‘I Love a Mama’s Boy’: Mike Confronts His Mom Over Her Role in His Relationship During Exclusive Sneak Peek

Mike has had it with mom Liz’s meddling in his relationship with girlfriend Stephanie, especially as the couple moves toward marriage. In a PopCulture.com exclusive sneak peek of Sunday’s all-new episode of I Love a Mama’s Boy, the 26-year-old confronts his mom about her insistence on having a deciding role in his romantic life, pinning the possible cause on traumatic events in her past.

“I have seen like two marriages that you had that didn’t pan out the way you planned,” he tells his mom during a basketball showdown. While Liz insists he’s “still a baby” and too young to think about marriage, Mike points out that he’s been out of college for five years, and in those five years he’s fallen deeply in love with Steph.

“Before you lived with her, you called me every night to say goodnight,” Liz says of the reasons she doesn’t like the woman his son has chosen. “Now you do almost every night, but not all the time. Now you’ve started skiing. You never skied. …because nobody skis when they get older.” An incredulous Mike can’t believe what his mom is saying, asking, “What do you mean nobody skis when they get older?”

Liz, getting clearly upset, insists skiing is “dangerous” if you don’t start as a child, complaining that the photos he sends her from the ski lift give her “heart palpitations.” In a confessional interview, Liz admits that Mike’s father dying so young made her confront the idea that young people can die at any time. “But that’s why I am as careful as I am with his choices,” she explains.

Despite the trauma behind Liz’s behavior, Mike says he feels like he’s being put in the middle with the girl he loves and his mother. “It’s like I feel like I’ll be in between you and Steph, and it’s like this girl that I love is pulling me one way,” an emotional Mike tells his mom. “You calling me on the other hand, pulling me this way. I’m over here getting stretched out. And it literally feels like it’s a competition between y’all two.”

“Well, it is a competition,” Liz confirms, to which her son shoots back, “I can’t with that though. What you need to come to terms with is that the best for me at this moment right now to me is Stephanie.” Liz then promises to help “figure that out” with her son, but he isn’t on board at all. “I should always be first,” she doubles down. “If Steph is the one that you end up with, then she could be 1-A, but don’t forget that I’m 1.” I Love a Mama’s Boy airs Sundays at 10 p.m. ET on TLC. For more on TLC’s latest shows from PopCulture, click here.