"My mother-in-law tried to ruin my wedding day!"
I really need you guys to let me know if I am overreacting. Also any advice, would be amazing. Cause I have no idea what to do.
Ok, so for some context : I (38) Female and my Husband (32) Male have only been married for 2 weeks now and we have been living in newlywed bliss. The wedding day was perfect and I married my best friend in the entire world and I couldn't be happier. Well sort of, let me get to that.
My Husband (lets call him Jack), is very close to his family. When I say close, I mean that he would do anything for his family, at anytime. Which is one of the reasons why I love him so dearly! But boundaries are a must in relationships with parents.
My family are not that close. My parents are divorced and since then, they kind of let me be my own person but they know that I would do anything for them within reason.
When I first met his family, they seemed very low key, easy to get along and closer bond then my family. It definitely took some time getting use to have his family, always wanting to be around. It wasn't until the first month of us dating that, I really started to see what kind of "closeness" meant to this family.
His mom (let call her Rory (56) Female) always invited herself to everything that involved her children. She would consistently invite herself on multiple dates with Jack and I. When I would start to interject, he would just say "sure you can come" or she would just start to cry, so that we felt guilty and just let her come.
Knowing this, I treaded very carefully. I always tried to only invite him to go on dates over the phone and always made him pick me up at my house, so that she can't guilt me or him to come with us. This worked for a long time, until we decided to move in together.
A year into our relationship, we both decided to buy a home. 6 months of searching and we couldn't find anything that we really wanted. Until his Father (let call him Gru (60) Male) said that he would like to offer Jack's childhood home to us. I now see the reason why they offered but that's relevant for later. They offered to give us a discounted price and we both agreed and so we bought our home.
After we bought and moved into our home, my husband proposed to me! It seemed like life was going amazing.
But I could tell that his mom was super upset that Jack didn't ask her help pick out the ring or even tell her that he was even thinking about asking me. I say this because, when we told them we were engaged, the shock on her face said it all. She kept saying to Jack, that if she had known about it, she would have loved to given her ring to me and that my ring was beautiful but hers is special.
I wanted to add this little tidbit, after 2 years of wedding planning. Jack's parents, kept telling us they wanted to help out with the wedding financially. But 2 days before everything was to be paid, they said they couldn't.
This is a very common thing, for them. They did this, to us to many times to count and always at the last minute, which forced us to scrimp to find the money to pay because it was too late to cancel. They would promise us for a long time leading up to it and never even offered to pay afterwards. Ok, so now you guys have the back story. So lets get this party started.
So, I really need you guys to give me some advice. I want to know if I'm reading to much into this or is it going to be a real problem for the future.
There has been a lot of stuff that happened in the past but I will only give you what happened on the Wedding day.
Previously, I let all of my bridesmaids know that we had to meet at the venue at 8am. The night before Jack's mom had offered to help drive some of us there with our dresses and stuff. Which was amazing but she was also dropping off her Daughter, who was in my Bridal Party.
The original plan was, that she was just suppose to drop off the stuff and the Daughter, leave and go back to her house to pick up her husband who didn't want to sit around and do nothing until ceremony. Completely fair.
So we all arrived, unloaded all the cars and got things set up and ready. I thought his mother was going to leave, so I went over to her to give her a hug and told her I would see her soon. She then says "oh, is it ok that I stay? I just wanted to hang out with you guys" (this is what she does to me, all the time.) being a people pleaser and not wanted to upset Jack's mom. I said......sure.......
I figured she would just sit there and just talk, but I was honestly to busy to pay any attention to her. But it wasn't until... she started telling one of my bridesmaids what to do.
I was sitting in the chair, getting my makeup done, when I hear one of my bridesmaids asking about the line up for going down the aisle. She unfortunately had to miss the rehearsal, due to her work. Next thing I know, Rory speaks up and says " you need to follow "Bridesmaid", then line up on the right side of the arch. Daughter should be standing beside her brother."
Are you kidding me?! I almost jumped out the chair to interject but the makeup artist told me not to move or she would poke me in eye. What she said was completely wrong. Daughter was to go first, so that she is last in the line up and they are to line up on the left side. Not the right.
Luckily, I have the best MOH ever. She spoke up and told Rory that plans had changed and she should ask someone before she says something, so that it doesn't stress me out. After that, I tried to calm down and not let anything else stress me out. But Rory kept at it.
It was time for the girls to put on their dresses and one of the girls was having an issue. Rory jumped off her chair, like a frog jumping into water. She started telling everyone what do to about their dresses. How they need to tack things and how to use safety pins, etc. All the girls (other then daughter) looked at me annoyed.
I was stuck. I couldn't tell her to stop or ask her to leave. Luckily, the wedding coordinator came in and told her that it was time for her to go and get the groom and she would see everyone at the ceremony. (God, I love that woman) I was so luckily to be in the chair getting my hair fixed, so I couldn't give her a hug and just said I'll see you soon.
Everything from there went perfectly! My husband looked absolutely handsome and it went as smoothly as possible.
After the ceremony, we wanted to get pictures done with the families. I had given the photographer the list of what we both wanted beforehand! Following that list with my family, but when it came to his family.
You guessed it, Rory had other ideas. She kept telling the Photographer, what people are to be what photos and how many shots, etc. Again, I was stuck. If I said something, it couldn't turn out bad and I didn't want that on my wedding day.
Once those photos were done, husband and I were suppose to get single shots of us done. In the middle of it, I see Rory walking down the path by herself and comes up and says " I want some shots, of us walking down the pathway together" I calmly told her that we were doing single shots right now and once we are done, we can come and get her.
She gave me a stern look and just stood there until we were finished. Then happily grab both of our hands and walked down the pathway with us crying. I'm not sure if the photographer got shots or not but I'm hoping not. She then lead us to her side of the family (cousins, aunts and uncles) and demanded photos with them.
Let me remind you guys again. They didn't pay for anything for this wedding. Also, those photos were not on the list, I gave to the photographer, who I paid for!
Feeling overwhelmed, I walked away from those shots and went to mingle with my side of the family and friends.
At dinner, everything seems perfect. Speeches started and it was going very smoothly. Until it was Rory and Gru turn. They went up and said they were proud of there son and " Good Luck". That's it.....Everyone kinda clapped but not really. It was more a like pity clap.
Unfortunately, Rory got to the DJ and started making demands to him. She asked that her daughter go up and make a speech as well. Without us knowing. When the DJ called her name, I looked over at him and went what the hell!?. He later came to me and told me that it was her and I asked that he not take any more demands from anyone other then Jack and I.
Party started and it was a blast!!! We dance the whole night through! Well, until they told us to leave.
As we were getting ready to leave, I had told my husband and his mother beforehand that I needed the whole backseat of the car, because my dress was soo big and I didn't want to wreck or crinkle my dress. It was expensive! Well unfortunately, everyone else left and the only option for me to go home was to sit in the front seat of his mom's car.
Almost crying when I looked down at my dress, Rory speaks up and asks if she could take some cupcakes home, as she was having some family over the next day. We ended up with 4 boxes of cupcakes left at the end of the night. I told her it was fine, if she wanted to take 1 box home. I told her that I promised the other boxes to my mom. She said thank you and it was silent all the way home.
When we got to the house, we find out that Gru (who had been driving Jack's brand new car home) hit a raccoon on the way there. All he said was " Sorry" and got into Rory's car. Jack was pissed and kept looking at his car to see the damage. Luckily there was no damage. I went into the house and really had pee! Let me tell you, that was an adventure in a giant dress! But I didn't see everyone unload the cars.
After they left, I went into kitchen and I see only 1 box of cupcakes. I asked Jack where the other boxes were. He said he didn't know. I then called his mom from his phone and asked where the other boxes were. She stated that she thought I said she could have them. I said " No, I said you could have 1 box.
My mom gets the other boxes" She then tells me she would drop them off to my mom tomorrow. I phoned my mom the next day and my mom told me that Rory only gave her 1 box. I told Jack what she did and he called his mom. She said that the family ate all the cupcakes and she only had 1 box left and that she didn't realize it until it was too late.
I couldn't believe it!
So, now reading all this. I have a question for all of you. When the pictures come in, do you think I am over reacting to say that I don't want to give them to her unless she pays for them?
I don't mind giving her the 2 photos of family but the others that she demanded..... not so much! Only because of the demanding everything and not paying for anything!!! Please let me know!
Here's what commenters had to say.
You said “but boundaries are a must in relationships with parents” and then failed to display any with his mom. It also doesn’t sound like you and your new husband worked on setting boundaries when you were dating, you just avoided the issue. If you both don’t start setting boundaries now, the rest of your marriage will look like this.
I think your best bet would be to state that you only paid for a certain amount of photos, and picked and ordered them already, so if she does want prints of any she had the photographer take they will be $??.??. This way she can decide if she wants them that bad.
You could always reach out to the photographer and let them know to not process/touch-up any of the posed photos that you didn't request in your original meeting.
Save time get the marriage annulled.
Three days later, OP shared this update.
I want to say thank you to all the people who commented! I read every single one and I agree with a lot of you. I just found out more things that his mom did at the wedding and thought you guys would love to hear.
Jack's mom wrote him a letter for the wedding day. He finally let me read it. It started off very sweet, like how proud of him she was and how much of great man he's grown up to be, etc.
But at the end of the letter, she added " Don't forget, that I came first and I will always be here for you". She also had a scratched out part that she wrote but only put a line threw it, so you can read what it says. " I always want to know what you are doing". This is so disgusting and creepy!!!
I also took you guys advice and contacted the Photographer and told her the situation. I asked her to delete all the photo's that his mom demanded. She said that's not a problem and she had already put those photos in a different folder, she also said that she had written notes about his mom and she thought was completely rude.
So the picture situation is taking care of and I do feel better about that. I will also be keeping the USB drive in my purse at all times, so even if she asks Jack to send her some. He wont be able to. If she asks about the photo's, I'm not sure what I'm going to say yet.
Might just say that they weren't in the package so the photographer didn't take them. Or just say they must have not turned out. I guess I will decide when the time comes.
For some of you who said to change the locks on the door. I've already did that! Once we bought the house from his parents, his father refused to give his key back. He said that since he owned the house once and now his son owns it, he can come in anytime. That's when I said nope! I told Jack that's not ok and he agreed.
After we changed the lock, we didn't tell anyone and his mom and dad tried to get into the house when we weren't home. I know this cause, Jack called me at work. Saying his mom and dad called him and asked why they can't get in and he was seeing, if I would be ok to let them in. I said no!
They can wait till we are both home. Apparently his dad left something at the house and he needed it. I said too bad, he should have grab it when they packed the house.
For some Context: They left a lot of stuff at the house when they moved. The whole downstairs was completely full still and when we asked when they were coming to get it, they said they weren't. It was our problem now. So I started to throwing stuff out!
Later his mom got mad, because I threw out a painting that her father given to her. I was like, then you shouldn't have told me that everything was our problem. Sorry but not sorry. Well, I finally had a conversation with Jack about how his mom was at the wedding.
It started off with a fight about Jack going over to his parents house for the last 3 weekends to help them out with house stuff. There are 3 people that living at this house and apparently, Jack is the only one who knows how to change a light bulb, or clean a ceiling fan.
Anyway, Jack and I had made plans to go out for a date day. He had to run in the morning to his work to help with a issue and then we were suppose to have the rest of the day for us. On his way back, Jack texts me to tell me that he had to run to his parents house to help with something and he will be quick. I said sure, thinking he would only be like 10 to 15 mins tops.
Nope, I sat ready to go for a hour and half. I was so frustrated, that I just texted him saying I was going by myself. He finally called me and told me that he didn't expect it to take this long and he was sorry. I said to bad, I'm already gone. He then begged me to come home and we can go together.
I did. But I went, so that we can talk about it. The argument got very heated, and I finally lost my cool and just blurted it out and told him about his mom on the wedding day.
I told him everything that I told you guys! I told him that his mom was very disrespectful to me and to him. (the only thing, I didn't talk about was that I called the photographer) I told him that we needed to start putting up boundaries, when it comes to his parents.
After yelling back and forth for a bit, we both agreed to take some time apart to calm down and we would come back to talk later. A couple of hours go by and he comes up from downstairs and asks to talk. He said that he didn't notice that his mom did all that at the wedding and after thinking about it, he agrees that it was very disrespectful.
He did ask me why I never said anything and I told him, that I can't. If I were to say something, your mom would always put me as the bad guy and always have a beef against me. I also said that she probably wouldn't have listened to me anyway. I told him, that it needs to come from him. She will take it more seriously coming from her baby boy.
He agreed. I asked him what he would like to do now. He stated that he would like to talk to her about actions at the wedding. He wants to hear her side of why she thought that was ok. I told him that, she wanted to control it, that's why.
He said that he still wanted to have a conversation with her and tell her that it wasn't ok and that she owes us an apology. He also said that he would like to put some space from his parents and if they need help with something, he would help but to tell them that it will be on his time, not when he or we have plans. He told me that, he never saw this side of his family before and me telling him, really opened his eyes.
I really can't thank you guys enough for giving me the courage to talk to him about it! I do feel a lot better about the situation and will keep you guys updated on when he speaks to his family. I really appreciate you guys giving me all the advice! Thank you!
Commenters weighed in.
Good luck. I wouldn’t expect any magical transformation from your momma’s boy. This is going to be a long road.
Please PLEASE get your husband into therapy. I'm not so sure it will get better without.
Congratulations on your nuptials.