If his mother didn’t teach him respect for ALL women, you may eventually have to do it or live a life of subjugation or diminution. Some mothers teach sons to respect, honor and trust only her and that all other women are suspect.
This is the heart of a woman whose emotional need is so great that she wants not to be simply loved, but cherished, perhaps even worshipped. If he conforms to her demand a wife and other women in his life will never have a voice. If he does not, he may actually diminish the worth of ALL women.
This begins as a boundary issue in childhood that fails to adequately establish the child as an autonomous person, separate from his mother and reflects codependency between mother and son. Each finds identity security in the other. For him, to let anyone else into his heart is disloyalty to the one who desire, even demands, his complete loyalty.
From the time I was the mother of a pre-pubescent boy, I had the insight that it was my responsibility to ease him away from me emotionally, as hard as that might be….. to allow him the freedom to explore emotional loyalties elsewhere, and even to be hurt, and not fight his battles or make choices for him in relationships…. Since I was significantly less than a model Christian and more of a mere “churchian” at the time, it could have only been God’s prevenient grace protecting our son from my own poorly developed boundaries.
We parents, and particularly mothers, cannot protect our sons’ hearts. Proverbs 31 tells us that is the job of his wife. In relationship with a wife is where a man’s heart is to find safety. We mothers can only love them, encourage them to love and trust God, and to forgive people and be vulnerable enough to trust again when the inevitable ego injuries happen.
Parenting is hard. It’s even harder when we have to re-parent our own selves as adults into healthier boundaries because our parents lacked the knowledge and wisdom to do so.
Proverbs 31 is a mother’s instruction to her son on what to look for in a wife. It is a high standard, and I believe that she is offering this advice with an open heart and trusting that God will prepare such a woman for her son. I prayed for the future spouses of our children and our family was greatly blessed by the individuals each married. Additionally, her instruction to her son also is preparing HIM to become the person that such a godly woman will want, to celebrate her strengths, to encourage her initiative and industriousness, to entrust her with responsibilities in home and business, to grant equal authority to her voice. WOW! What a mother-in-law any child would be blessed to have!