agonyaunt | (no subject)

Dear Annie: I am a mom of three adult children. The circumstances that I am sharing are regarding my son and his new relationship. He is 27 and in love for the first time in his life. (Yay!) It has been wonderful to witness his newfound happiness.

His now fiancee and I have really bonded and -- I had thought -- built a fun relationship. She has four children from previous relationships, ranging in age from 10 to 17.

About six weeks ago, she started to write me emails regarding statements that I or other family members had made that she thought were insults. They were comments simply made in jest and were certainly not meant to be hurtful. She sent me a very extensive email outlining multiple conversations over a period of three months. This email was so difficult for me to read that it took me over three hours to get through it!

I responded by letting her know that I was sorry she felt this way and expressed my deepest apologies. My husband and I have gone out of our way to offer hospitality to her and her children, including hosting them over the holidays for 10 days. We also took over child care for her youngest while they went on two separate trips, and we provided the means for her to move closer to our home. She was previously living about five hours away by car. We have also assisted with planning their upcoming wedding.

A few weeks ago, she stormed out of my birthday party because my niece hugged my son! They had not seen each other for nearly two years and were simply excited to see each other. She texted my son and demanded that he leave immediately as well. She later sent me a text that said to leave her entirely and completely alone.

In the weeks since, it came out that my son had confided in my daughter that they actually are already married! They had a courthouse wedding four months ago on the first trip that they took together. They had met online only four months before that, and they still lived separately until only a month ago.

Over the last four months, they have had an engagement event and have worked hard to hide the fact that they are actually already married.

I am no longer certain I want to pursue a relationship with her. I feel so taken advantage of and hurt and bewildered by her behavior. But this may also mean losing the relationships I have built with her children, and possibly even losing my son.

Any insights you can share on how I might navigate the land mines ahead would be greatly appreciated. -- Bewildered and Heartbroken

Dear Bewildered and Heartbroken: "Land mines" is the right term. It seems like everything you do offends her. One positive point about her expressing her unhappiness with your comments is that it's good she is able to be honest with you and tell you how she feels. It seems that she is a very sensitive person who forces you to think about what you are going to say around her. Or she might be a narcissist who tends to make everything about her. She also might have borderline personality disorder, judging from the extreme change in behavior.

It must have been difficult for them to get married without telling you, or anyone for that matter, but ultimately that is their business and what they wanted to do. If you want a relationship with your son and step-grandchildren, you might have to forgive them for not including you.

Now that your son is married to her and she is part of your life, you have to find the best way to navigate her. One good book to read is, "Stop Walking on Eggshells" by Paul T. Mason and Randi Kreger.

https://www.arcamax.com/healthandspirit/lifeadvice/dearannie/s-2731664

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I have no idea what's going on here, much less which of these two women is more at fault.

I do know "I'm sorry you felt that way" is not an apology, no more than "those were jokes and not meant to be hurtful" is a defense.

Yeah, there are no hugely obvious missing reasons but I still don't trust this narrative. For one thing, it's REALLY suspicious that there are no examples of the things she objected to, and the "because they hugged" is so weird that it CAN'T be the whole story unless she's way less normal and stable than the rest of the letter implies.

This is one of those letters where I have to tap the sign that says "We do not diagnose people by proxy". I'm guessing there's a lot that was edited to make the letter fit in the column, but I'm still very uncomfortable about them saying someone is BPD or narcissistic...

Oh, same. Like sure, could be, but it's not like there's a strong indication, or even a coherent impression.

The "because they hugged" is pretty stereotypically "How dare another woman touch my man!!"

I think it's possible both of the women here are terrible, but it's hard to tell from the letter.

Anyway while usually I would say two people having a problem should work them out with each other, in this case my suggestion is that LW talk to her son, which there is no evidence she has done. Is he siding with his wife? Is he even aware any of this is going on? I have no idea.

Quite!

There were a hell of a lot of words in both the letter and the answer, but nobody actually said anything. I'm left with less of a clue about what's going on than I had before I read the letter.

Me too.

If my son had never had a serious relationship before, and at 27 brought someone home for the first time who was enough older than him to have a 17-year-old child and had four kids from previous relationshipS, while I'd be happy he'd found someone he cared for and would be friendly and pleasant to his new partner, I'd think that relationship has some yellow flags.

If I then found out that they'd gotten married after knowing each other for four months, I would be questioning both their judgements and would be moving into "be pleasant and keep the channels open so in the very likely event that things go south he's willing to turn to me" mode.

Sure, it's still possible things could work out. My parents got engaged after knowing each other for two months and married after six months; they're well past their golden anniversary. However, they'd also both dated other people before they met and had a good idea of what kind of person they were looking for.

This. Also, getting married after four months when there are kids involved is definitely on the extremely quick end of things, even if managed very carefully. 4 months between 'Mum's new friend' and 'Mum's new husband' is fast if you're 10-17 years old.

I certainly agree with all those points if this story is accurate as reported. Which I honestly don't know. Like, it could go either way.

I'm confused. (This fits, since this is confusing.)

Poking at this: There's a lot of financial and other-gift-things that the LW says she is providing. I wonder if that was asked for...

Also, I wonder if the D-I-L is the same race as the LW. (Because "Hey, please don't say these racist things" is a reasonable kind of letter to write.)

Someone eloping and then having an Official Wedding isn't that weird. Is it? Am I out of touch?

It's weird to not say that's what you're doing. I have been to more than one wedding reception that followed, sometimes by months, a small wedding overseas or something.

I don't trust LW's account enough to guess if the daughter-in-law is really behaving badly*, but I'm absolutely sure LW is. From the non-apology to the litany of "I've done X things for her, how DARE she be offended by anything I say!" to responding to being told to "leave her entirely and completely alone" with "I am no longer certain I want to pursue a relationship with her." (Like, that's not your call? She's already nixed it. We are past the point where you have that option!)

That list of things she's done for her son's new family, which we don't know if they asked for... I have that song from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend playing in my head now, argh. Anyway. That kind of list is a red flag in itself, to me. If you really have a close, fun relationship with a family member, are you totting up every hour and dollar spent on them? Are you keeping mental accounts of every time you have ever been inconvenienced on their behalf? And that list is LW's evidence that DIL isn't allowed to be offended by anything she said, which it has nothing to do with at all. Hosting someone over the holidays or babysitting their kids does not grant a blank check for making nasty jokes about them; accepting favors from family doesn't mean ceding the right to ever tell them off if they overstep.

*The speedy marriage does seem potentially suspect, but hiding it from LW maybe not, if the siblings knew. I wonder if there were medical or legal reasons to be Married Right Away? Freaking out over one's spouse hugging a cousin is a very bad look, but again, I wonder if that was actually why, given that LW is very invested in presenting daughter-in-law as being Randomly Offended.

Anyway, if DIL is ALSO a terrible person and the son (where is he in all this, anyway? does he have any opinions? any agency?) has gone from weird manipulative mom to weird manipulative wife, what LW should do is back off, don't make things worse, let the sibling(s) he actually talks to take point on being his support people, and be ready to be kind and NON-JUDGEMENTAL if he ends up having a nasty divorce at some point.