When Your Mom Enters the Dating Scene and Has Horrible Taste in Men

Dear God, not again.

George Constanza, Seinfeld.

My Mom is one of the smartest people I know. As a mom, she has always had my back; she is my friend, she is my cheerleader. However, decision making is not her forte — especially when it comes to men — something she has fully admitted.

She has spent most of her life married. Marrying three different men, all of whom I would never have picked for her, each one worse than the previous.

My Mom grew up in a strict, white Baptist household. Johnny was much older than my mother, and Johnny was black. Their relationship revealed how racist my mother’s family was. His dark skin was never accepted. They ended up eloping, crushing her parents.

Johnny also came with a temper and a mighty jealousy streak. Over two decades older than my 20-year old mother, he repeatedly told her how naive she was. Frankly, he was right. She grew up in a lily-white world, didn’t drink, never used drugs, and rarely dated. So yes, naivete was rampant within her. Johnny and my mother had one child together, my oldest brother. Her boy became everything to my young mother.

One night over a jealous rage, Johnny locked my mother out of their house, not letting her see her baby boy. Frantic, she called her sister and the police. She was able to get her baby out of the house and left with him. Her family let her back into the fold, and divorce papers were quickly drawn up. Last summer, she revealed she regretted divorcing him. Johnny was the “love of her life.”

My father came from one of the kindest, charismatic, and most idyllic families I have come to know. However, my father didn’t possess any of these qualities. He was selfish, cheated numerous times on my Mom, a dry alcoholic, and had a gambling addiction. He was super. They separated when I was nine. My Mom had two children with him, which is the only thing I can think to thank him for.

My parents separated in May and by February, Brent and my Mother were married. They met online, and the next thing we knew, he was living with us.

Brent believes in the old adage, “There’s no such thing as bad publicity.” He needs attention like the rest of us require oxygen. He would ruin Christmas dinners, make birthday parties awkward, and every day an absolute mess if he didn’t receive enough attention. And it was never enough. It was like having a spoiled 4-year-old around all the time. Except this 4-year old could curse at you, yell at you, and make your life absolute hell.

He has faked more heart attacks and carted off to the hospital more times than I can count. The paramedics knew him by name. I wasn’t fond of my dad, but at least we were cut from the same cloth. Brent was cut from some piece of tarnished metal. He now lives in a nursing home where he can get as much attention as possible. It’s perfect for him.

Except, that’s not what she does. She meets a man and marries him. As a child, I thought this is what people do; date for a few weeks, then get married. As an adult who has severe commitment issues, I have learned that’s not how it works. She is now seeing someone from a different state, who is the “love of her life.” If I had a nickel.

A few months ago, before she met this new man, she stated she wanted to live alone. Her life goal was to have a patio home in Arizona. She wanted a companion but vowed she would never live with a man again or get married.

Before 2021 is over, I would bet my firstborn that she will be living with this new man in a state that isn’t Arizona.

It was, fly by the seats of your pants from day one. Or, as my oldest brother coarsely puts it, “shit in one hand and hope in the other.”

I watch her talk to this new man in the same naive way she probably spoke to her first husband, Johnny. It’s as if she is a teenager all over again, which would be cute if she weren’t a 67-year old smart woman.

Part of me says, get over it, be happy for her. The other part of me is still wildly angry at her for her first three choices in men — well, two, as I didn’t know the first. The men who didn’t rank up with anything close to resembling a dad. The men who revealed to me what I would never want in my own partner. The men who robbed me of childhood memories of daddy-daughter dances, helping me with my science projects, coaching little league, or teaching me how to drive.

Is this new man the same wasteless promise as all the rest? Why does she always need a man? Why can’t she be the person I see through my child eyes? This is what gnaws at me.

Also, what do you wear to the wedding of a fourth marriage?

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