Carolyn Hax: Father of the bride barks ultimatums from the doghouse

[conuly]

Hi, Carolyn: After a long marriage, the last dozen years of which lacked any true partnership, my ex-wife and I divorced two years ago. Although we had lived apart for years, the divorce was surprisingly acrimonious. I'm not sure what my ex-wife told everyone, but my adult children wouldn't talk to me for months, my brothers have never invited me for holidays — but invited my ex-wife and her boyfriend — and friends of 40 years have completely cut off contact without telling me why or hearing "my side."

I've reestablished relationships with my adult children, but they still treat me as if I'm to blame for the divorce and spend significantly more time with their mother than with me.

My daughter will marry next summer. I'm happy for her. While my daughter would like me to walk her down the aisle, I have not been included in any of the planning. I asked what their expectations were for financing the wedding, and my daughter said it would be nice if I contributed.

I also asked about the guest list, and mentioned that I would find it very hurtful and awkward if three couples — former longtime friends of mine who have treated me exceptionally poorly — are invited and attend. I asked her not to invite them.

I have learned that she has invited them. Any suggestions on how to handle this situation? I don't think I can pay for this, go, and grin and bear it.

— Anonymous

Anonymous: I could have done a lot more to help you if you had asked me before you put in your special guest-list request.

I understand that you’re in the doghouse; that, whether you were sent there fairly or not, you were utterly blindsided by it; that you’re doing your best just to take your banishment bravely and carry on. I hear you.

But no matter the specifics of how you got there: When you’re in the doghouse, you don’t order room service.

That’s basically what you did when you tried to tell your daughter whom to cross off her guest list.

Again, it could be entirely unfair that people turned on you, and your ex-wife may well have fabricated horrible things to turn everybody against you. But the fact remains that your relationship with your daughter is — quite clearly, yes? — precarious enough that she could be one bad conversation away from changing her mind on including you at all.

So this was not the time to make demands of her, of any degree of validity. Your role was to decide you could, in good conscience, play the role your daughter asked you to play — or decide you couldn’t. Period. No substitutions.

That’s still your role, actually. But you complicated it by making a demand before thinking through how you’d respond if it was denied. Before, your choice was either to suck it up and deal with whomever the bride put on the guest list, or boycott at the risk of losing your daughter (again). Now your choice is to go with the full knowledge that your daughter included people you asked her not to, or boycott at the risk of losing your daughter (again). The same choice, only harder.

Before I go — aren’t your brothers the ones to ask why people sided against you?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/advice/carolyn-hax-father-of-the-bride-barks-up-the-wrong-tree-from-the-doghouse/2020/11/26/f4775e64-25c8-11eb-8672-c281c7a2c96e_story.html

Comments

[conuly]

Who exactly does the LW think he's fooling here except himself?

Buddy - your kids were there all the years leading up to the divorce. Your brothers were there not just in the years leading up to the divorce, but all the other ones too. They don't need your ex to tell them shit, they know you.

And whatever your ex-wife told all her friends and family, all your friends who aren't talking to you anymore, I'm sure she told her divorce attorney and, ultimately, the judge. You know what she said.

And you know that it's accurate, too, LW, because even if she told one hell of a whopper, whatever it is has to be something plausible for everybody in your life to shun you.

Get the hell over yourself.

[cereta]

In fairness, while he almost certainly knows some of what the ex-wife is telling people, there's a lot, and I mean a lot, about a failed marriage that never makes its way into the legal process. Unless there's a custody issue, things like emotional abuse or even adultery are often just kind of irrelevant to the legal process. Most of that process is focused on financial issues.

None of which means that the LW isn't aware of what the ex-wife told people, just that he wouldn't have learned it from the legal process.

[azurelunatic]

We've got a huuuuuuge case of missing reasons.

[conuly]

Oh yeah.

[minoanmiss]

The hole is large and ragged.

[cereta]

Yup.

[heavenscalyx]

Plot holes you can drive a herd of caribou through.

[colorwheel]

the instant i saw the word "doghouse" i knew the reply would be sexist.

[conuly]

You think the reply is sexist? How so?

[oursin]

It surely takes 2 people to make the divorce 'acrimonious'?
And is it the actual divorce that is seen as blameworthy or the extensive period of dysfunctional marriage preceding it? Does he think nobody noticed? Or just thought, o, the poor chap?

[cereta]

It surely takes 2 people to make the divorce 'acrimonious'?

Not really, not unless you count not rolling over and playing dead as contributing to the acrimony. My spouse was in family law for a few years, and the number of times one party was holding up the process (whether because they were determined that the other party wasn't getting "their money" or sometimes just to be an asshole) was definitely not zero. Abusive spouses in particular often use the process to further abuse their spouse.

That said, I'd lay odds on the LW being the asshole in the process.

[oursin]

Well, yes, I was guessing that not going 'yes dear, whatever you say dear' and being Patient Griselda preparing the wedding feast for her husband's second marriage probably counted as acrimony, but I may be doing him an injustice....

[conuly]

What is it they say? If you know one asshole, they're the asshole. If everybody you know is an asshole, you're the asshole.

[movingfinger]

One is sufficient.

[laurajv]

I'm just laughing my ass off at the last line -- like, it's SUCH a sideways slam at the LW and his missing reasons, I love it. Good one, Carolyn.