Was shocked today ...

Did you only just hear this?

Yes, sorry- re-read post and it is confusing- such a shame can't ever edit on this site. They came to stay for a few days, for a big party with other old school friends, and I jokingly said that he is the only man who ever broke my heart and made me cry for weeks- and later, he quietly told me 'I have to tell you the truth- your mum 'made be' break up with you- I was heart broken too, and felt like a 2nd class citizen'...

as said, all well and good, both been very happy and we were so young, but quite shocking all the same.

Hmm - naughty Mum!

I'm not certain that DH was exactly what my parents had in mind for me, although my father did say that at least he wasn't interested in football and didn't spend all his time down the pub. But they did leave us alone and we're still together (45 years next month)

I wish I'd done that with DD' s ex

I'm glad things worked out for you.

Technically you were still a child. I'm sure your mum had your best interests at heart when she acted as she did, even if she was mistaken about what your best interests were. Still, as you say, bit of shock to find this out now.

Sorry, I know he was only 17, but he didn't do much about it did he? Bit of a wimp perhaps?

Nina

My mum put lots of pressure on me over various boyfriends and it all turned out for the best but that doesn't alter the fact that it's interferring!

My dad rang up my sister's boyfriend and told his mum that he thought they were too young to get so serious.
My sister was annoyed with dad for the rest of his life about it.
It was a serious thing to do, and did no good whatsoever.

I think it is one thing to discuss reservations with the couple concerned, but quite another to go too far.

Different days different ways. I think that we were more under parental control then.

absent, don't want to go into detail, but 'a wimp' is the very last word and concept I'd apply to this friend. He looked like Steve McQueen- but my mum told him he had to 'release' me if he truly loved me... and she was a very powerful woman.

I think parents used to do a lot of that sort of thing in the past. Didn't you have any suspicions given as you say your mother was a very powerful woman? Mine was too and I always suspected her of interfering - I was right too.

It would only have been interference if you had both been adults. Parents are allowed to do what they think best for the care of their children. Often the children will not like it but, if she was a loving mother, that's probably what drove her. Give her the benefit of the doubt, especially as, in the long run, no harm was done.

It sounds like he took your mum's word for it that you would be better off without him, and made the sacrifice for your sake. Not wimpish at all.
She must have genuinely believed what she said, but may have been wrong, of course.

I agree with Absent he could at least have stayed and tried, it is sometimes better to travel than to arrive - just to give up because someone says so seems a bit feeble to me, a different generation perhaps.

thinking about it, he was an apprentice mechanical engineer, from a very humble home- but he went on into the police and became an Inspector- perhaps my mum's put down encouraged him to aim high. In which case- good (not that there is anything wrong with mechanical engineering, at all).

She was indeed a very loving and wonderful woman, and wanted the 'best' for me - and was very happy when I got married to OH, and he was not born with a golden sppon in his mouth either...

I can still see myself sitting on the steps at home, crying and crying for days, and my mum hugging me and telling me it was all for the best, and that one day I'd look back and realise this - and she knew all along she was responsible.

She was a wonderful, wise and strong woman, way before her time in so many ways - but perhaps also a snob. It is the 'class' thing that shocked me most of all- as I always knew her to be so open and world-wise.
I am not angry with her (she died aged 94, 6 years ago- but surprised, or shocked as the title says).

I had to come between my DS1 and a girlfriend when he was 14 and she was a bit older. I won't go into the details but, distraught though he was at the time, many years later he acknowledged that we were right to do what we did. Now he has a near-teenage daughter, I wonder if he will ever have to do something similar, and how she will react. She's a very feisty youg woman!