My boyfriend’s mom is very close to me. A few years after the breakup, he conveyed a devastating 5-word message to her.

I realized I had a problem when I found myself debating whether I was attending my new boyfriend’s sister’s wedding or the art of ex-boyfriend’s mother was open.

My boyfriend shook his head, confused. “Is this really your problem?” he asked.

I’ve been hiding my relationship with my ex-mother Tamar, knowing it’s unlikely to get along well with my new beau. Even my ex is jealous himself.

No man can understand my connection with this smart, elegant, creative woman.

My boyfriend looked at me, waiting for the answer. I can’t blame him for his impatientness: in their right brain, who ended his relationship with his son, but kept his parents?

“She’s not only my ex’s mom,” I stuttered. “She is very important to me.”

“Loving her is one thing – giving her priority to me is another.” I love the man and bought a new dress for the wedding very reluctantly.

The next day, I went to see Tamar. She lives in a stone house on a hillside outside Haifa. Like her, it seems to be both old and young, rough and elegant.

“It’s OK, my dear,” she said when I broke the news, but I could tell her she was disappointed. Later, when I left with my coat, she pulled me onto her and gave me a long hug.

She said, “You know I love you forever.” I swallowed the lump in my throat and turned and left.

When I first met Tamar, she dated her son for a few weeks. I first noticed her unwavering gaze, as if she was doing a cat scan of my soul.

She said, “You’ll leave your lunch.” She finally patted me on the shoulder. “Tell me everything.”

She and my son have plans, but no longer have any questions about leaving.

“My mother is a force,” he explained frustratingly after we left. “I know she’s a lot – she’s just powerless – but it’s just because she’s really interested.”

I shrugged, still feeling a little dizzy from her question. Throwing into the storm, I was fascinated.

Tamar is a sculptor whose large female form is immersed in bronze, both terrifying and fascinating. Looking at her work is like observing a butterfly flying around in one place. Her black hair was pulled into a tight bread, contrasting with her pierced blue eyes, while the clothes under her white photos were full of vitality.

When she was not working, Tamar drank mint tea with a small Moroccan teacup, with gold plated on its edges for a long time. She talks about art, her eyes flashing, as if each creation is not only a happy adventure, but also a puzzle. She loves to host well-designed themed parties, sometimes involving clothing.

I am at a transition point in my life, choosing between career and country. Even though I learned how to look good, I felt deeply saddened and plagued by my own uncertainty. I let go of my shower only in the privacy of the shower – freeing the torrent of tears that I didn’t understand.

Tamar loves and lives both obsessed with and recruits me. My own mother is keen, thoughtful and intelligent, but also timid. Throughout my childhood, it seemed as if she was waiting for permission to be a mother-a license that she had never obtained. As a kid, I longed for direction, but my mother didn’t feel like the advice I suggested was “her position.” She would say, “Whatever you think is the best is the best.” I felt like an unclaimed suitcase, spinning around the luggage claim. What I didn’t know then was that she had suffered years of abuse at the hands of my father. I only found out a few years later. All I know is that his leisure cruelty and contempt fill our house with boiling tension.

Tamar is the opposite of my mother. When she first looked at the small apartment I shared with her son, she noticed his guitar, books and posters scattered everywhere. She looked at me and she said, “You know you can take up more space, dear.” She had strong opinions and louder voices. At dinner she ruled the men, but always sought my opinion carefully.

In the seven years I spent with her son, she loved me very unconditionally after five years. I didn’t realize how hungry I was. She was there when a surprise miscarriage brought me into the ER until three in the morning waiting for me to be released. Next week, she made my favorite soup and supported the pillow on the couch so I could lie down in a comfortable place to cry. On the day of my first half marathon, she cheered loudly and my boyfriend had to feel comfortable with her. She just shrugged and kept cheering.

“We’ll all die, right?” she would say, when I hesitate to buy. “Life is too short to do what you want.”

When she broke up with her son, I cried and I couldn’t breathe.

“I’m not sure it’s just us,” he said.

I couldn’t let myself look at him or even respond. For many years, every time he got married, I changed the subject. Instead, we spent more and more time in his mother’s living room.

I was worried about how our breakup would affect my relationship with Tamar, but she did everything she could to reassure me. Surprisingly, so was my ex.

“I don’t have to call her because you do it,” he joked on our occasional coffee dates.

Tamar did not give birth to me, but she did choose me, which helped me trust myself. In hurricanes, birds survive by flying into vortexes, sometimes sweeping hundreds of miles with it. I wonder if they feel disoriented and deviated when storms deposit them in new and unfamiliar places. I wonder if they long for a calm eye. I feel longing. But during those 12 years, when Tamar raised me high with her love, I became stronger and more confident. In fact, it was just because I was ready to let go of her power.

After my boyfriend’s sister’s wedding, I gradually withdrew from Tamar. We are not a relationship I can only get involved in. Over time, we limit ourselves to birthdays and New Year cards. I was not surprised, though, and got in touch with my ex when she died of cancer.

“She wants to say goodbye,” he said.

By then, more than a decade had passed and I moved to another country. But I didn’t hesitate.

When I climbed the mountain to the little stone house, I noticed that she had changed a lot. She is no longer a hummingbird, it is everywhere. Her movements became drowsy, and the coal-black hair she had been proud of turned gray. She tried to breathe. But the bright purple scarf still remains the same, and so does her gaze as she pulls me into a hug.

“Tell me everything,” she said.

She smiled, she fixed our tea and picked the mint leaves from the pot on the windowsill. When we chat,All my loveG” started playing on the old radio in the kitchen. She loved the Beatles and swayed the music in time. Looking at her, I cried. She put the back of her hand on my cheek and pulled me up to dance with her, now the skin on her skin is now crepey.

“Close your eyes, I will kiss you, I will miss you tomorrow, remember that I will always be true…”

I closed my eyes and shook it.

PSY.D. Sarah Gundle is a private practice psychologist and an assistant professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She is currently writing a book about breaking up.