2016 and beyond wedding moms and dads (Part 1)

Parent Cafe
3401

It is disturbing to see how this future MIL is such a master manipulator, and shameless too. It will be hard to create limits for her unless you and your future H present a united front. If he doesn’t seem willing to fight when necessary, you should both consider moving very far away!

I can see him wanting to make sure the whole family is there, and being willing to pay for part of it. I wouldn’t expect to see a penny from his parents though, which is just curious considering the occasion. Stick with your venue and just don’t consult them on other decisions. The less sharing the better!

I keep learning about how you don’t volunteer any extra information to anyone who is not 100% on your side. Imagine you’re in a courtroom and trying to not incriminate yourself, lol. For all that’s holy do NOT invite this woman when you look for dresses!

3402

I think to some extent the grooms family is playing poker. They probably can’t afford this wedding but have determined that the brides family is rich and they won’t have to pay. But they don’t want to give the impression to the community that they aren’t paying, therefore such a fuss over the venue.

I’d like to think that @oldfort way could work, I’m paying and you get this amount of guests. But these parents aren’t going for it. They are playing for broke. They so don’t want to lose face that they are willing to let their son pick up their portion. Now the son sounds like he has a good job and can pay. But at what price, to acquiesce to his parents? It’s a devils bargain.

3403

We wont hear back from Rebbecar until tomorrow night.

3404

bookworm, I am on your team. That said in 3392 she said that she will be unhappy to give up the things that she has wanted and expected over her lifetime. So basically they have her in a position that to stop the nonsense she loses
her own dream.

H and I cancelled our plans as I realized that my own mother would make everything miserable and that the place we
were living had nothing to offer as far as a nice venue and so on. (town of 5,000 and failing).
We went off to New Zealand to be married by H’s family minister on a sabbatical. This man completely controlled our wedding. We were to be married on a Monday at noon and the 5 of us were to go for a brunch and that was truly what I wanted. We were married on a Tuesday and had 100 at our wedding and I hated everything.

No good memories at all and over the years, esp. as D is about to be married, I realize how horrid this man behaved. Also, a little resentment towards his lovely wife( who two D’s had married and had what they wanted) and my MIL as neither of them supported me.
And then a bit for H as he allowed this to go on when I was so unhappy. He tried so hard to keep the peace.
At least your fiancé is talking and trying but the two of you need to stand as one right now because this stuff does go away–period.

3405

Rebeccar, I agree with everything that has been said here. But, I will go once step further and address the elephant in the room. Your future in-laws are and have been disrespectful to both you and your parents. Your fiancé is straddling a fence trying to please both you and his parents. This is a huge red flag and should be considered seriously before you marry. Please refer to powercropper’s comments a few days ago. She said it best.

3406

Many get stars in their eyes, when it comes to their own weddings. We like to think romance conquers all.

I think if they said, look, we want 200+ on our side and will pay $150pp x the extra 75, you’d just have to decide how you feel about that many guests and the imbalance between the number from your side versus his.

3407

Receccar- I really feel for you. You are in love and want to get married. You think that you can make some changes and then things will be ok. Think long and hard before marrying into this family. Put all plans on hold (announce that formally to both families so they know you are serious) and take a nice girls weekend with a friend somewhere. Go out, have brunch, see a show or whatever. Take note of what it feels like to be free of all of this commotion. How do you want to live the rest of your life? At peace or in turmoil? Choosing a spouse if the most critical decision of your life for so many reasons. If we can all see trouble ahead then maybe you should take a step back and rethink things. Ten years down the road you don’t want to look back and remember that all of the clues where already there for a tumultuous relationship and heartache.

3408

Marriage is about compromise. Go with the venue you want, and the extra guests they want, and let future H pay for them. Maybe they will ‘cover their plate’ ( never heard of that until CC) and it will be a wash.

3409

Of course, we all bring our own experiences to reading Rebecca’s posts. I don’t see this as a situation possible for compromise, but one where the future in-laws are very rudely insisting on having things their way. Rebecca has said there had been other earlier unpleasantness having nothing to do with the wedding, if I understood correctly. Nothing I have read suggests to me they have their son’s best interests at heart, let along Rebecca’s. And I absolutely agree they have seriously disrespected Rebecca’s parents. Of course, I’m only reading one side and my reaction is seriously impacted by having had a similar MIL. The only way my marriage worked is that my husband was polite but distant to his mother. He had given up trying to please her long before we met. He told me to just ignore her. That was impossible, but I wasn’t in a power struggle with her over him. fwiw

3410

@rebeccar I am sad that your fiancé caved to his parents so quickly. Very glad you picked the venue that you wanted, and not the venue his parents wanted.

You mentioned not wanting to lose the wedding of your dreams. But do you really think that this is the end of his parents meddling? They will continue to suck the life out of your dream wedding every chance they get. The band you pick, the flowers you choose, the color scheme, number in bridal party, they will all be awful choices and will be heckled throughout his side of the family. And they will be as vocal as they can with you, too, so at least limit your contact with them.

Your vision of a lovely wedding day focused on you and your groom is not going to happen. You will be holding your breath and waiting for them to behave either passive aggressive or outright shockingly as they both put down your choices and at the same time pretend to your guests that they are the hosts.

Will you plan to allow them to give a speech, or even a toast? And if not, what will you do if they commandeer a microphone on their own?

I highly urge you to wait for payment from his parents before issuing invitations to anyone on his side of the family. Have fiancé ask for payment now.

Have you been to counseling with your fiancé? You need a third party to talk through how fiancé is going to stand up to parents and protect his wife. You need to agree ahead of time on things like how you will divide up your vacation time between families, where will you spend major holidays, and how will you hande individual “demands” that you simply must be in attendance for Uncle Bob’s birthday party.

The fact that his parents feel so free to disparage you should be a red flag to you. If you are not in counseling getting your fiancé strengthened to do the hard work of breaking away from his family and joining you in solidarity against them, there is not much hope for your future life together.

If your fiancé doesn’t embrace the tools and methods of the counselor, you will end up with a spouse who tries to agree with you on how to handle his parents but will, instead, cave to his parents and disappoint you.

It is natural to be influenced by the parents who raised you. To go against your parents’ wishes takes great strength of character. And the challenges will continue throughout your marriage, so the foundation between you and your fiancé must be deep to survive. Because your in laws will switch to driving a wedge between the two of you. They will be clever, and will use subtle tactics that build over time. Comments made to you out of earshot of your spouse will be denied, setting your spouse up for a power struggle on who to believe.

What if his parents insist you must include a particular person as a bridesmaid or groomsman? What if they insist on adding something to the ceremony (not familiar with Jewish/Persian culture) that you and fiancé have decided against? So many opportunities to push their agenda. Worst case scenario is that your parents and your fiancé shell out major bucks for an event that does not meet your wedding dream expectations. Disappointment is highly likely no matter what you do.

To recap, get fiancé to ask for their money payment now. Find a counselor and set up a series of appointments (one session is not enough) and lower your expectations for your special day. With your inlaws in the picture, you should expect some passive aggressive behavior, and some unkind remarks. Only you can choose to ignore them and focus on your fiancé in your wedding day.

3411

@rebeccar

It sounds like you are trying to reach a compromise.

But it also sounds like this is turning into the wedding of your future inlaws dreams…not yours.

3412

This is so true. Your best bet is to simply not include them in any of the other decision making from now on. They really shouldn’t care about the band and the flowers anyway (although they will have an opinion). Don’t volunteer any information!

Practice saying, “don’t worry, future H and I have that covered”. Sometimes if you repeat the same thing to someone 3x in in the same minute they might get a clue. Might.

Also, you should consider getting a wedding planner. They can be a bit of a wall between you and the in-laws. “don’t worry, we are speaking to the wedding planner about that.” Repeat as often as necessary. The wedding planner might even have some experience with difficult family situations and offer to go to bat for you, even speaking with your future MIL.

The venue will likely have a “day of” coordinator but I would suggest an overall wedding planner too. Get as many people on your team as you can and have them all in the loop to strategize about this situation. Good luck!

3413

@rebeccar, if I understand things correctly, you and your future husband are both Jewish, and the Jewish religion and culture play important roles in both of your lives.

But he’s a Persian Jew, and you are not, right?

Initially, I didn’t think this was a big deal. But I’ve read a little about Persian Jews now, and maybe I was wrong. If I understand correctly, they tend to live as a separate community, not as part of a larger Jewish community, and they mostly live only in two places – Long Island and Los Angeles.

So I’m beginning to think that what you’re dealing with here is an intermarriage of sorts – even though you’re both Jewish. And intermarriages have special challenges, both in terms of the wedding and in terms of your life afterward. With your future in-laws’ demanding and rather obnoxious way of doing things, the challenges may be even greater for you than they are for other people embarking on an intermarriage.

I wonder whether it would be worthwhile to get some counseling – or informal advice – from someone who’s familiar with marriages between Persian and non-Persian Jews. Perhaps, if you grew up on Long Island, your rabbi would be a good source of help – or maybe would know of someone else who could help. I think you may need someone to point out Persian Jewish expectations (which your future husband many know of but may not think about because to him they’re simply normal) and how they differ from the expectations of the larger Jewish community (which you may know of but may not think about because to you they’re simply normal).

For example, one issue that might come up in counseling is what the two of you would do if one of you had an opportunity at an outstanding job in a place other than Los Angeles or the New York City area (say, for example, in the Washington, DC area, which has a substantial but non-Persian Jewish community). What would the two of you do in that situation? How would his family react, and how does he feel about that? How would you feel if his family or his heritage meant that you wouldn’t move?

Another issue that may come up is how you would educate your children. Do expectations differ?

I know that right now you’re concerned with the wedding. But a wedding is one day (preceded by a year of planning). Your marriage is a much larger commitment,

3414

What if they go ahead and invite even more? Mrs X who won’t be away, after all, and she, her husband, 5 kids, their spouses, SOs, or recent dates, can come? Or Mr Y’s SIL’s parents because, hey, *they * want to come and are willing to fly in? This isn’t as simple as limiting the paper invitations. They could run into someone and do it verbally.

They need to respect.

What keeps popping into my head is, “Therefore shall a man…cleave unto his wife.” It’s nice you want them to be happy, but they’re telling your parents what to do. You may be just as happy to have a big blowout, but watch how they’re trying to control. Just because you knew he “has a big family” doesn’t mean you and your parents get to throw them the party of their dreams.

3415

@Marian has a point there; this is like an intermarriage of sorts. Two stories, but not a lot of advice; just wanted to share. A good friend’s daughter, a member of a conservative synagogue, was engaged to a man from an Orthodox family; he himself was not so observant. His family has very little to do with their son, and while he married into a lovely family, I know he misses his owe family.

My daughter, also a conservative Jew, is now married to a British man who while raised in the Church of England, has not been evolved with the church since he left his parents home. He and my daughter have plans to raise any future children Jewish and live a Jewish life. While wedding planning, my daughter planned a traditional Jewish wedding and tried to keep her MIL informed along the way, even when it was stressful. Her inlaws never had any contact with Jewish people in England, so you can imagine how foreign everything was to them. My daughter spent many nights in tears when her MIL would make demands in a very quiet manner. My SIL did not want to make waves, but eventually put on his big boy pants and told his parents how the wedding was going to be. Unfortunately, this happened at my son’s wedding, which was 11 months before my daughter’s. We included them as we thought if would be nice for them to meet the family, see what a Jewish wedding was like (my son also married out side the faith), and spend some time with us. Mom had a bit too much to drink and started in on my SIL about throwing away his religion, moving to the US (something they have not made plans to do at this time) among other things. My daughter was trying so hard to let her MIL have a voice, but it brought my daughter to tears at times. When she would run it by me, I felt some of the MIL requests were valid, or possible, others were just not in line with the wishes of the bride and groom. If I felt the request was reasonable, I asked my daughter if this was the hill she wanted to die on? Was it worth the fight? She was able to give in on some, and put her foot down on others. She finds her inlaws as odd, I happen to like them! Of course they are different than they are; we are southern Jews, they are Brits; although my daughter says even her British friends think they are odd!

I do think you and your fiance need to have some counseling with the Rabbi as this is more than the wedding. Get the air cleared and figure out what you both want, and how you will handle issues in the long run; not just in wedding planning. You do not want this to be a life long problem, and it sounds to me that his parents will always have the upper hand.

3416

If there is no room for compromise then both parties are being stubborn

Rebeccar - if you are a people pleaser, learn now that it’s impossible to please everyone all the time and it’s ok to get your way now and again.

3417

I see Mr. Rebeccar as the mature one here. It’s important to his wife to use her venue so he agreed, it’s important to his family to have extra people, so he offered to pay. It’s Tebeccar who is asking – why do we have to spend his (ours) money on the wedding (despite both having good jobs?)

Why shouldn’t they help pay for the wedding? And I know all about moth in laws

3418

My H comes from a very big family and here has been a lot of drama over the fact that our S’s wedding will, from a family perspective, be immediate family only. My H’s 4 siblings(all divorced or separated) and their children (plus one fiance), his mother and his aunt and uncle. There are many, many more cousins/relatives and persons my MIL considers 'essential" because she had been invited to all their affairs, including for her friends children and grandchildren. None are being invited and this has caused many hours of drama for my H in dealing with his mother. My MIL can’t seem to understand that this is not our wedding, and even if we were paying for it, which we’re not, a cast of thousands, many of whom my S does not even know, is not what they want. We are Jewish (not Persian) but I know the scenario and I worry that the people who will get lost in @rebeccar’s situation is Rebecca and her fiancé. And I agree wholeheartedly with @Marian - this is about the wedding, yes, but it is also a peek into the family dynamic for years to come and that may be even more of problematic.

3419

After reading some of these posts, I think D1 is quite lucky with her future in-laws. They are not giving too many inputs, except for number of people they want at the wedding. The MIL is also planning their daughter’s wedding (2 months after D1 & their son), so maybe she understands challenges of planning a wedding.

When we were young, we thought marriage was between 2 people and as long as they loved each other then everything should work out. In reality, people’s families & friends play very big roles in their marriages, especially in-laws. Whenever my girls visit their BF’s home for the first time, I always ask how are the BF’s parents with them. At the same time, I try to remind myself to give my kids and their SOs space. It is about them, not about me.

3420

Yes, I feel lucky too. Barely a peep out of D’s future in-laws.

OTOH, I want to be sure they are content at least.