agonyaunt | (no subject)

DEAR ABBY: I am currently living with my fiancee, Josie. That we are a same-sex couple was hard for our families to come to terms with. (Mainly Josie's mother.)

We are now planning a small courthouse wedding with a family dinner to follow a week later. We have made this clear to family and close friends, and nobody has taken issue with it. However, Josie's mother thinks it isn't right that we are inviting only parents to the ceremony and not siblings (Josie has one; I have three). She also called Josie crying because Josie and I went dress shopping on our own (spontaneously).

My mother is perfectly happy with all of our decisions and supportive with whatever we decide. How can we get my fiancee's mother to be more supportive? -- WEDDING DRAMA IN PENNSYLVANIA

DEAR WEDDING DRAMA: It might be helpful to recognize that while your family is more accepting, Josie's mother appears to be struggling on a couple of fronts. As many mothers do, she may have fantasized about a church wedding, helping her daughter select her bridal gown, and having a son-in-law. In a sense, she is grieving the death of her fantasy. Frankly, I feel sorry for the woman. With time, I am sure she will become more accepting and supportive.

You and Josie are about to embark on your lives together. Let your happiness be the beacon that guides her mother to acceptance, although it may not happen as quickly as you would wish.

https://www.arcamax.com/healthandspirit/lifeadvice/dearabby/s-2386029

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[rant about weddings deleted]

I ... actually don't hate this advice? Though I wish Abby had been more explicit that this is not LW & Josie's problem to fix, in all senses of the term. "Let your happiness be the beacon that guides her mother to acceptance" was a cute way to hint at that, though.

Yeah, I don't disagree, I just wish she'd been direct instead of hinty.

Same. And also, putting her sympathy with Josie's mother and not the LW is just ... such an Abby thing to do, and as many dear abby things it's making me pufferfish.

My expectations are sadly low, but I wasn't surprised Abby said that. I probably should be disappointed, but well, it's Abby. I'm just glad no one was told to stay with an abusive spouse this time.

Snark aside, what I was thinking was this: Sometimes people have Ideas about how their child will grow up, which they are encouraged by society to call 'Dreams' as if this were about their life and not their child's life. Some people's Ideas are ... heteronormative and stereotypical, to say the least, and they then Mourn These Dead Dreams when their child turns out differently. I think that instead of encouraging people to have these Ideas and to calcify them in their minds, people should be encouraged to remember that children are their Own People and their lives will be whatever they will be. But I'd be shocked and delighted if Abby suggested *that*, or even seemed to conceptualize it.

edited for a bit of clarity

Edited 2020-07-24 22:10 (UTC)

This isn't bad advice, per se, but I would've been a bit blunter. As in:

You can't make this woman be more supportive. Her feelings are not your responsibility to fix, which is good, because you can't. And honestly, you not only shouldn't try, but I'd wager that your efforts are making this worse. For example, the proper people to complain about adult or older teen siblings not being invited to your wedding are those same siblings - not their mom, and especially not if they haven't made any objections themselves.

I'm also stuck on the fact that she called her daughter to cry about not being invited dress shopping with you two. The appropriate person to cry to after the fact was... god, I don't know, her husband? Her therapist? Literally anybody else? It's not her feelings that are the problem here, it's her behavior. People get weird around weddings, but if this is a pattern in other areas you need to figure out now that you can't fix her and need to stop trying.

Frankly, I feel sorry for the woman.

Excuse me? Pray, say again?

YEP THAT MADE ME WANT TO PUNCH HER. IN THE BOOB.

My analysis upthread aside, it's definitely boobpunch worthy.

I don't think I understand what not inviting the siblings has to do with LW being gay. It seems like two separate issues. I don't see how Josie's mother is being unsupportive here either (With the exception of crying to Josie about the dress shopping - that should not have happened.) She seems keen to attend the wedding, wants to go dress shopping etc. Am I misunderstanding something here?

Interestingly, in my experience, being conservative about the shape the wedding takes is often the tip of the homophobia iceberg. Mothers like this one think their daughters ought to be a certain way (straight!), and that they (as mother) should play a certain (front-seat) role and (for example) get a say in the guest list because ‘family’ and ‘tradition’. Their daughter’s spouse-to-be is expected not to be very interested, and to let the wedding be a mother-daughter thing. So yeah, I don’t think they’re two different things at all.

I was thinking along the lines of, well she isn't boycotting the wedding or insisting that there be a big wedding with a big reception and insisting that all her friends and their families be invited. I guess I can see how controlling the guest list can be the tip of a homophobic iceberg though.

The way I read the letter, Josie's mother has been a homophobic jerk to her daughter in the past, has grudgingly accepted that this is happening and she can't stop it, and now is trying to exert control over the situation as Mother Of The Bride (and bring it back to familiar territory, because it still freaks her out that her daughter made her own life choices and didn't listen to mother-who-knew-best).

So LW and Josie are looking for a way to say "It's great that you now treat us as a Real Couple who are Really Getting Married, we want to encourage that, but also you do not get to plan the wedding or have veto power over what we do, please back off."

I'm extrapolating somewhat from a sparse letter, but the sudden switch-flipping from active opposition to overinvolvement/takeover is a familiar dynamic, and I think that's what's happening here.

I think more than, "[letting their] happiness be the beacon that guides [Josie's] mother to acceptance," LW and Josie can do some work together on being OK with other people being upset about their choices.

Because that's the only thing they can control.

I'm lucky to have an accepting/embracing mother and be marrying into an accepting/embracing family--but just hearing about families who find it "hard" to "come to terms" with their childrens' queerness makes me see absolute red. Because their homophobia is not their loved ones' problem.

Further, moms who started out being homophobic and then came around, or one who's straight up homophobic anyway, need to STFU about not being included in their children's wedding and prewedding activities in the manner of their choice. They're lucky to be invited at all. If they're upset about not being taken dress shopping, or not getting to help plan the ceremony, oh fucking well there are consequences for your actions, Brenda, get over it.

for the sake of my own peace of mind, I am going to assume there was something in the unpublished part of the letter that led Abby to believe that this family was Christian: " she may have fantasized about a church wedding".

What? You expect us to be included when no one's got a worldwide conspiracy theory to pin on the usual suspects?

THERE IS A PANDEMIC ON. Events with guests are such a bad bad bad idea. A legal wedding is legally useful and I can see why you'd want to go ahead, but keeping the number of people to the absolute minimum necessary is the safest option. Maybe throw a party next year.

The shape your wedding takes is, ultimately, your (and your intended's) choice. Not your mother's, or her mother's, or anyone else's. YOURS (as a couple). Entitled busy bodies should buzz off and take their feels to their therapist/spouse/friends and not dump them on you.

Oh dear lord yes. There was an article this past weekend about people who had a pandemic wedding in an SF Catholic church, and news flash, people got infected/sick. Extra crap should be flung at the parish for allowing this to happen.