Hello! I’ve been reading FDS for a while, and I feel like I’ve pretty successfully internalized much of what’s in the handbook and the spirit of the sub. That having been said, I’m bad at picking up social cues on my own, so I’m not certain I’d be able to spot LV behavior that I haven’t explicitly seen listed.

So, I’ve been dating this person for about 3 years now, we’ve been engaged since early in the pandemic, but with the uncertainty of it, we’ve put off making concrete plans. From what I can tell, it’s going well. He was a mediocre to bad bf initially, but when I raised my standards he stepped up to meet them, and he just put together a very thoughtful Valentine’s Day celebration for me, stating that just being with him was already my gift to him. Currently, I know that he’s absolutely doing his best and willing to improve even in arbitrary ways if I were to tell him to.

But my mom has been acting funny about the relationship. She goes off of speaker phone if I ask for advice (although it was about how to order flowers ahead of a holiday rush, nothing serious). She made some bizarre excuse about checking on the car to text and ask me if I was being coerced when we got engaged. Her speech pattern changes when I say hi to my fiancé while I’m on the phone, and the conversations stop making sense and become repetitive if she hears I’m around him or my roommates.

So, I’m in what I’m fairly sure is a safe relationship, but I’m worried I’m missing something or in some vague danger that my mom has spotted and I just can’t see. Before this relationship, I had been with a textbook covert narcissist, which I could only really understand after a lot of reading, so it’s absolutely possible my now-fiancé has a vibe I’m missing.

Also, is it worth marrying someone my mom seems to think is holding me hostage, even if he’s fine? It’s a confusing situation for me, so any advice is appreciated.

Edit: It turns out that my mom’s speech patterns have just changed during the pandemic, and she agreed to tell me outright if something were off. I forgot to ask about the advice being a private thing, but my assumption is she didn’t want dad to hear if it was medically-oriented. Thank you all for your insight!