Kimberlyn asked: My FH and I are getting married in October and his mother is driving both of us insane. He’s spoken to her about her behavior but now I’m worried that my relationship with her is screwed up forever.
First of all, she never liked me. She REALLY doesn’t want my FH to marry me. We all live in a very small town and someone that she goes to church with told her a nasty rumor that was not true about a year before my FH and I began dating. On top of that she disapproves of my modeling career, and the fact that I am not a member of her church. I am not even the same religion as she is, and she does not yet know that because my FH and I decided that it would upset her too much to know. She thinks I’m an amoral temptress who has possessed her son’s mind and is controlling him. She has been treating me badly since I first started dating him, but recently she began to soften towards me, that is, until my FH told his parents that he was going to propose to me. Then she had a breakdown and went back to being mean to me.
First she called me up and lectured me about not calling her first, although my work schedule would not permit me to call her at a suitable time, and then she demanded to know what all I planned for the wedding. She spoke over me, interrupted me, and made it sound like it was a huge imposition on my part to even ask her to show up for the wedding. She then offered to pay for and make the groom’s cake, which she had already designed. I told her that whatever she wanted to make was fine, except that the icing on the cake must not be white. At that point she blew up because she wanted to make a red velvet cake with white cream cheese icing. I asked her to put food coloring in the icing, and apparently that is absolutely impossible for her to do, even though I have personally put food coloring in cream cheese icing. Maybe she thinks I don’t know how to cook? So my FH ended up telling her that he wants a yellow cake with chocolate icing just to shut her up. Even though everyone knows that he hates chocolate. I plan to make him some red velvet cupcakes with green cream cheese icing so that he can have red velvet cake. Poor thing.
I asked her two daughters to be my bridesmaids. I love them like sisters already so I want them in my wedding for sure. My MIL said she would pay for the bridesmaid’s dresses back when we thought that we were getting married in a chapel, but then the company my father works for offered to host our wedding and reception, and since my FH and I wanted to save money we changed the location. Then she said that she refused to pay a dime for the bridesmaids dresses because we’re not getting married in her church. My FH and I both decided that we are NOT getting married in her church. My FH secretly hates the place as much as I do, but she thinks that he wants to get married there and I’m keeping him from doing it out of spite. She called up my mother (the two of them were friends years and years ago) and complained about me and lied to her about me and some of the things I’ve said and done. My mom of course knew not to believe her. Thank goodness. So my FH said that he (we) would pay for the bridesmaid’s dresses and accessories himself. So at this point, the only thing that she is paying for is the groom’s cake and the gas to drive to the wedding. That’s it. If I had my way I would pay for those two things too, because I honestly can’t trust her. For all I know she’ll show up with a pink and purple polka-dotted cake.
She’s also tried to organize a shower at the church of satan (jk) and invited a bunch of people I don’t like, and a bunch of people I don’t know. She also complained about how some of these people are not invited to the wedding, and she said that anyone invited to the shower should be invited to the wedding, but space is limited. I only wanted people invited to the wedding to be at the shower also, but she took it upon herself to invite people I don’t know to the shower, and I know she will invite them (informally) to the wedding. So I had to ask my uncles to be “door guards” and now we’re telling everyone that they must have an invitation in order to get into the building. God help me if she prints and mails her own invites. I wouldn’t put it past her.
My FH ended up talking to her and at my request told her to cancel the shower, and not to worry about the bridesmaid’s dresses, that we are paying for them. He is also paying for the attire of his father, who is also going to be his best man. All of the traditional responsibilities of the family of the groom are completely gone. I expected that, but if we are paying for everything then they need to be grateful that we’re inviting them in the first place. A few days ago I almost said, “screw this, we’re eloping” but I knew my family wouldn’t like that… so I decided to go through with it. If we elope then she wins, and I am NOT about to let that happen.
She also called my mom to tell her that she doesn’t believe its God’s will that my FH marry me. She believes that I will cheat on him. She told my mother that. What? I have no history of doing such things in past relationships, and besides that it isn’t any of her business whether or not I turn tricks to pay for a crack habit as long as her son is happy. And he is. Until she starts in on me. Luckily he sticks up for me completely.
She also lied to my mom about how many times she had called me. There was some beef about whether or not I was ignoring her calls and stuff. I wasn’t. She claimed to have called my 4 or 5 times and left more than one voicemail. She called me twice, I answered once. The second time she called I had no service and left one (very long and very rude) voicemail, claiming that she was quite busy but needed to have a “heart-to-heart” with me. We never had a heart-to-heart (which I suspect was really going to be a talk about how she will kill me if I hurt her son and about having the wedding her way) because it was the same night that she lied to my mom about me so I had my FH talk to her and revoke the responsibilities we had trusted her with at first. Which wasn’t a lot, considering how involved other MIL’s have been in the weddings I’ve witnessed.
So after all this, my FH still thinks that his mother and I can be friends. I honestly would love that because I hate tension, and it would make me happy and my life a lot easier, but I think that she and can never understand each other enough to be close. I want to, but she refuses to respect me. If she could be respectful of me and not talk to me like a child or an animal, then I would be happy to talk with her about wedding plans and plans for the future. But she won’t treat me like an adult… so I don’t know what to do now.
I think that she is scared about him making his own decisions. I mean, it does mean that he is grown. And of course she’s known that he’s grown for a long time, but being married and totally different step and I think she’s just realizing that and she’s afraid of the change. I will be his number one priority and I think she’s afraid I’ll hold him back from his dreams or break his heart. I understand why she might be afraid, but that is no excuse for her behavior. If she is afraid then she needs to vocalize that by talking to me or my FH about her fears in an honest way.
Also after the drama with the bad rumor and the modeling I am pretty sure she doesn’t have the greatest opinion of my morals. She doesn’t want my FH dating me, period, and she definitely doesn’t want him marrying me. She doesn’t know anything good about me, and she won’t talk to me about anything so I can’t tell her about my good side. She only knows about the things she thinks are bad, even though my FH tells her good things about me all the time. She just won’t listen.
Now what?
Baby Sleep Tonight
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