Wow. On target and succinct.

The only other thing I could add is to suggest that your mom might benefit from some outside social activities. Does she do anything with anyone outside her family? Get her to join a gardening club. Don't say anything about managing her anxiety when you do it. Maybe you could go together for a while, then, if she likes it, you could pull back. This kind of thing has worked fairly well in my family.

Perhaps the best part of being in Korea is seeing a people cast off the weight of one of the worst 20th centuries of any country in the world... Seeing the people and the culture embrace the challenge of globalization while treasuring their own heritage is inspiring. On the other hand.....

Can you imagine the horror that my friends and I faced when the traditional Korean orchestral performance we were attending turned into a 12-minute adaptation of Chuck Mangione's "Feel So Good"? Go to YouTube and listen to a little of the instrument called the haegum; then imagine it playing the lead from Feel So Good...

Draaa...Draaa...Draaa...Dra.dradrdraaa

Not all cross-cultural fusion is good. Believe me, I still bear those scars.

There are a lot of liberals who grow up in the south that find that they can't stand to live there as an adult. Thus, regional political differences have become self-reinforcing. What self-respecting redneck would ever think of taking a job in SF? Would a sincere progressive want to move to Montgomery, AL, even if the economics were favorable?

How about the fact that A/C will forever prevent to rise of a new Faulkner?

White America is not binary racist/non-racist. There is a broad spectrum ranging from white supremacists on the far right to the truly colorblind. But in the middle of this spectrum are large numbers of people who WANT to be non-racist but can't help viewing things through long-ingrained stereotypes. Those people are generally tired of America's PC culture and worry about non-whites who seem to embrace it. They often feel as if they are constantly being tested to determine if they can meet some standard of anti-racist purity.

Despite Obama's long-forgotten joking about Clinton's dancing ability, most of these people see Obama as part of that hyper-PC culture. Choosing Hillary would not have helped, because she's absolutely part of it.

But Biden? He's a guy just like them. He talks a lot, so he occasionally says stupid things. Racist things. Does that mean he is a racist? It depends on who's administering the purity test. Some would say he's just observant and honest. (Let's see those statistics about doughnut shop ownership...)

The great thing is, Obama already has PC America's support locked up. But he needs to appeal to all those whites whose attitudes on race don't fit into simple racist/non-racist categories. By choosing Biden, he shows them that he understands that world-view. (Consider Tiger Woods. One reason he is so popular is that he's shown these whites that he, too, can joke about fried chicken and watermelon.) Finally, there's absolutely no way that the Obama/Biden ticket can be attacked for Biden's screw-ups by the Republicans; that would contradict the Obama-is-an-elitist (read PC fanatic) plot line than they have based their campaign on.

Of course, that all depends on Democratic voters keeping their eye on the ball, which recent history has shown they do rather poorly. So, to all you angry, betrayed absolutists way out there on the left edge of the spectrum: Stop. Breathe deeply. Remember that it's not about your narrow beliefs. It's about building a strong enough coalition to win. White Americans who have fears and failures about race are not the enemy. Learn to distinguish between the virulent racist and the guy who just doesn't care that much. Stop trying to fix them, and start trying to see what you can do together.

(Of course, all that's easy to say living in the good ol' ROK.)

And Georgetown is wrong. LW's pregnancy at 18 was very different from the BF's; she chose not to have a child.

Anyway, here are the important details.

Older, more accomplished man who has extreme needs younger woman could meet is trying to get her to meet those needs; her needs appear to be unmet.

Relationships with severe power imbalances require extreme measures to ensure fair treatment of all parties. This is your situation. What would guarantee that you won't get used up and cast aside here? If you don't want to get married, with a clear pre-nup, then don't move in. If he can't accept that, then he really isn't all that into you. In that case, you're better of moving on, anyway. That may hurt, but it'll be a small pain compared to the big one you'd be setting yourself up for otherwise.

"You are not special..."