In my experience, parents of men are often particularly bad judges of who is leading whom around by (the whatever), when it comes to evaluating their son’s relationships. I’ve seen it more times than I can count – when the parents claim their poor boy is “whipped,” the guy actually is doing whatever the hell he wants and treating his poor wife / girlfriend like crap.
I think I am the only one on this thread who thinks OP shouldn’t encourage/enable this kind of behavior. It has nothing to do with whom he wants to be engaged to, but has everything to how he is behaving. Kind of like when our kids chose to scream and throw a tantrum when he didn’t get what he wanted. Did you try to do whatever you had to do to calm him down, or did you quietly say to him, “when you have calmed down and can speak in a nice way then we can talk.” No different here. Doesn’t matter why the son decided to tell his parents he is engaged via FB (could be his mom was being extremely judgmental)), but at the end of day it was immature and passive aggressive. Therefore I wouldn’t dignify it with a response or reaction.
The problem with treating a Facebook announcement as a temper tantrum, when kids that age use it as a primary form of communication is that talking about it when they’ve “calmed down” or refusing to acknowledge it at all, could lead to a very long wait. I know kids in their 20’s or even early 30’s who have made announcements via FB-about pregnancies, marriage, etc. A very dear friend from HS announced her twin sister’s death via FB and because of that, her old friends were able to contact each other and make plans to get to the funeral.
I don’t know this kid, his mother, or the GF. But rather than assume HE is being passive aggressive and acting petulant in return is hardly going to make things more pleasant between them. It can only help if the mother is just THERE for the kid, listens to what he says, and offers support if he indicates he needs it. There is very, very little that could cause me to act as though my kid(s) didn’t deserve my input/response.
He’s not a kid anymore, and treating him like one won’t work very well. This isn’t a tantrum; it’s his life.
I think that announcing the engagement on facebook was immature and thoughtless, but not a “fU” bullet aimed at the OP. They are young and they were not thinking about how other people would take it.
If I were the OP, I’d probably just wait until he told me. Then I’d say, cool, congrats. And literally, that’s it. It’s only as much drama as you choose to make it. You can be completely miserable and torn up inside that your son is marrying a stupid floozie way too young, but on the outside, you’re calm as a cucumber. Because if you stay calm and cool, things have a way of working themselves out for the best.
You can’t make this better-you can’t give your son a “talking to” like he’s had a temper tantrum. You can only choose how you want to be in this situation. You’re not “enabling” him to do anything if he’s an independent adult, and you’re not “encouraging” him by behaving in a way you will look back on and be proud of.
I know several adult men who are very happy to let their wives/girlfriends run the show, and are probably better off for it.
I go round and round on this one. Part of me agrees with Oldfort and thinks- hey he didn’t tell me so I will ignore it.
But part of me thinks the son knows the parents will be unhappy, so he is avoiding a confrontation.
Due to their history, I am not sure the OP can pull off a verbal ‘congratulations’ so maybe a comment of Congratulations with champagne bottle emoji on both of their FB is middle ground.
Then wait and see if son brings it up at the weekend gathering.
I have kids in their 20s, and they would know better not to announce their engagements on FB and not say something to me next time they see me. The fact the son didn’t and couldn’t tell his mom says volume, and I am not sure if it is all OP’s issue. I used the tantrum example to illustrate how we interact with our kids, whether they are 2 or 20, sends the message of what is an acceptable behavior.
For some families it may be acceptable to use social media to announcement major events in life, but it is not the case for all. Clearly OP doesn’t think it is ok.
Yes, the son knew his parents wouldn’t be pleased, but as an adult own it, be a man to tell his parents. Now, if OP and her husband were to be unpleasant and rude when the son told them then it is a different story and I would take a different stand.
I think it bears repeating that son mentioned getting engaged to OP several times before the FB post. Good chance her response to his comments resulted in the announcement being by FB in the end.
Did I miss where the son had repeatedly say he was getting engaged?
Ok, I just saw this:
What did OP say? D1 said to me she was thinking about getting married to her fiancé 5 years ago, but I didn’t really take her seriously until recently. They actually did break up few years ago and got back together.
Given the son’s statements about wanting to marry his partner, it’s even possible that he believes that he did give his family advance notice before announcing the engagement on Facebook. If somebody scolds him for his behavior, he might be puzzled by what the fuss is about.
Jumping late into the fray…
The son would be stupid if he assumed his mother didn’t know about the engagement. He posted it on Facebook. He and his mother are Facebook friends. He either doesn’t care what mom thinks or he’s engaging in passive aggressive games. But, this is about much more than the engagement. The avoidance of dealing with each other directly speaks to other examples of issues. There are broken lines of communication in this family and the son is well aware of the family’s disapproval of his lifestyle.
There are worse things than getting married young. In the event it doesn’t work out, there are worse things than getting divorced.
Fix the lines of communication and supportive behavior with or without an engagement.
At the end of the day, the mother is here, not the son. The important thing is what she can do to make things better, and (IMO) surprisingly that has very little to do with his motivation in announcing on Facebook.
How communicative is your son? I think sometimes people don’t see weddings as very important, and maybe that’s why he didn’t feel like he had to tell you. And some people are just not very good at communicating. I recently went to a wedding where no one really told me I was a groomsman.
The mom feels hurt because, from her vantage point, he told the world before he told her directly. That reaction on her part is completely understandable. We don’t know his reasons for doing so.
IMO any sort of behavior going forward that even hints at being snarky should be avoided. OP should either: 1) simply congratulate the couple; or, 2) wait for the couple to tell her when they are ready.
Just two observations: Facebook status sometimes overstates the situation, so “engaged” may not actually mean that they are ready to set a wedding date. And comments made on Facebook are far too often resposible for needless conflict in families. I’ve seen it in my own.
We had the family get together today, S and GF were there, S announced that they were “making their engagement official.” GF announced that no one was pregnant. They don’t plan to get married until spring of 2018, “probably on a Thursday because it’s cheaper.”
Do bring it up with him but don’t take it to heart. My young cousin posted that she is married to some girl, my homophobic aunt who isn’t her FB friend but peeks at her public posts anyways, had something similar to a mild heart attack. When she called my cousin, my cousin had a mild heart attack calibure laugh attack because it was just a prank.
Let’s say if he is indeed “engaged”, probably it’s not official level commitment where one involves parents and sets a wedding date but just show of relative seriousness with each other.
Things aren’t what they used to be. New generations are very diffrent than us oldies.
Is there a problem with this? If not, why add the information and put it in quotes as if there’s something wrong with it? You seem to be continuing looking for ways to disapprove of the wedding and they will continue to pick up on your disapproval.
I took the ‘probably on a Thursday’ as a witty way to show these are kids and haven’t done a lot of planning. Really, is OP supposed to keep all 52 Thursdays in 2018 open?
I’d take it with a big sigh of relief that they are planning a 2 year engagement.
I was actually quite relieved at the timeline and the perceived need to economize. I put quotes because I was literally quoting it.
I just took it as a direct quote of what one of them said. If they’re planning simple, they don’t need a year to book a date.
The typical cost of even a smallish low key wedding these days is pretty ridiculous. I say good for them for being savvy shoppers and planning a Thursday wedding ( it’s a lot easier to book a caterer for a Thursday, too! So they probably won’t need to set the date way in advance.). OP, I’m glad the Labor Day party went well and I hope that you are able to forge a positive relationship with his future spouse if they do follow through with their plans. My in laws never really accepted me, ( I was Catholic, he was Jewish) and that was no fun. LIfe is way too short and family bonds are too precious for that kind of nonsense. Best wishes to you.