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Two more wedding letters
1. Dear Care and Feeding,
I’m getting married next year, and my mom is helping me with a lot of the planning. She’s great at this stuff, and super excited to help (and I’m glad to have her—she’s one of my best friends!). But we’re worried about squabbling—or to be honest, yelling at each other—during the process. We’re VERY close, but prone to fighting about nonsense things. Any tips for avoiding a repeat of my (very loud) teenage years while we plan?
—My Fiancé is Very Calm, By the Way
Dear By the Way,
So you and Mom just press each other’s buttons, huh? First, the good news: You can be proactive about this and you can make a plan for de-escalation if your prophylactic measures fail.
The bad news: You and your mom are going to have to have a (probably) tough conversation before the wedding-planning process begins in earnest. Fighting about “nonsense things” is never about those things—as I believe you already know—but about whatever the nonsense stirs in us. If you hope to get through the next year without shouting matches over the venue, color scheme, flowers, music, number of guests, and whom to invite/exclude, it’s time to take the bull by the horns. Plus, it will improve your relationship beyond the planning of your wedding. Mother and daughter being close (best friends!) is a wonderful thing. Being “prone to fighting” is not.
If you’ve never acknowledged this dynamic before, that’s your first step. If she protests—“What are you talking about? We never fight!”—go over your recent squabbles in detail. But make sure that when you do, you take responsibility for your part in these arguments. (In fact, go ahead and generously take most of the responsibility for it. This opens the door for her to do the same.) Tell her you’ve been trying to figure out why the two of you end up yelling at each other so often when you like as well as love each other so very much. Ask her if she has any ideas about why this happens. In other words: Begin a dialogue.
The fact is that you can’t keep from pushing each other’s buttons if you either 1) don’t know what the buttons are or 2) know exactly what they are but have an irresistible impulse to poke them (maybe without even knowing why). Find out what it is you say or do that sets her off. It’s important that you start there, not with telling her what she does that rubs you the wrong way—but before you even begin this conversation, take some time to consider what that is, so that you’re ready to talk about this with her in a non-confrontational, loving way. This is all the proactive stuff, and it’s essential.
Regarding a plan for de-escalation: If your mother is on board about trying to move forward without these pointless fights, agree on a way to head them off at the pass. This could be a silly word invoked (“Pumpernickel!”) or a plan of action (time to break and get a cup of coffee, or step away from the Pinterest board and into two different parts of the house for 10 minutes).
Congratulations on your engagement (and on having a calm fiancé, which will come in handy in the long run). And good luck with the wedding-planning.
Link one
**************
2. Dear Prudence,
I am an only child and my mother has always been … let’s call it “involved” with my life, and I have done my best to deal with it. Two years ago, I met my now-fiancée, “Arista,” and we are getting married in November. Last week, my mother came to me demanding that I call off our engagement. As it turns out, she had had a professional background check done on Arista, and she really did not like what she’d found.
After her little snoop-about, my mother discovered that she used to be in adult entertainment. The thing is, Arista was up front with me about this early on in our relationship and it doesn’t matter to me. However, I had intended to not say anything to my mother because I knew she would react like this, but more importantly, it wasn’t her business.
When I told my mom as much, she blew up and told me that I couldn’t sully our family by “marrying a whore.” I told her this wasn’t her decision and that she could either treat my future wife with the respect and decency she deserves or sit out the wedding. Now she’s told everyone in the family. Many are supportive and think she’s nuts, but some have shared her reaction. Is this grounds for removing her from my life for good?
—Pilloried By the Past
Dear Pilloried,
I guess your mom, despite her meddling and hateful intentions, sort of did you and Arista a favor: Now you two don’t have to worry about keeping her past a secret, and you know who your supporters and haters are. That’s a good way to start your married life.
When someone is asking permission to end a relationship with a family member, I’m inclined to say “go for it.” That’s because, despite recent handwringing about “the epidemic of parental estrangement,” I believe you have to have been pretty badly mistreated to even consider this.
You know all the details of your relationship with your mom that I don’t, and my assumption is that she hasn’t just been “involved” but also really mean for a lot of years. And I’m sure your fiancée would breathe a sigh of relief if she didn’t have to deal with the person who’s violated her privacy and called her a whore.
That said, I noticed in your letter that you said you’ve always done your best to “deal with” your mom. This makes me wonder if you might want to make one absolutely clear statement to her—not just about Arista and the wedding but about the way she treats you in general—that you’re not going to put up with her antics anymore. Maybe you could even write her a letter about the specific ways in which she’s disrespected and hurt you and the kind of change you would need to see to keep her in your life. I’m not saying this so much because she deserves it (I’m very mad at her about the recent incident), but because I think you’ll want to know you did everything possible before you cut her out of your life. And if she doesn’t respond positively, you should go right ahead.
Link two
I’m getting married next year, and my mom is helping me with a lot of the planning. She’s great at this stuff, and super excited to help (and I’m glad to have her—she’s one of my best friends!). But we’re worried about squabbling—or to be honest, yelling at each other—during the process. We’re VERY close, but prone to fighting about nonsense things. Any tips for avoiding a repeat of my (very loud) teenage years while we plan?
—My Fiancé is Very Calm, By the Way
Dear By the Way,
So you and Mom just press each other’s buttons, huh? First, the good news: You can be proactive about this and you can make a plan for de-escalation if your prophylactic measures fail.
The bad news: You and your mom are going to have to have a (probably) tough conversation before the wedding-planning process begins in earnest. Fighting about “nonsense things” is never about those things—as I believe you already know—but about whatever the nonsense stirs in us. If you hope to get through the next year without shouting matches over the venue, color scheme, flowers, music, number of guests, and whom to invite/exclude, it’s time to take the bull by the horns. Plus, it will improve your relationship beyond the planning of your wedding. Mother and daughter being close (best friends!) is a wonderful thing. Being “prone to fighting” is not.
If you’ve never acknowledged this dynamic before, that’s your first step. If she protests—“What are you talking about? We never fight!”—go over your recent squabbles in detail. But make sure that when you do, you take responsibility for your part in these arguments. (In fact, go ahead and generously take most of the responsibility for it. This opens the door for her to do the same.) Tell her you’ve been trying to figure out why the two of you end up yelling at each other so often when you like as well as love each other so very much. Ask her if she has any ideas about why this happens. In other words: Begin a dialogue.
The fact is that you can’t keep from pushing each other’s buttons if you either 1) don’t know what the buttons are or 2) know exactly what they are but have an irresistible impulse to poke them (maybe without even knowing why). Find out what it is you say or do that sets her off. It’s important that you start there, not with telling her what she does that rubs you the wrong way—but before you even begin this conversation, take some time to consider what that is, so that you’re ready to talk about this with her in a non-confrontational, loving way. This is all the proactive stuff, and it’s essential.
Regarding a plan for de-escalation: If your mother is on board about trying to move forward without these pointless fights, agree on a way to head them off at the pass. This could be a silly word invoked (“Pumpernickel!”) or a plan of action (time to break and get a cup of coffee, or step away from the Pinterest board and into two different parts of the house for 10 minutes).
Congratulations on your engagement (and on having a calm fiancé, which will come in handy in the long run). And good luck with the wedding-planning.
Link one
2. Dear Prudence,
I am an only child and my mother has always been … let’s call it “involved” with my life, and I have done my best to deal with it. Two years ago, I met my now-fiancée, “Arista,” and we are getting married in November. Last week, my mother came to me demanding that I call off our engagement. As it turns out, she had had a professional background check done on Arista, and she really did not like what she’d found.
After her little snoop-about, my mother discovered that she used to be in adult entertainment. The thing is, Arista was up front with me about this early on in our relationship and it doesn’t matter to me. However, I had intended to not say anything to my mother because I knew she would react like this, but more importantly, it wasn’t her business.
When I told my mom as much, she blew up and told me that I couldn’t sully our family by “marrying a whore.” I told her this wasn’t her decision and that she could either treat my future wife with the respect and decency she deserves or sit out the wedding. Now she’s told everyone in the family. Many are supportive and think she’s nuts, but some have shared her reaction. Is this grounds for removing her from my life for good?
—Pilloried By the Past
Dear Pilloried,
I guess your mom, despite her meddling and hateful intentions, sort of did you and Arista a favor: Now you two don’t have to worry about keeping her past a secret, and you know who your supporters and haters are. That’s a good way to start your married life.
When someone is asking permission to end a relationship with a family member, I’m inclined to say “go for it.” That’s because, despite recent handwringing about “the epidemic of parental estrangement,” I believe you have to have been pretty badly mistreated to even consider this.
You know all the details of your relationship with your mom that I don’t, and my assumption is that she hasn’t just been “involved” but also really mean for a lot of years. And I’m sure your fiancée would breathe a sigh of relief if she didn’t have to deal with the person who’s violated her privacy and called her a whore.
That said, I noticed in your letter that you said you’ve always done your best to “deal with” your mom. This makes me wonder if you might want to make one absolutely clear statement to her—not just about Arista and the wedding but about the way she treats you in general—that you’re not going to put up with her antics anymore. Maybe you could even write her a letter about the specific ways in which she’s disrespected and hurt you and the kind of change you would need to see to keep her in your life. I’m not saying this so much because she deserves it (I’m very mad at her about the recent incident), but because I think you’ll want to know you did everything possible before you cut her out of your life. And if she doesn’t respond positively, you should go right ahead.
Link two