His Girlfriend is Micro-Managing her Adult Daughter's Life

(NOTE: Jim's blog is now devoted to answering relationship questions submitted by readers. Please submit any questions you may have to jim@attorneyatlove.com).

DEAR JIM: I'm 59. I've had some relationships in the ten years since my divorce, but until I met my current girlfriend ("Marti") most of them were pretty casual. I really like Marti and I think the feeling is mutual, and I can forsee a time when we might move in together.

The only thing that bothers me about Marti is her relationship with her 26 year-old daughter, who is unmarried but has two kids. I don't think an hour goes by---even when we're having dinner out---without either Marti calling her daughter or her daughter calling her. Most of the time, the calls are about trivial things that could wait until after dinner or even the next day. For example, just last night the daughter called to tell Marci about some new guy she had met on a dating site. That took up ten minutes. A half hour later, Marti called her back because she had forgotten to ask about how her granddaughter's dental visit had gone that day. And then a half hour after that, as I was driving her home, Marti called her again to remind her that she had to set her alarm early for a job interview in the morning.

The daughter is an only child, and Marti is a widow, so I can understand that the mother-daughter relationship here is a close one. But I feel sometimes that the relationship is too close, and that I'm the odd man out. Any thoughts? ("Bill" in California)

DEAR BILL: I think mother-daughter relationships often seem too close to men who are observing them. And when you add grandchildren into the mix, the relationship can get even closer, and more complicated. So, if you're going to be involved with a woman with kids---any woman with kids---there's a certain amount of mother-daughter communication (and sometimes mother-daughter craziness) that goes with the territory.

However, from what you're telling me, Marti's relationship with her daughter goes beyond what I would consider normal limits. It appears she's micro-managing her daughter's life, or at least is over-invested in the details of her life.

It also appears that Marti has no idea of how rude it is to be constantly taking and making non-emergency calls when she's having dinner with someone, especially when the "someone" is a man she's supposedly involved with romantically. That would be a huge turn-off for me, and I would think for just about any man. Usually, people are trying to make their best impression in the early stages of a relationship, so if nothing changes in this regard you can only imagine what things will be like if you move in together.

You don't want to criticize Marti or lecture her on the dangers of over-involvement in an adult child's life. But you have to let Marti know how you feel about being the "odd man out." My guess is that Marti and her daughter have had this 24/7 kind of communication pattern for so long that neither of them sees anything unusual about it, or stops to think about how someone else might be affected by it.

I know it's never fun for a man to have a "relationship talk" with his wife or girlfriend, but this is a talk you really need to have. (And maybe you should tell Marti to turn off her phone before you begin).

Good luck, Bill, and please let me know what happens.