today’s email question made my heart hurt when i read it, so of course i’m going to give the best advice i can for laura. and if you’ve been through something similar or want to throw in your two cents in the comment section, please do!
…this is going to be a long long story – thank you for just reading it and you’re brave if you consider answering it. I’m 26 and my boyfriend is 30. We’ve been dating for about 5 ½ years… I’m ready to get married; he’s ready to get married. However, we have a lot of family baggage (and by we I really mean me). When we started dating we’d been friends for a year (co-workers – he was actually my boss but I quit before we started dating). I was in college and he was in grad school. I wasn’t really at the best place in life and wasn’t taking the best care of myself. I was drinking a lot, and wasn’t doing well in my classes. I was really depressed. Brian sort of saved me from it all, and really helped me get my act together.
My parents didn’t really realize how bad I was doing, and they sort of realized right when Brian and I started dating. And ending up blaming him for being a bad influence – which was not the case. I’ve never been really close with either my Mom or Dad. They’re very very strict and conservative – I’m not. I just want to be happy and live a good life.
Within three months of dating we moved in together. And my parents were really upset, because I ‘live in sin’ and we have a two bedroom apartment. Seriously. The insults have just gotten worse from there. Brian and my parents have absolutely no relationship with each other, and have only met once. Lots of hurtful things have been said, and I hate the situation that I’m in. I’m always forced to pick, so of course I pick Brian.
That’s the summed of version of the past five years. Now: I want to get married. How do I handle my family situation? I’m not close to any of my family (we moved away when I was ten). In my mind, my dream wedding is the smallest wedding ever (BTW I’m a wedding photographer) – like all I want is my two best friends (and their spouses) and Brian’s two best friends (and their spouses). So like 10 people or less including us – or I want to elope.
Is that selfish? If I get married and don’t invite my parents I know the situation will only become worse if not ruining our relationship. It would hurt them. But how can I invite someone that’s been so negative and hurtful? Brian’s Mom and brother have always wanted to be sweet to us, but can I invite his Mom and not mine? My relationship has always been a little bit better with my Mom than with my Dad. But they’re married so I can’t invite without the other. Brian doesn’t want to influence my choice; he wants me to decide how to handle my parents. (Also, I tried talking to my Mom once and the conversation didn’t go very well.)
So my options are:
1- invite everyone and hope for the best
2- only invite a few close friends
3- elope
4- never get married and avoid this situation
What should I do? Thoughts?
My answer:
laura, i am so sad for you, your fiance and your family. you sound like a lovely and caring person, it’s tragic that they’ll miss out on sharing your life with you because of stubbornness and a belief system that clearly isn’t working for them.
that being said, a wedding day is about making a lifelong commitment to your partner. it’s a foundation for a marriage and for another family that you’re creating. and having the people around you that love and support you in that is a beautiful thing. my recommendation would be to have the ceremony with just your closest friends, exactly the way you want it. when you tell your families you will have to downplay it all a bit, maybe making it sound like it was a last minute decision to do it that way or telling them that you couldn’t afford to do a big wedding and this was the best way for you to do it without offending extended family.
your families may be hurt, but they have to take a certain amount of ownership of their own feelings. anyone who loves you selflessly would understand that you were doing what’s best for your relationship and creating the foundation for your marriage the best way you saw fit and would support you in it. time will pass and hurt feelings will fade, but you will always have the memory of your wedding day, and i’ve been told by others that have been married for a long time that there are days when that memory alone keeps you going. it’s worth all of the struggle to make it as special as you can for the two of you.
lou and i struggled with the same thing: to have our wedding the way it was expected we have it or follow our hearts and have the wedding we dreamed of. we chose to make it our own, with every bit of it exactly the way we wanted it to be. i could not be happier with our decision {full disclosure: the family that was upset moved on quickly and were able to express happiness and love for us, so we were very fortunate}.
good luck to you laura! whatever you do, let the friends and family that do support you lift you up and surround you in love during this amazing time in your lives, and do your best to focus on that rather than the love and support that is missing. and congratulations to you and brian, wishing you all the best!
* photo by me for birds of a feather
