In this episode of "Today's Highlight," we dive into the world of the "Mama's Boy" with guest Ivy, who shares her story of a two-year relationship with one that almost led to marriage. Ivy explains how this relationship began with his mother pushing for them to date. At first, he seemed kind and affectionate, but over time, his mother's influence became overwhelming. He would bring her on dates, let her interfere in decisions, and ultimately confessed Ivy would never be his priority.

When her ex attended a job interview with his mom accompanying him instead of sharing the experience with Ivy, it became clear she was competing for his affection with his mother. Even after the breakup, his mom refused to return a shared pet, showing her deep attachment and control.

Ivy reflects on how a "dating funnel" could have helped her see the red flags sooner, realizing she wasted prime years of her life. Thankfully, she later met her current husband, a "high-value man" who is attentive, thoughtful, and knows how to support her independence. Ivy's experience contrasts sharply between her past and present partners, showing the importance of finding someone who respects and values you..

"A true partner lifts you up, while a 'Mama's Boy' holds you back—sometimes the hardest lesson is realizing who you're really competing with."

Host: Today's episode will be highlighting Mama's boy.

We will uncover the warning signs and provide you with the tools to spot the Mama's boy.

Today, Ivy is my guest.

She had a two-year-long relationship with a mama's boy, almost making it to the altar.

Let's give some background on who the mama's boy is.

He couldn't survive alone in the wild without his mother.

His mom always knows about everything.

He lets his mom spoon feed him and run every decision for him.

His mom cannot do anything wrong, and if you say otherwise and push him to choose sides, you will be on the losing side.

Host: So Ivy, what were some mama's boy characteristics you noticed?

Hi.

Yeah, thanks for having me today.

So mine was a little bit hard to spot at first because I was actually friends with the whole family, so I was friends with his mom, friends with him, and his mom was really, you know, pushing for our relationship even before we would start dating.

She would make comments about like, oh, you should date my son.

You should date my son, which probably should have been a little bit of a red flag, but I just thought it was nice.

So we started dating.

And as soon as we started dating, just everything changed.

Like his mom completely flipped a switch and just like hated me.

And she didn't like me being around.

I was never over at their house.

But whenever we would go on dates, like we would make plans to go out, and he would invite his mom.

Like we would go to parties at friend's house, and he'd show up with his mom.

And so I really started to notice it then.

And just the longer we dated, the more it became apparent that he was so reliant on his mom and he could not do anything without her.

Host: Well, so let's see how he lured you in.

He is great in romancing you.

He is sweet, affectionate, and understanding.

You think you finally met someone who cares about how women feel and knows how to treat a woman until you realize that you're competing for his affection with his mother.

Is this how it happened with you?

How did he lure you in?

Ivy: This is exactly how it happened.

So we were actually high school sweethearts.

So we started out best friends from when we were 12.

We were always hanging out.

We lived in the same neighborhood, so it was really easy to just hang out and get to know each other.

He was always really kind and respectful and just a genuinely good guy.

And he was, you know, he was always thinking about, he was always just thinking about me and thinking about ways he could show affection and kindness, and it was never really, that's exactly how he lured me in.

I never really noticed that he was also doing the same thing for his mom.

You know, if he got me a gift, his mom would get jealous about that, and then he'd like go and buy her a gift as well.

So it was just like this weird dynamic where, yeah, he was treating me well, but at the same time in the background, he was treating his mom the same way, and it was just a little bit of a weird situation.

Host: Was he living at home at the time?

He was, yeah.

We dated fairly young, and so he was living at home for most of the time we dated, and actually, when he moved out is when I really started to notice how dependent he was on his mother and how much of an issue it was going to be.

That's when he really started changing as a person, is when he left his parents' house, and everything just became more noticeable then.

Host: So while dating him, you were basically commenting to his mother?

Yes, for sure.

She was always going to be there.

She was always giving advice that was unwanted, butting into our business when we did not ask for that.

She was always involved in whatever we were doing.

So, how did you spot him before you were hooked?

And this was a tough one because it took me a long time.

We had been dating, we had gotten engaged, and we were actually about eight months away from our wedding.

And I finally noticed how bad it was.

And what really pushed me over the edge, and what really was the final red flag that made me call it off was when he had been going to Flight Mechanics School, and he had finished school, and he had a job interview a few states away.

And I was in college at the time, and so we were doing long distance, and the drive for his interview was about four hours.

And I hadn't heard from him the whole day he had the job interview.

Like, he didn't call me on the way there, call me on the way back to let me know how it went.

And so finally, I gave him a call that evening and was really curious as to why he didn't call me and just wanted to generally know how the interview went.

And he told me that his mom went with him to his job interview.

She drove with him the four hours there, four hours back, and he said he couldn't call me because he was too busy talking to his mom, and he didn't want his mom to get lonely or bored on this four-hour car ride.

So then we got into it a little bit, and I was saying, you know, your choices right now are going to affect us in our future, you know, because I was going to have to move to a new state if he got this job.

And he wasn't thinking about that at all.

He was just thinking about his mom.

And then he straight up told me that he, that I will never be more important in his life than his mother.

He just straight up told me that to my face.

And I just caught it off right then.

I'm like, if I'm not going to be more important than everybody else in your life, then I don't want to do this anymore.

Host: Good job, Ivy, good job.

So at the most intimate level of his heart, he still loves mom as much or more than you, then you should cut him loose.

Ivy: Absolutely, and I was lucky enough for him to tell me straight to my face, but most times, you have to just really pick up on those signs.

And it continued on even when we broke up.

We had bought a pet together, and I was trying to get it back after the breakup.

Like, I had given him the ring back and everything.

I didn't ask to keep anything, but I wanted this pet that we got together, and he had given it to his mom, and she would not give it back, even though I paid for half of the pet, and he just obviously sided with his mom and said that his mom had grown attached to it, and she never let me have it back.

Host: How did he handle the breakup?

Not very well.

As you had mentioned before, we had been dating for over two years.

We had been engaged for a year, and when I told him I didn't want to be in this relationship anymore, over the phone, after the interview, because we were long distance, I couldn't do it in person, he had tried to reach out the next couple of days, just texted me saying, oh, I love you, I'm sorry, let's talk about this.

And I just ignored it for a few days.

And then about three days later, I just get a text and said, I guess we're over, so I'm going to come get my stuff.

And he was specifically saying, like, I'm going to come pick up the ring.

And he had an expensive toolbox in my storage unit down at school.

So he showed up about a week later, came, got his toolbox, got his ring and left.

But then he never really 100 percent accepted that we were broken up.

He thought like we were just going to get back together.

So when I would come home on breaks, he would come back around to my house, you know, try to hang out.

And at first I was like, you know, maybe we could at least still be friends, but I had no interest in continuing to date this guy.

So I was like, you know, we talked it through.

I told him, you know, if it was ever to work, not that I really wanted it to, I was pretty over it at this point.

But if I wanted it to work, he was really going to have to change and set boundaries.

And he was like, oh, I will, I will, I will.

But within a week, it was obvious that nothing was going to change.

And at that point, even with us breaking up, like his mom got a thousand times worse.

Like if I went over to his house, she would just, she wouldn't even be in the same room as me.

She wouldn't speak to me.

And it was just like, it would be ridiculous to even try to save something that I didn't even want to save.

Almost like she was breaking up with you.

Exactly.

Like she was more heartbroken over him being dumped than he was about the whole thing.


Host: Wow.

So he did not take responsibility of his actions.

He did not try to make things right.

Ivy: No.

Host: He was just full of false promises.

Let's tie this to the dating funnel.

You spent two years with mama's boy that didn't go anywhere.

So what do you think having this funnel process?

How helps with this situation?

Ivy: Yeah.

If I had the funnel process, I could have spotted the signs way quicker and just save myself a lot of trouble and heartbreak and time to meet other people.

I mean, we were dating some pretty prime years of my life.

I was in school.

We dated all my sophomore year, all my junior year and part of my senior year of college.

And it just seems like a lot of wasted time.

And actually, in that time, I met my current husband, but I was engaged at the time.

So I can't really dedicate the time or energy or anything into building that relationship.

And thankfully, my husband waited for me.

But some may not, they find someone in that time.

And if he hadn't waited for me, I would have missed him in that time.

Host: So, in a way, it was pretty obvious that now your husband now was a high-value man.

Absolutely.

He was.

And he even said from the start when he met me that he called his parents, which he is not anywhere close to a mama's boy.

But he called his parents and was like, I just met the most amazing girl that he said that he wanted to date me and get to know me and everything.

He's like, but she's engaged.

And his parents told him to not give up because nothing's final until, you know, you actually make it to the altar.

And so he didn't.

We were really good friends.
You know, there was no cheating involved or anything.

We were just really good friends.
And he actually left school.
He only came to school for a year.

And we lost touch.

We lost contact for about two years.

And then out of the blue, he popped up when we had a mutual friend getting married and was like, hey, let's reconnect at the wedding.

And that's how we started talking.

Host: I think that's incredible.

He and he sees the incredible value that a good woman like you brings into his life.

He had clarity around his mission, purpose and direction.

He respected you.

He respected your relationship.

But he was also open-minded, curious as well.

Ivy: Absolutely.
He knows how to give and earn respect.
So and he was supportive of your goals and respects your decisions.
So I'm so glad that you were able to spot this man.

And you two have an incredible chemistry.

Ivy: Thank you.

Yes, me too.
And it is the difference between a high value man and a not high value man is so incredibly different.

And you don't really notice it until you get that high value man because you think the low value man's effort is good.
But then when you see it compared to the high value man, it's such a difference.

Like when I was when my mama's boy would send me gifts, it was they were all based on money.

Like he wanted to have this status.

And he would send me gifts that were completely unrelated to anything that I would like or anything that had to do with me.
It all had to do with him.

And even in our engagement ring, he picked something that was completely not my style, that was just gaudy because he wanted to show everybody that he had the money to pay for it and that kind of thing.

And the difference between that and my current husband is crazy because, yeah, I may not have the most expensive engagement ring, but it is the absolute perfect engagement ring for me.

And when he gets me little gifts, it's all thoughtful.

Instead of just thinking about him, they're actually thinking about me.

So he listens well and remembers what you say.
Exactly.

And one of the examples has happened not too long ago, and it just was so sweet to me.
And we were watching TV, and there was a commercial for a new ice cream bar that came on TV.

And I was like, oh my goodness, that sounds so good.

We'll have to get some some next time we go to the store.

And then the next day, he ran to the store on his way home and brought me these ice cream bars.

And it was just like the sweetest thing.

Host: Very nice.

So your high value man, is he close to his mother?

Ivy: Oh, absolutely.

And there's such a big difference between being close to your mother and being a mama's boy and letting your mother run your life.

And at first, and honestly was a little bit hard for me at first because, you know, we, he moved away from his family to be with me and my family when we first got married.

And he would call his mom, you know, twice a week, a couple, maybe sometimes three times.

And I'm like, I was getting worried because of my past relationship.

I'm like, oh no, I just stepped right into another, you know, mama's boy.

But the relationship there is so different.

It's, he's close to his family because he loves them, but she's never gotten in the way of our relationship.

She's never put her input into anything we have to do.

If he had to choose between, you know, hanging out with his mom and hanging out with me, he would choose me every time.

And it's been such a nice difference.
And when you've been burned before, you do have to kind of get back into the mode of, you know, it's okay for people to be close to their families and not have them run it because there is a difference.

And it's hard to spot at first because you're just nervous based on this past experience.

But I have the best mother-in-law now, and she's so sweet and so caring, and she would never say any of the hurtful things, do anything, and she's the biggest supporter of our relationship and would never even think about getting in the way.

So one of the characteristics of high-value men, they stand up for themselves and for you and for your relationship.

Yeah, absolutely, which he's never, he's never had to do that with his family because they've never gotten in the way.

But I am very confident that he would because actually, my family sometimes has gotten a little, they've put their nose in where it doesn't belong, and he had to kind of stand up to them and be like, this is our relationship and we're going to have to make these decisions for ourselves.

And so yes, he's very much stands up for our relationship and for just the community that we have together.

So he's familiar with challenges and doesn't shy away.

No, no, he is, he faces many challenges.

He's, he's worked his way up at work.

He's very hard working and he's faced challenges trying to work his way up because he doesn't have a degree, like he never finished school, but he's not let that stop him.

He's, he's worked his way up and now he has a great job working for the Navy and he just keeps striving for more.

Host: So Ivy, do not let him go.

Ivy: I won't.

Believe me.

Host: Now you're married to the love of your life.

Ivy: Yes.

Host: And what do you think about this mama's boy now?

I am so happy that I dodged that bullet.

It would have been miserable.

I've seen other people marry into that family and just have the same experience that I have.

And it would have just been a miserable life, most likely or most definitely ending in divorce.

And I couldn't be happier that I dodged that bullet.

Being able to get out of that relationship really did lead me to the love of my life, and I couldn't be happier.

Host: So we should all champion women having this dating funnel, and meet as many guys as they like, and finally you'll find one.

Ivy: Absolutely.

If I had this while I was dating, I don't think it would have taken me as long to realize how much of a mama's boy he would have been.

It would have been much easier to spot the signs earlier on.

Host: Well, thank you for coming to my podcast and enlightening us on Mama's Boy.

Ivy: Yeah, thanks for having me.

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