The dilemma My husband died suddenly early last year. It has been tough for me and for my teen/20s children. We’ve worked hard to support our grief and have been close. They have lovely friends and special loves who have been wonderful and supportive – and they are OK, me too.

I have become close to someone I have known vaguely for 10 years. He is lovely and we seem to have embarked on something special. In our 50s neither of us want to fanny about and he seems willing to accept the baggage I carry (and he has some, too). I feel the same.

The last years of my marriage were lonely as my husband preferred to drink than to engage lovingly with me. This new low-key friendship/relationship has been a breath of fresh air. My daughters are happy someone is there for me, but my son is furious. He has threatened it’s “him or me” and more hostile language. I have tried to explain, but to no avail. I don’t want to end my relationship, but I don’t want to destabilise my son.

Mariella replies Nor should you. It’s the sort of behaviour that the expression “boys will be boys” was invented for and, while I understand it’s upsetting, it’s also so predictable! I’m glad to hear your daughters have a different take on this new relationship. Your girls have understood that there’s room for more than one love story in a life and clearly want to see you romantically provided for. Theirs is the rational and sensible response, but we all know that when it comes to love those words are rarely applicable.

Sons and mothers, I sometimes think, is the greatest love story never told. I just need to see a little boy’s eyes lighting up in the playground when his mum arrives to collect him to get goose bumps. In childhood, they are the perfect man – pint sized, sweet smelling, unconditionally loving and open to guidance and influence – almost every facet the opposite of the adult version. What woman wouldn’t dote on such a creature, entirely portable and built for devotion?

‘He’s been the man in your life, a position it’s terrifying to cede’

When they get to their teens and their armpits smell, they’re strangers to their toothbrush and their face resembles a relief map of the Sierra Nevada. Often you’re the only person still focused on those familiar beloved characteristics lurking below the hormonal turmoil. The conflict endured by most teenage boys, between wanting to protect you and maintain their “special relationship” with you and dump you for a teenage siren, makes for sympathetic and even amusing viewing, despite the element of heartbreak. Even when the biological bond is stretched to its furthest point to ensure that separation in adulthood isn’t too painful for either party, sons often pay further homage by settling down with a woman just like their mother! As with the melancholic Prince of Denmark, we mums remain a centrifugal force for far longer than most of us deserve, despite losing our sons’ early ardour to sexual opportunity and new alliances.

Your situation is complicated naturally by your husband’s passing. If you were simply getting divorced your boy might rage and rant, but eventually accept the idea. But your husband’s death has offered him a heightened emotional landscape and scope for indulgence. As with so many human foibles your son’s raging is doubtless born of fear. He’s lost one parent and now, when he thought he had you back entirely to himself, he’s being asked to share and (in his eyes) lose another parent. You say you’ve pulled together as a team these past 12 months and that may well be contributing to his opposition to your relationship. He’s got used to being the man in your life at a time when you’ve all been emotionally weakened, so I’ve no doubt it’s a terrifying prospect to cede that position. In his eyes I’m sure it leaves him alone and unprotected.

You must enjoy this new partnership prospect with impunity, but I wouldn’t be surprised if your son’s angst wasn’t partly fuelled by your own trepidation. Kids smell our fear and foibles better than we imagine and I suspect your boy has sniffed out a spot of guilt and therefore vulnerability. His opposition will one day be a source of humour, but for now consider the actor Ben Whishaw’s ground-breaking portrayal of Hamlet some years ago, a snivelling myopic adolescent deranged and derailed by his father’s death and his perceived abandonment by his mother. At the moment your son is a person to pity and protect, but not to pivot your life around. I suggest you remain patient while continuing to enjoy your newfound romance and perhaps invite his sensible sisters to stage an intervention on your behalf. The teamwork that’s held you together will see you through.

You are currently the most pivotal person in this boy’s universe, a position consolidated by the premature loss of his father. He’s a young man trying to exert control over a life that’s already delivered one of its most brutal blows. Like all our boys, yours will abandon you when it suits him. But while he’s still so desperately trying to pull your strings there’s no harm in letting him feel like the puppet-master a little longer.

If you have a dilemma, send a brief email to mariella.frostrup@observer.co.uk. Follow her on Twitter @mariellaf1