Dear Aunty Aurora, I’m a guy in my 20s and have been having a relationship with my mum’s friend for some time.
She’s very sexy and eight years younger than my mum. They originally met through work, although they don’t work together any more.
She has a 10-year-old daughter, although she’s not with the father – he’s a loser who has always been interfering in her life.
No one, apart from omy best friend, knows about us and I’d hate my mum to find out – she’d go mad.
It started out as a fun, no-strings-attached thing, but I’m starting to find it stressful. She’s becoming more needy and has been talking about us going public with the relationship and me moving in, which I don’t want to do.
I don’t want to hurt her either, but suppose I thought of us as friends with benefits and that it wouldn’t end up serious. I feel I’ve got into this too deep and now I don’t know what to do for the best. I do care about her and the sex is great, but I feel too young to be tied down to all these responsibilities. What should I do? Anthony, Lagos.
Dear Anthony, I think a lot of the attraction here lies in the fact that it’s risky and naughty to be dating your mum’s friend, and therefore it’s very exciting.
But it sounds like it’s stopped being fun for you. If you want to end it, you should do it sooner rather than later – don’t let it drag on so she gets more and more invested in the relationship.
The trouble is you’re already a lot more to her than just a friend with benefits, so she’ll be hurt and might even be angry and tell your mum anyway!
There’s no easy way to end a relationship, but if you’re feeling out of your depth and don’t see a future for the two of you then you have to be honest about that. I’m sure deep down she never expected you’d end up together, but that won’t make it any easier for her when it ends.
But if you make the decision to walk away, don’t be tempted to keep drifting back for sex, even if she argues she’s OK with a no-strings arrangement. The trouble with those is that one person usually wants the strings and ends up getting hurt.
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