Mothers sabotaging their sons’ marriages without knowing it, by Stephanie Shaakaa

Mothers are sabotaging their sons’ marriages without knowing it. It begins quietly.

A mother feels alone, rejected, or emotionally starved by the man who vowed to love her, her husband. She stays in the marriage but leaves in spirit. And then, without realizing it, she chooses a new partner.

Her son.

Not sexually. Not even consciously. But emotionally,fully,fiercely she marries him figuratively.

He becomes her provider. Her pillar. Her man of the house.Her emotional husband.

And just like that, she borrows his masculinity to patch the holes in her womanhood.

She didn’t raise a son. She preserved a husband.

This is not love.This is emotional incest. And it’s everywhere  quietly masquerading as closeness, admiration, even good parenting.

You’ve heard it before.

My son is my king.

He’s the only man who’s never disappointed me.

Nobody can love me like my son.

It sounds cute, harmless, even admirable. But scratch beneath the surface and you’ll find a boy emotionally bound to a woman he can never say no to  and a man unable to give his wife what belongs to her because his soul is still tethered to his mother’s throne.

A man torn between two queens builds no kingdom.

They try. But they fail.

They bring their mothers into the sacred space of their marriages not just physically, but also emotionally, mentally, spiritually. And their wives? They are forced into emotional threesomes they never signed up for.

Every decision? Mother must approve.

Every crisis? Mother must weigh in.

Every celebration? Mother is the center.

And when the wife speaks? She’s branded the jealous one. The intruder. The problem. The family scatterer.

He calls his mother “Queen,” but his wife is never crowned.

No matter how brilliant, loyal, beautiful, or prayerful the wife is she cannot compete. Because she’s not just up against a mother. She’s up against a bond formed in dysfunction, dressed in tradition, and protected by culture.

We are losing our men to women who should have let go.

This isn’t about disrespecting mothers. This is about stopping a generational hijack.

When a mother makes her son the centre of her emotional world, she cripples his ability to be a man.

He grows into a boy in a suit, responsible, yes. Successful, maybe. But emotionally unavailable, indecisive, loyal to guilt instead of love.

You cannot build a home with a man who is already emotionally married.

To the wives who are losing to mothers,

It’s not your fault.

You are not crazy.

You are not the enemy.

You married a man whose umbilical cord was never fully cut.

You are sleeping next to someone who wakes up every morning already spoken for.

To the mothers who need to hear this

Let your son go.

Let him be a husband to his wife, not to you. Let him disappoint you without guilt. Let him build without you at the center.

You already had your reign. Let the new queen rise.

Let sons be sons not substitutes.

Mothers, you can’t heal through your sons. That’s not love, that’s theft.

A throne cannot hold two queens.

A man emotionally married to his mother is unavailable to his wife.

Let your son go.

A throne cannot hold two queens

He doesn’t need a second wife. He needs a mother who knows when to step back. If you don’t let go, you’ll lose him not to another woman, but to a life unlived.

I know I am detonating a sacred cow. I know I’m dragging a cultural idol down from its pedestal. But this conversation must be had. Because silence has never healed us. Because too many marriages are bleeding, too many sons are drowning in guilt, and too many wives are wrestling with ghosts they cannot name.

This is not an attack on mothers  it is a wake-up call to a society that confuses love with possession, nurture with control, and motherhood with invisible marriage.

If this truth makes you uncomfortable, good. It means you’re still alive. Still capable of change. Still capable of setting someone free.

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