Both me and my wife had kids when we were teenagers. She was a single mom, my original wife died from cancer. My son is 21 (I am 39) and my wife's (she is 36) son is 17. We got married 5 months ago, and were dating for two years before that.

​

We got married last year, and her son is a great guy. But... her parenting is just atrocious. She is the absolute definition of a helicopter mom. She has a phone tracker on him, and sometimes checks it and when she sees he isn't where he is supposed to be she calls him and makes sure he tells her his entire plane for evening. His curfew, at 17 years old, is 10 PM on weekends. That is bad enough, but whenever he is out, she gets nervous and keeps checking up on him, then asks to talk to his friends and see if everything is okay. She harps over the video games he plays, the movies he watches, the music he listens to. She makes him take a bunch of afterschool classes that he doesn't want to do and makes him tell her every little detail of what happened at the classes or at school.

​

It is absurd to me. And he is going to be in college soon and she isn't lightening up, in fact in some ways she has gotten worse with him. He doesn't even resist, which is the weirdest part, he obeys everything and to him it seems almost normal. I don't want to intervene. I don't want to get in between this situation, something I am pretty new to. But it just blows my mind how unbelievably overprotective she is over him. I try not to speak up, I have before sometimes but only when I REALLY feel she is going over the top. And usually its a very slight suggestion or explanation for his behavior. Like she was in a bit of a nervous wreck when she found out that one of his friends apparently got caught drinking alcohol, and she thought she should tell him he shouldn't see that friend anymore. I talked her out of it, saying he was going to college and alcohol is going to be a major thing there.

​

When the topic of kids came up, I was nervous. I had never told her that I think she is an overprotective parent and that I would not want her to be the mom to my kids. It just seemed rude, and unnecessary, and previously she had said she probably didn't want anymore children. Then she brought it up. And I said I would go to the doctor and she can go to her doctor and we can see if we are fertile. The thing is, I didn't go to the doctor. I couldn't think of an actual good reason to not want kids besides her being a terrible mother. So when she asked me, I just lied in the moment and said I couldn't have kids, I was apparently infertile, way too low of a sperm count. She was disappointed. I realized right away I should have told the truth, but I couldn't go back on a lie. So no kids. And she will forever think its because I cant have kids, not because I dont want them with her.

​

Just a disclaimer, she is not over protective or anything like that with me, at all. I know some might try to make that connection but with me she is about as amazing a wife as she could possibly be.