Dear Queenie,
Hide my identity please. I need some advice. I’m a 29-year-old man dating a wonderful woman who is 58. We are deeply in love and very happy together. The problem is her son. He is 38 years old. I am trying my best to show him love and to be a good father figure to him. I try to guide him and set a good example, but he does not respect me or listen to what I say. I don’t want to shout at him or lay hands on him because kids these days have rights. But I feel he should respect me if I am to help teach him good values and morals. Queenie, how do I get this boy to respect me so I can guide him properly? —Trying to Be a Good Father
Dear Trying to Be a Good Father,
Let us start with the most important fact in this situation. The “boy” you are referring to is thirty-eight years old. He is not your child, your student, or your responsibility to raise. He is a grown man who likely has a mortgage, back pain, and opinions about taxes. The reason he does not “respect you as a father” is quite simple: you are eleven years younger than him. From his perspective, you are not a father figure. You are the young man dating his mother. Which, understandably, may take some adjustment. The solution here is not discipline. It is perspective. You are not entering his life as a parent. You are entering it as his mother’s partner. Those are very different roles. Respect between adults grows through time, patience, and mutual boundaries, not lectures about morals. So my advice is simple: Stop trying to be his father. Focus on being a respectful partner to his mother. Over time he may come to respect that. And if he doesn’t? You are still dating his mother, not adopting him. —Queenie
