reclaiming wife

Friends & Relations

Sometimes I think that as a wedding and marriage blog we don't spend enough time talking about divorce. Sometimes I think that if every other post were about divorce, it still wouldn't be enough time. Because marriages ending (and they all end, in death or divorce) is what we're promising to be in for when we say our vows. Because I don't think any of us have any business walking down the aisle, till we've had long, hard talks about divorce. Because so many of our lives were shaped by divorce. So today I'm proud to share a post with you about mourning for the dissolution of parents' marriage, and what we can learn from that.

Last year, my mother asked me to take her wedding albums away. She and my father have been divorced for a handful of years now, and she understandably does not want them around any longer. I have been putting it off for a lot of reasons. Practical considerations abound. And I am not sure I want them, either. But my younger sister, who still lives at home, screamed hell-fire when my mother suggested dumping them. That was perhaps not the most fair reaction to my mother, but I also feel hesitant to have her just throw them out. Because, of course, those photographs are completely loaded with the complicated feelings I have about my parents' divorce and the resulting confusion about the way I feel about marriage in general.

Mentioning this photo predicament in passing to my friends made me feel almost silly. Of course, it isn't that big of a deal on the surface: all the folks pictured are still my family. Whatever may have happened since then, the photos still represent my own beginnings.

But it really isn't about the photos. It’s about not knowing how to move on from all of the things you go through and learn about yourself when your parents get divorced. It is about how you can still get blindsided by the hurt even years later, and it's about how you are not quite sure how to trust in love, and it's about realizing that marriage scares you shitless, now that it's a real possibility. Those photos made me realize there is still something important missing from my healing. It took a while to put my finger on it, but I think that it has something to do with the fact that divorce is so, well... divorced from all of the rest of the way marriage is handled in our society.

At least in my family, marriage is not just about the couple, but about the whole community of people that surrounds them. And so the beginning of that relationship between not just two people, but their whole community, is usually a wedding: a big, ritualistic celebration that allows other people to participate in the creation of a brand new relationship. You invite this whole crowd of people—the families and the introducers and the cheerers on—to help you make a start. They fly in from out of town, and walk you down the aisle, and make the stuff, and buy the gifts, and fight the fights about silly wedding things, and you let them because you want them to be a part of it all.

In stark contrast, a divorce, when it comes down to it, is very exclusively about those two individual people: Two people deciding to break up, two people taking all of these actions to see that decision through, two people going through this ritualistic, legal maze to undo a relationship. The news is broken. The property is divided. The custody schedule is arranged. But other than that, all of the rest of the people affected by the relationship—all of the people who were there at the wedding, who did the introducing, and cheering on, and the kids that were produced—they are just bystanders. Continue reading A Funeral for My Parents’ Wedding

My mom and I have never been very close—we are very different people, and she hasn’t agreed with a lot of the choices I have made. My boyfriend proposed to me recently, and we have had an outpouring of love and support from his family, my extended family, and all of our friends and coworkers. The people that aren’t happy for me? Are my own parents. You see, my parents think I’m “setting myself up for disappointment.”  To make a long story short, my fiancé is twelve years older than me and has a child. (I am 24, my fiancé is 36, and his son is 18. My fiancé had his son his senior year of high school.) I understand that my fiancé does have a lot of “baggage,” so to speak, but I love him dearly and accept his past as a part of him.  He is a good man and a better man for what he has been through, and we want to spend the rest of our lives together and make our own family.  I am an only child and my parents are ultra-conservative, and they basically think that this man is not fit to marry me. 

I am so happy and in love, and the fact that I don’t have my mom’s support detracts from feeling the full joy of the moment.  She specifically said “you still have the chance to say no,” and that thought has never even crossed my mind. Her comment really hurt me, and I know she doesn’t want to help me plan the wedding.

-Hoping Understanding Reigns Triumphant

Dear HURT,

Oh, mamadrama, our old friend. We joke, but it is a very real and painful place to be. HURT, know you're not alone. (Seriously, the comments will blow up on this, guaranteed.) And even though it's hard, you will have to do the only thing you can do—plan your wedding and your future with your partner.

There is one basic truth about parents: You will always be their child no matter how old you get (with some exceptions for total estrangement, granted). The other truth is, they will often be just slightly irrational when it comes to you making your own life decisions. Even the most understanding ones will feel a definite twinge when you do something that they believe is not in your best interest. It happens because parents are human, too.

Fortunately, there is another basic truth—only you know what's best for you. You know the issues and problems that you and your partner are both bringing to the table and you know how much you both can handle. As long as there is no abuse in your relationship, no one else gets to have a say in whether you get married or not. The sucky flipside to that coin is that you also don't get to have a say in whom your mother likes or not. Yes, she must be civilized and polite, but she can not be at peace with your relationship until her dying day if she feels like it. Now, we all hope and pray and wish upon wish for that to not be the case. But realizing that you cannot change her opinion can be a little liberating, too.

You might want think about whether you saw this coming. Has she been supportive up until the point of your engagement, or has there been tension from the beginning? Looking back, could you imagine this kind of reaction, or did you hope that the magical word "wedding" would turn your disapproving mother into a joyful mother of the bride? Meg said it best when she said, “Weddings have a way of bringing ‘the way we wish things were’ into conflict with ‘the way things are.'" And that always hurts, and hurts a lot. But that's just how it is. And maybe knowing that this isn't an out of the blue situation can ease the pain a little.

Talk to your mother if you can, and keep as calm as you can. Let her know that you love her dearly, but you also love your partner and you will be marrying him. End of story. Whatever her reaction, keep planning and keep your mother as in the loop on the process as you want her to be. Hopefully, she will eventually realize that she can hold on to her opinions, or she can support her daughter and join in on the whole wedding planning experience. And while you're talking, definitely talk to your friends and family about the situation and how they can help you. As Meg suggests in her book, "People want to support you, because they know you are dealing with a loss, and because it is your wedding day, damn it. But you need to tell them when you need help, and tell them exactly what you need. People can't guess what your needs are before you figure them out yourself, but you're allowed to tell them how to help, I swear to it."

You cannot control your mother, but you can definitely control your own behavior (which, you know, life advice y'all). Continue reading Ask Team Practical: My Parents Don’t Approve Of My Partner

This morning, we had a post from Erika's mother Nena about getting engaged just before her daughter. Now we have a post from Erika about grappling with her mom's remarriage and learning to find joy in it. But even more than that, Erika got married this weekend. (And Nena's one year anniversary is next weekend, congratulations ladies!) She talks about how she found something to look up to in her mom's new marriage, and how grateful she is for that.

Two Christmases ago, I received a phone call as my then boyfriend (now fiancé!) and I were leaving his parents\' house to go to mine for Christmas Eve dinner. On the phone was my mom's boyfriend, calling to ask for permission to propose to my momma. Of course I said yes! They had been dating for four years at the time, it was the day before Christmas, he made my mom and my family incredibly happy, I liked his kids (whom I had only met a few times), and...I liked him. So with eager anticipation, we waltzed down to my mom's house and waited for it to occur.

On Christmas morning, while he had planted himself perfectly in front of the tree to dole out presents to everyone, we all kept our eyes on a little black box hidden halfway down the tree in the branches. One hour into opening presents, already down on his knees, he took out the box, and asked my mom to marry him. She was so cute—she looked at all of us and said, "Are you ok with this?"  We replied, "Yes, yes, of course we are, he already asked us."  And then we popped champagne as she in turn said yes!

Now, that was the fairytale part—the four years leading up to it weren't so joyful for me.

Still reeling from my parents ending their twenty-two year marriage, my mom began dating a year after the divorce. And while she had been lonely for a long time and was finally ready to begin dating, I wasn't ready for it and I certainly wasn't ready to hear about. It was weird, it was strange, and I felt this little brat of a child bubble up inside of me, semi-determined to shed my unhappiness onto my mother. And how incredibly unfair of me it was. I was terrified. I remember bringing three friends with me to meet him for the first time because I couldn't do it alone. I was still sorting out my relationship with my own father (it's better now) and my heart had no idea how to compute what was happening. I wasn't unpleasant around them all the time, but I sure doled out my share of unhappiness, nastiness, and an e-mail that should have never been sent.

But after attending their wedding last Thanksgiving weekend on a beautiful snowy day in Yosemite, with only our immediate families in attendance, I realized that being one big happy family is so much better than not having him in our lives. So in a way this post is an apology to my mother for being a total sh** at times over the past four years. (I think she even called me that once, and if she didn't, she should have.) But it's also a thank you—for her patience in letting my brain and heart sort it all out, for allowing me the time to talk with her about it even when she was sick of it, and for letting me form my own relationship with him in my own time. Continue reading An Engaged Daughter’s Perspective

A Mother as the Bride

Today you're in for a huge treat. To further our ongoing discussion of family in relationship to weddings, we have a post from a mother and daughter who got married within a year of each other. The first post is from Nena, talking about her engagement and wedding. Then this afternoon, we get a post from Erika, Nena's daughter. (Erika just got married this weekend, so stay tuned for a wedding graduate post.) Hopefully, just like yesterday's post, which made us think about our relationships with our fathers, today's posts will help us unpack the often complicated relationships we have with our mothers. Plus, I hope it will make us each think about finding joy, even when we least expect it.

This past year, our family had two engagements and a wedding to celebrate.  Except that I, the mom, got engaged before the daughter, reversing the usual order of things. As a divorced mother of three daughters, the youngest of whom is a special needs child with a lot of challenges, I was entering the later phases of my life content but not thinking I would ever marry again. I had a job I loved with fantastic colleagues, owned my own home, had found help for the care my youngest daughter required and was watching my oldest two daughters blossom into wonderful, interesting, adventuresome young women. Then, the unexpected came along. One day, a colleague at work asked me if her uncle could email me. My immediate response was absolutely not. I was too afraid to open that door, much less walk through it. But I was also trying to confront my fears and looking ahead to the rest of my life, alone. So, after a week of really thinking about it, I went back to her and said yes. I figured I could block him if it turned out to be too weird. Well, you can probably guess the rest. The first email consisted of a charming story about his oldest daughter, and the thread grew from there. Funny, quick with a comeback, great vignettes, loving, family-oriented—his personality was all there. Then the inevitable question—can we talk? Talking led to meeting, meeting led to dating and dating led to living together. This was over a period of five years, during which our respective children approached the new relationship with varying degrees of emotion—from complete hostility to guarded acceptance.

We talked about marriage—he was gung ho, I was not. But it rarely got past the discussion stage. I was perfectly content to continue our relationship, with dual households, forever. But then gradually my thinking began changing. He was wonderful with all my daughters, especially the youngest one, and brought a joy and lightness to the family that had been missing for a long time. We started entertaining and laughed a lot when we were together, and my friends loved being with him. It felt good. Then over the course of the same five years, my oldest daughter met a man who would eventually become her fiancé, and my middle daughter began dating someone seriously. They both had a fear, borne of the divorce, of relationships not lasting, and there were many long discussions about the "there are no guarantees in love or life" issue. But they slowly took the plunge and committed to making their relationships work. My boyfriend and I continued to grow closer, living like a married couple, but not officially. We actually took the first steps in looking at wedding rings but I honestly thought nothing would change. Then Christmas Day, to my surprise and joy, in the middle of opening presents, he pulled a little black box from the tree, got down on one knee and asked me to marry him.

I looked at my daughters whose eyes beamed with happiness, asking them if it was okay. They said yes, then I said yes, and we all cried together before popping the champagne corks. (Unbeknownst to me, he had called them and asked their permission to marry me. That one thoughtful act almost meant more to me than the actual proposal because he knew that if the kids were not okay with our getting married, it wouldn't work.) Continue reading A Mother as the Bride

During this short week before American Thanksgiving, we decided to explore the topic of family. Specifically, our family of origin and its relationship to the new baby families we make when we get married. Because really, is there a better time to explore this topic than right before the holidays when we all go home and, to quote Submissions Editor Maddie, "Start acting like we're 13 again"? So today we dive in with a super smart, super moving essay from Brytani (who you'll remember from her lovely and simple wedding) about the shifting relationship with the parent we're closest to after the wedding.
Father, Daughter, Baby Family, Letting Go

A couple months before our wedding, I had a mini-breakdown outside of a house that my man and I were considering renting. My sweet partner had looked for everything I asked for and found it in a house that we could afford, but it was old and had a structural strangeness to it that made me anxious about the decision. Our landlord asked us how we liked it—we looked at each other and I rocked back and forth from one foot to the other.

“I need my dad to look at it,” I said, all the words tumbling from my mouth in one breath.

My partner shook his head and tossed up one hand, as if to say, “What are you gonna do?”

Car doors slamming, tears, high-pitched conversation.

“You didn’t tell me what made you nervous about the place,” he said.

“I know, I’m sorry,” I said and meant it. “I just… need my dad on this one. I can’t feel confident until he tells me it’s okay.”

I could read his expression so clearly—the hurt, the frustration. He was screaming at me on the inside, wondering why I hadn’t grown beyond my father. He wanted the total trust, the absolute certainty that I gave my dad to be transferred to him all at once, and I just couldn’t do it.

On our wedding day, our photographers paid special attention to moments between my dad and me. At one point I was asked if we were very close, and between thoughts of how awkward it would be to answer if we weren’t, my dad and I nodded with big smiles. Yes, we each had the same favorite episodes of Star Trek. Yes, we always played co-op video games together. Yes, we took naps at the same time on Sundays. We were close. On that day, I was particular about where I wanted him and what his duties would be because above everyone but my husband, I needed him most to get me through. At one point when we were being mobbed by family with cameras, panic rushed over me and my eyes glazed over. The way Dad’s eyes were misty all day, the way everyone wanted pictures of us together, all the father-daughter rituals… was this going to be The Last Time? Were things going to be different somehow now? I swallowed down the feelings and summoned my inner wells of wisdom and calm.

I told myself to ignore that prickly, gut warning and be rational. Marriage wouldn’t change our relationship. So when I visited my parents’ house and he went out of his way to make me comfortable or made a fuss over making sure my tea was made correctly, I freaked out a little. My mom tried to reassure me that he would be okay and that he would get used to “it.” I wanted to grab and shake her. What fucking “it” woman?!

See, no one told me this (or maybe someone did and I just denied it) but marriage does change the way you’re expected to deal with your father. By some definition that was definitely not of my choosing, I was someone else’s girl now. I wanted to be my husband’s wife, sure, but never at the expense of being my dad’s daughter. I learned from context clues that I wasn’t expected to need my dad anymore. He was to be labeled “auxiliary” now—a fallback. Marriage made my husband expect to be my first call when things broke. It made him expect to be my primary source of knowledge and comfort on… well, everything that I didn’t know or felt anxious about. I didn’t prepare myself for that.

Continue reading Reclaiming Wife: The Never-Ending Dad

The relationship between my mom and my uncle has been on the rocks for some time, but right around the time of our engagement things were looking up. They had reconciled and our family was feeling a bit more whole for the first time in a while. My uncle and I have always been close, and one of the first decisions my fiancé and I made was to have him sing one of his original songs (he plays acoustic guitar and sings) as our first dance. Fast forward to almost a year and a half later, and some crappy actions on the part of both my mom and my uncle have left them not-so-much on speaking terms. It's pretty messy and raw between them at the moment, and since our wedding is only a few months away, I don't see it getting better any time soon. It's gotten to the point where my uncle has suggested that maybe it would be better if he just didn't come at all (which I kind of told him wasn't an option). I don't worry about them causing drama at the wedding, but I do worry that giving my uncle a special job at the wedding will upset my mother and cause her to have a bad time at the wedding. At the same time, I don't want to revoke the request to have him sing at our wedding and then regret it if/when they reconcile in the future. Am I being selfish for wanting to bestow wedding honors on both of them, ignoring the fact that they kind of hate each other right now?

Sincerely,

Stressed About YoYo-ing Uncle Not Crooning Like Expected

SAYUNCLE,

Your letter has a few hundred readers putting down their coffees and leaning closer to their screens right now. I hate it, but this situation happens more than it should and is awful for everyone involved. The best thing you can do is to navigate carefully; protect yourself and make sure that your wedding isn't being used as a chance for one family member to get back at another.

Whether it's warring parents, close family members or distant cousins, wedding tend to bring out the RAWR in relatives. One of the worst things you can say to someone is, "Well if ______ is going to be there, I'm not coming." Really? Because what you're really saying is that you can't be grown-up enough to behave yourself for six hours and think about someone other than yourself and your feuds. Unless there is criminal activity or severe emotional distress involved with a family member warranting the other person's absence, manipulating a bride or groom to choose is just plain childish and mean.

Which doesn't mean that it never occurs, nor does that mean that it'll resolve itself on its own. SAYUNCLE, your uncle is doing a very nice and noble thing for you, but in the long run it doesn't help anyone. You want him there and it sounds like you need him there—you're close and it would hurt you if he wasn't at your wedding. If he doesn't come to your wedding, two things can happen. If he's being vindictive, he gets to be the martyr in the situation and bring his bowing out of your wedding up in future fights with your mother. If he's actually trying to help, he's hurting himself by not being present in an important milestone in your life. A few things can also happen if your mom finds out he's removing himself: she can feel guilty about it and try to mend fences, she can feel guilty about it and resentful of your uncle for making her feel that way, or she can not feel guilty about it but become even more angry at your uncle for making you sad with his absence.  Or all of these feelings and reactions could occur at once because we humans are a tricky little bunch with our multiple motives and feelings and whatnot.

What you need to decide is what's best for you. If you need your uncle there, tell him you appreciate his gesture but you're rejecting it and he needs to start tuning up that guitar. He might protest or use this as an excuse to get some mom-bashing in, but steer the conversation back to your wedding and how much you need him there.  Reassure him that everything will be fine and make him promise he'll be on his best behavior. And don't let it turn into a "I will if she will," conversation. His actions are independent of hers and retaliation will only hurt you the most.  (Does this sound like you're talking to a child? Hmmm... family. Do all of this respectfully, but firmly. Their behavior may seem childish, but your relatives still deserve the respect they've earned from you.) Continue reading Ask Team Practical: Choosing Between Relatives