I’ve been in a relationship for 5 years (he’s 23 and I’m We’ve done everything together and have such a deep emotional connection, I love him however I am drained and tired. Everything is great except we fall short on two different categories. Arguments and Home life. Ok first arguments, we both have a temper. our arguments can get pretty heated quickly unless one of us does our best to avoid it, he is very explosive and i have a temper as well, however I have worked on being more respectful and having more boundaries when arguing and while he hasn’t achieved that, he has worked on being the one to avoid our arguments better than I have. I think we should go to anger management, we have improved over the years and I believe we can do it, however I think it’s going to take more professional help than achieving on our own, because it will take a while before we get it right. Secondly, home life. We live with his mother. A little background: she is a single mom who has raised him alone for his entire life, she is a huge stress in my comfortability in the relationship. I believe that they have what you call a toxic, unhealthy mother/son enmeshment. Here is why: in the past she has always interfered in our relationship tried to convince her son to stay single and tells him what he should do, when there has been trouble between us there has been times she would smile without a care to show it (that has gotten both of us mad) , she’s constantly interfering in our arguments, she’s tried to make me seem like a bad person numerous times to him and make herself a victim when I’ve never done anything to her, she treats him like he’s her partner, she is physically able and healthy to run her own errands yet she feels the need to take him with her on all of them. One example is that one morning I had surgery and she had to go to the supermarket, we both needed him to drive us. She insisted that it was so important she’d make it to the market early and of course I was second and very late to my surgery. There are so many more examples of this but the next one is our last fight. I was so fed up that I decided to move out, I had my things packed and was waiting for friends to come pick me & my belongings up with their car, he was waiting for them to come pick me up before he would leave himself, since I was moving out I would have no keys to lock up the house with. His mother kept asking him when he would go with her to the stores he said to her “you know you could drive yourself there. you don’t have to go with me.” She stood quiet and continued to wait, she asked one more time. When he works she takes most of his finances for bills and payments and leaves him with very little, ( she works a good well paying job as well and earns more than enough to pay all of the bills alone so the amounts she takes from him are not reasonable) he tends to stay with about $100-$200 left which is usually far less than what he makes, I think it’s unfair and she takes advantage of him. I don’t meddle in financial issues but she’s also started to meddle in mine I feel like she knows we are trying to work towards something and she’s not allowing us to save up enough to move out on our own. I sense this and I’m not sure what private conversations she’s had with him but I’ve heard her discourage him from believing he can be independent on his own without her many times on many different subjects. Now when I talk about moving out just us two without him he just talks about leaving his mom behind he uses other excuses such as not being stable enough as well but I know the reason is his mom. Since our fight I could hear her asking him many questions about what was going on between us before I could even get my foot out of the door. I’m pretty sure she has gotten in his ear and put her 2 cents in by now. And I could be just going crazy on this one but The last thing is on 2 separate occasions I’ve found that she has been really close to our room late at night (2am-3am) when we have sex. The walls are thin and she sleeps on a different floor of the house than us. The first time I unexpectedly walked out the room to go to the bathroom she seemed startled and said she was fixing the thermostat (she was very far away from it to be fixing it) the second time we were in the middle of sex and we left our door closed but cracked a bit and I could hear her tip toeing nearby outside of the room. I could be crazy but I think she was listening in on us because every other time we’re not having sex she won’t be around the room at 2am-3am. She has a habit of knocking on the room door most of the time when it’s closed just to ask or say anything that comes to her mind (he has called her out on it before) also when she knocks she doesn’t wait for a response to enter she knocks and immediately opens right after . I have started locking the door and I think she’s noticed. I have not shared with him my thoughts about the sex issue but Im sure he noticed the second time and didn’t think much of it. All in all I say this to say that I believe we should see professional help for anger and him to find boundaries with his mother receiving professional help as well. I’m not sure how to bring up the mother/son enmeshment without offending him or him believing that I’m taking a shot at his mother but I’m trying to help him because if it won’t be me, she will be the cause of all of the failure in his relationships. I shared the details so u guys can get an understanding somewhat of what I’m dealing with do you think it’s worth a shot or do you think that it’s just too much to go through with ? Besides these issues he’s a great man very loving and caring with me I just wish we had more management in the temper department and to finally become our own away from his mom. Is counseling/therapy worth it? Or am I just better off letting our love go?