This is a bit of a muse I am x-posting here and in another forum I am on regularly…it will be interesting to me to compare the feedback from a mostly male forum vs. one that has more women.My Mum is coming to visit me next week for a couple of months. I live quite literally half-way round the world from her, so we see each other only once every 2 or so years, so hence the longish time she is visiting. She will be using my place as a base, visiting UK friends and relatives from here. She is a remarkably fit and healthy near 75 year old lady. She is also a fairly radical feminist at heart, as I posted in another thread, she was activated by the feminist movement of the 1970s.My parents split after 45 years as a couple, 40 years of marriage. Dad had been a serial adulterer. When Mum finally drew the line, Dad was unfortunately still at the infatuated stage with his latest woman and went to her. He is now miserably married to this woman, having been recently caught at his old game. In the subsequent 11 years Mum has lived up to the motto “the best revenge is living well”, although she has not had another partner, she has a wonderful full and interesting life.As you can imagine, it has been hard to talk about my own separation/divorce with her. Made more difficult that the ex still managed to maintain his charm persona around her, so she didn’t realise what I was put through. Basically she thinks the split was because he went off with another woman, what she didn’t know was how close I was to leaving myself.I feel I need to talk to her about that bit of the past, so she can understand my current SO situation. She was always hopeful I would settle with my best friend with whom I share a house. J, my best friend has asperger’s syndrome, and one feature of that for him is when he is busy with life he has little time for the niceties of being in a relationship – so our attempt at being a couple was a disaster. I was constantly wanting more verbal and physical signs of love, he was picking up my angst and it was winding him up and increasing his stress and distress. After a lot of consideration, and recognising I also deserved the happiness of a connected relationship, we agreed to do the friends and flatmate thing and it works brilliantly.About the same time, my now SO came back into my life – he is in the processing of getting out of an BPD marriage. He and I knew each other through work, had a fling about 10 years ago (I am not proud of that), but we had ended the fling with an agreed no contact so he could “work at being a husband and a father” – had I known she was BPD I might have done differently, but I doubt it. He would have ended up with this country’s version of a fair split “she gets the house and children, he gets the mortgage”.Anyway, the agenda is as such: Mum disapproves of the fact I have started a relationship with a still married man (although I am not the cause of the split). She hoped I could be a couple with my best friend. She has not real understanding of the reasons I was so unhappy in my first marriage, or how close I was to calling a day. She is struggling to imagine how J and I work as best friends and flatmates after a couple attempt. I’ve never talked about being a victim of abuse, I’ve never really even talked to her about “love” and all that that means. I feel I need to clear the air and help her understand my POV of my relationship with the SO.Eventually I will be with the SO, with a shared house, with a shared life. She has demonstrated with my other sibs that she can be respectful and tolerant of partners she doesn’t always approve of, and she adores children, so his girls will be treated with great love.Am I seeking approval too much here? Am I best to leave sleeping dogs to lie? Am I perhaps being deliberately hurtful of her by raising the past, where she knows I would have rolemodelled my marriage on her and Dad’s ultimately unsuccessful relationship?Any wise thoughts on this?Helen