It will be because you dumped him if you have anything to do with it.
31
@25 Yes! That's exactly how I read the letter, high-pitched breathless exclamation points.
32
If it weren't for the age difference, these two could be Brittany and Kevin from Daria.

I think I prefer the Victorian spinster habit of heavy underlining. That at least seemed to show more thought.

I have noticed that this letter was submitted by that iPhone App thingy. As I have no idea what on earth that is, would that sort of contraption contribute to the emoticons and excessive exclamation points in some way?
33
(*・_・)ノ⌒*`*`*
34
!!. !!! / !... .! !.!. !.! / ! !!! / !!. . !.. !.. .!.. . / ... !.!. .... !!! !!! .!..

;-)
35
It sounds like this guy is emotionally a lot younger than 28. He is probably not ready for women his own age, let alone insta-family with an older woman. She would be wise to move on.

36
@21 - Italian men live with their parents generally until marriage. "More than 80% of Italian men aged 18–30 live with their parent" (http://personal.lse.ac.uk/manacorm/paper…)

Other immigrant groups too. The letter to Dan doesn't mention if the dude is from an immigrant group where this is common. Otherwise, I guess the guy is a loser? I don't know, living with my parents is definitely not my cup of tea, but I wouldn't count that as a deal breaker. The controlling dad part... whether the dude is living with parents or not, if someone based their cohabitation decision on their controlling dad's opinion, I wouldn't date them. Also whether it's an excuse or not.
37
Yeah. I didn't even notice any emoticons until I saw Dan's -- was too busy! agonizing!! over all the!!! exclamation points!

Um, what did she ask you?
38
@33, 34: :) !!!
39
"he proves to me daily his love". Huh? I wonder what that means. It sounds ominously controlling on her part, perhaps.
40
Yep... it's so easy to "prove your love" by saying "I love you" just before sex. It has worked for hundreds of thousands of men, and will continue to work for hundreds of thousands more.
41
You're all a bunch of judgmental douchebags. Not everyone is a perfect linguist, and she might have intended the letter to be written in a conversational fashion. As for why he lives with his dad, it sounds like his dad probably prefers that and put the pressure on him. It happens. Maybe he's a good son of a demanding parent who doesn't know where exactly to draw the line. I didn't see anything in the letter implying that he HAD to live with his father for reasons other than his father's demands. Therefore, anything else people wrote in here is speculation, and all the high-and-mighty attitude behind it is frankly obnoxious. Having an unstable parent can be complicated, and can blur the lines defining what's right for adult children in that situation. That could be the case with this man, or he could be a loser. But the letter doesn't say, so who is anyone here to judge? Grow up. Add to what Dan said (or disagree) or don't comment. Christ.
42
Fuck all the cultural speculation. We're in the middle of a mini-depression, and even before the collapse, twentysomethings were moving back in with their parents in "unprecedented" numbers. No need to look farther than that.

I think, though, based on apparent emotional age, that they may actually be meant for each other. He gets a another mommy -- this one he can fuck -- and she gets another son, one whose face she can sit on.

Or, you know, maybe not. More wine!!!!!
43
The fact that he still lives with his parents and witholds affection for fear of being perceived as "pussy whipped" would both be nonstarters for me.
45
Never shows any emotion towards her in front of his father,

Because he would be called "pussywhipped"????

No comments upon how daddy dearest addresses her, or what the mother thinks either.... I suspect that emotionally the kid's family is packed so tight she'll need a can opener to access his "true feelings", and that she should think long and hard about exposing her own children to daddy dearest's brand of parenting.

I think the LW should continue to sow her wild oats, work on getting the BF's integration with her kids going, and be patient. Ultimately the LW and the BF need to put her kids first, and deal with their relationship from there.

Peace.
46
@44: "Do her kids like the guy? Does he get along with her kids?"

I'm guessing more like a sibling/cousin than father figure.

This lady is a born "fixer".
47
Anybody who's still being controlled by their parents at 28 is poor long-term relationship material. It's not that he's still living with them -- the economy could explain that -- it's that he doesn't want to move a muscle without his father's approval.

Just in case anybody wanted to, you know, actually answer the letter-writer's question instead of ragging on her for her writing style.

48
Nowhere are the children's ages mentioned. I realize many people are just having babies at the age she is now, but I'm her age and I have plenty of friends the same age who have kids who are in late high school/early college. Which may explain her lack of focus on them in the letter.

A far more likely explanation is Dan gives out relationship/sex advice, not parenting advice. So she's focusing on that.

And a guy like that is not relationship material. Even if he has a 10 inch dick.
49
@33- FTW

Indeed, immature people with controlling parents sometimes seek out controlling romantic partners, SFTSLAFi, because their upbringings cause them to mistake controlling behavior for love.

Why did it take me until my 40s to work this out? Oh well, never too late.

Even if she weren't immature (or desperate, which is what I smell), @3 is right.
50
One exclamation point does the job. There is no need for more than one.

More than one is not more emphatic; it's just dumb!

See? It works! That's all you need.
51
Okay, did Dan and Prudence get their mail mixed up? This is the lamest vanilla hetro problem I've read.
52
@51 haha that's what I was thinking exactly.
53
@49: While 3 is right, I don't think the answer really matters, considering the context of everything else that we know of the situation. The LW's boyfriend needs to grow up and move out long before he moves in with someone else.
54
Oh, and those ampersands!
55
The idea that the dad and girlfriend/author are contorlling sounds right to me. And if the boyfriend is resisting the fire while sitting in the frying pan, then I give him credit.
56
@55: "if the boyfriend is resisting the fire while sitting in the frying pan, then I give him credit."

Oh no, he's on "whatever daddy says" passivity autopilot. It's easier and more comfortable to stay at home than move out on his own, away from both factors. That's not credible.

She doesn't state whether he was homeschooled or not.

Please wait...

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