Dating - or exploitation?

 Mom was a bit naive, and after dad died, she could not just conjure up abstinent and devoted men to marry her and raise her two small kids.

"Alex criticizes my weight as an excuse not to make a commitment."

Mom actually said that, yet she kept dating him. He owned a yacht, worked in finance, was a Harvard graduate, oh he took mom out to supper and gave her a pair of earrings, they went to Jamaica for a few days and to New York city for a weekend, and in return, she gave him affection and a bit of family time with us, my brother and I were teens by then and he had never married.

But he would bring up her weight - but he was sleeping with her! It did not bother him that much after all.

He died of a sudden heart attack, after a five year relationship, he had not changed his will or bequeathed her anything. So my single mom kept struggling.

Non of her enlightened liberal friends ever said anything like, "should you not make a commitment? Are your finances stable?" Nothing.

Fast forward, I had embraced orthodox Judaism, was married with kids and living a fifteen minute drive away from mom.

She started dating Charlie. I said, "I will not have my children exposed to "granny and her boyfriend"". She was annoyed, but then she started turning to me with the same issues she had with Alex, "He is saying we are spending too much time together, he is becoming critical of me..." I retorted, "you are giving him everything he needs, why should he make a commitment?. She responded, "you know you are right", and within a couple months they were married in a joint Protestant-Catholic wedding. They had it in a hall so I as an orthodox Jew could attend comfortably. It was nice to hear the Lord's Prayer again.

After they were married, Charlie never complained that they were spending too much time together.

Premarital relations are anti-thetical to basic human needs. Lack of commitment makes women feel used and men fearful of commitment. 

But my success in reaching mom was only because I was there for her at her weak moment.

No amount of preaching moved her before that.

The solution - preaching does not work. Be there for people and when the time is right, God will put the right words in your mouth, saving others from misconduct, and even poverty, as marriage makes you more financially stable to boot.