Hi all,
I’ve always had a really good relationship with my parents. I'm their only child. Never fought, always lived decently close (college was nearby), visited often. This past year they retired, sold their house, and took off in an RV. I’ve kept touch with them weekly.
I got engaged to my girlfriend [F/24] of 2 years this past October. Her family was going to be visiting from France in December, and we just wanted a small courthouse wedding, so we decided to just go ahead and do it. This is where my relationship with my parents very quickly fell apart. They’ve never acted like this, and I’m at a complete loss. Some of the things include:
• My mother was mad/hurt about the way we announced the engagement to her. I had spoken to my parents on the phone, telling them that we were seriously considering getting married. My father had suggested that I use my grandmother's engagement ring for the engagement. I spoke with my now-wife more and agreed to marry, with the actual proposal thingy to come later. We thought everyone was on the same page and that this wouldn't be a surprise. I then confirmed that we had decided to marry to my father on the phone, I guess my mother was elsewhere. My father then told my mother, and I told her later that day. She was very upset that she found out about the engagement from my father, instead of from me, but she didn't say anything and the conversation sounded normal. We sent them a picture right away of the actual proposal, which they didn't acknowledge at all beyond a "Nice."
• Our wedding got hijacked real hard. My mother wanted to throw a couple shower on her own, without taking any suggestions about what we liked, and people got invited to our ceremony and wedding day (hotels were even booked and restaurants as well) without us knowing. We wanted to go to a nice restaurant after the ceremony and pay for all the guests ourselves, which is challenging enough since we're both in grad school. So we originally booked a small room. Eventually my mother invited so many people (and guilt tripped us into having them) that a bigger room was needed, but the restaurant said the bigger room was already reserved. I told my mother that it wouldn't be possible. My mother then called the restaurant, on her own, to ask if there was any way to make it work. The restaurant told her "You already have that room reserved..." It turns out that the night we mentioned going to this restaurant, my mother called them and booked a large room. She then "forgot" about it. My mother then calls me, gloating that she had the room booked and the day was saved. I was approaching furious, but mother was saying "I fixed it though! Why are you mad?"
• My parents go radio silent for awhile. Finally, I call my father to talk about it. It turns into guilt tripping and me getting pushed into a conversation with my mother. Holy shit she said some awful things. I asked if she understood why we were doing what we were doing. "Because of her feelings." My wife lost her father about 10 years ago, and this wedding has really been tough on her because of it. We wanted to have something small and intimate so that she would feel comfortable showing her feelings if they arose. I explained this to my mother.
"My heart breaks for her about her dad, but she needs to get over it. He's gone. He wouldn't want her to be like this."
• As we get closer to the wedding, my parents flew to our town on a Saturday to stay at my place. We started talking one night and man, it was a mess. My dad tried to play middle ground here. My mother would just not understand why we were upset. I tried to explain everything, multiple times. That we were upset because we felt the wedding had been taken away from us. That our wishes weren’t being listened to. Finally, I brought up what she said about getting over my wife’s dad. My mother denied saying that, or that “if she said it” she misspoke. My father couldn’t believe it either, and asked multiple times whether I was sure she said that.
My parents said that all of this was done out of love. I told them that they were invited to the wedding as guests, not as planners. My mother said “Oh, so we’re just guests in your life now?” “Yes, you are guests at my wedding.” My father says “No, Stephen (my best friend) is a guest, we are your parents.” “Yes, you are my parents, but you have the responsibilities of guests. AKA show up. That’s all you had to do, we had the rest covered.”
Finally, my mother said “All this over one misspoken sentence.” I ended the conversation there. She obviously wasn’t listening to anything he was saying, since everything else was ignored and all of this was just a “miscommunication.”
• The night before the wedding I went back to my place to take care of things (prepare breakfast for the wedding day). I was going to join my wife after I was finished. I was sitting on the couch with my mother, both on our phones. My mother then got up and went to the bathroom, slamming the door. She knows I doesn’t like slamming doors due to some PTSD. She seemed perfectly fine up to this point, or at least hadn’t said anything. My father then talks to him on the couch, telling me I need to do something to fix this. My father again questions whether my mother really said to get over my wife’s dad, and if she did, why didn’t I speak up right away. He then went on to say that really this is my fault for throwing my mother under the bus and telling my wife about it. That I’m the one that hurt my wife, not my mother. I tells him to piss off and that I has nothing more to say to him. I go to the kitchen to prepare breakfast. My mother comes out of the room and to the couch. My father is heard whispering to her, telling her to go to the kitchen and sit next to me. Which she begrudgingly does. I try to make conversation about what he’s preparing, since we use to cook together. She replies with short answers. Finally I’m is done, I hugs my parents goodbye (I had to initiate this) and tells them I loves them.
• The morning of the wedding my mother spends crying. Both of my parents are very standoff-ish. My mother in law is so happy, calling me her son and everything. But my parents did nothing of the sort. I don’t think they said anything to my wife. We go out to dinner and it’s quite nice, but the reservation gets mixed up because of what my mother did, almost costing me $500. Thankfully the waiter takes care of it with management as a wedding gift. The next day, for some reason, my parents’ friends come to town. We weren’t aware of this. My parents were leaving that night, so this was our last chance to see them and talk. Instead, they hung out with their friends all morning. We said goodbye with barely a hug and the coldest “goodbye” you can imagine.
Since then I haven’t really spoken with them. It just feels so foreign. Not once did they ever say what their problem was. I was just supposed to guess and reassure them. For my father to say that stuff to me the night before my wedding? It seems absolutely crazy to me. Like who are these people? I can’t keep pretending with them that everything is fine, but I’m not ready to confront them. I don’t know what I want the end result to look like yet.
Can this go back to how it was before? How do I help them get help (I think they're struggling with retiring and moving and stuff)? I don't want to sweep this under the rug.
TL;DR: I’ve always had a great relationship with my parents. But after I got engaged, things quickly soured. They said some really mean things and acted out of line. They’ve never told me what’s bothering them or that they’re even upset. I feel like I don’t know them at all anymore and it’s hard to imagine a relationship with them.
Submitted January 29, 2019 at 07:25AM by i_exaggerated http://bit.ly/2SftJbp
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