Dear lily:

You are very welcome. Reads to me that when his mother told him that you were “manipulative and controlling”, she was imagining that you were doing what she has been doing to him since he was a boy: manipulating and controlling him.

When he thought that you were attacking his mother, (and then rushed to defend her to you?), it was likely what he does in his own head: shifting from attacking her (for manipulating and controlling him) to defending her (excusing her misbehaviors, bringing up all she did for him, etc.), and back to attacking her. All this is probably responsible for being still single in this 40s.

anita