Feeling left out in son's wedding plans, what should we do?

[LaurieS]

I think it would be great fun to be married by your long time best friend.. shy gf is also engaged to be married.. just waiting for a break from med school.. she asked my dd to be her moh.. her bf asked my dd to be his best female/man .. I'm sitting back waiting to see how this one ends up working out.

[Pooh]

Oh, I think that's way cool!

[luise.volta]

Kirk is an Ordained Minister and performed my grandson's wedding. Talk about wonderful! It was! 

[LaurieS]

Wonder if we could let him do my DD's via skype

[ladyfirstdilsecond]

I would like to say that it was my MIL and GMIL that made our wedding a hell and alot of their complaints are the same things I'm hearing from some other ladies.  I get the "we weren't involved" crap (yeah, because when we told you we were engaged, you cried, stormed out of the room, and called me a "hussy"--you think you deserve to be involved when you said you didn't want us married?).  Then, I got the "I want THESE people invited" nonsense when we had already said that my MIL and GMIL could invite XX number of guests.  They fought and argued that my parents were allowed to invite more (because, you know, my FOO are such scumbags to my MIL and GMIL that they would never speak with them unless they had to--in fact, my parents didn't have half as many as MIL) and when MIL went over her limit and we told her to cut her list (as WE were paying for it, not her or my parents), she pitched a fit, but said she would.  THEN, she made up her OWN invites, sent them to over 20 MORE people than she originally had (like, her friends from HS that she hadn't spoken with in years) and when we found out, we made her call them all and un-invite them because we couldn't afford it.  Again, I was the "bad guy" in all of this even though I was not the one doing it--DH was.  4 weeks before the wedding, we found out MIL had called and booked all the blocked rooms for "her family" and had them booked under names of people we didn't even invite.  When asked why, she told us that HER family should get to all stay together (they needed 5 of the 17 rooms blocked) and that my family coming from overseas could just sleep on other people's couches.  Then, she accused me of sleeping with the caterer (an 80 year old family friend who lost his wife 3 years earlier to Leukemia) at our rehearsal dinner, tried to schedule the ceremony for us, and tried to get us to include her whole family (about 30 extra people) in our rehearsal dinner.  When they all showed up because she had told them we invited them (and we had told her not to), they all got pissed at us for turning them away (the restaurant couldn't hold any more in the room we had booked and the only people from my family there were my mom, dad, and sister (the MoH) ), she made a scene and stormed out.  All this time, she put up the front of "Oh, my DIL won't let me be a part of the wedding!" and "Oh, it's so saaaad that my son is letting HER do this to me" when, in reality, it was her own behavior that she refused to admit to that caused all of this mess.  (I could give you more than 20 more examples of times she said/did something nasty to me that made me not want her even AT our wedding.)

So, forgive me if I don't feel like some MILs are telling the truth about how their DIL is just being "awful".  I know my MIL lied about her involvement in this mess--and I don't put it past alot of MILs to do the same thing to save face.

[holliberri]

If I recall the OP was explaining that not only was she left out of wedding plans, she was already told not even to give a gift of any sort. I think she had thought that not being part of the wedding plans was okay, but it was the fact that every one of her offers had been turned down, and she's left feeling very out of place. I think it went beyond more than just a wedding.

I also can think of one woman on here that paid for a portion of her son's wedding, and wasn't able to invite but a handful of people. Meanwhile, the DIL's family was there by the truckloads.

I also can think of women that just were not included at all, and they had prepared themselves for not having control over who they could invite, the venue choosing, etc.

I can only assume from what is written on here, but I don't think a lot of the women on here would call their DIL the names you've been called, mainly b/c they don't use that kind of talk on here.

[luise.volta]

Sometimes a rant is indicated. There are some deep hurts that get expressed here. The next step is to let it go, when possible. There's no undoing it.,there's no explaining it and I doubt that we have one MIL on this Web-forum that supports it. Sending love...

[Pen]

LFDS, why are you here if you don't think we're being honest with ourselves and others? We can offer support and compassion for your situation, but it means nothing if you don't think we're truthful.

Your story is heartbreaking, LFDS. I can assure you I have never behaved that way towards my DIL, it just isn't my style. Having been a DIL twice and having observed my DGM treat my mom horribly, I knew what kind of MIL I didn't want to be. Sure, I wanted to call and text often, but I didn't. Sure, I wish I'd had more input on wedding plans, especially since we were paying our fair share and had less resources than DIL's FOO but I didn't demand a thing, just signed the checks. You can read my boring posts at your leisure, LOL.

We're here for you...it sounds like you've had a rough go. Painting us all with the same brush isn't productive, just as MILs aren't served by thinking all DILs are alike (and we've had some horror stories!)

[LaurieS]

I would like to say that it was my MIL and GMIL that made our wedding a hell and alot of their complaints are the same things I'm hearing from some other ladies.  I get the "we weren't involved" crap (yeah, because when we told you we were engaged, you cried, stormed out of the room, and called me a "hussy"--you think you deserve to be involved when you said you didn't want us married?).

I promise.. when my daughter tells me that she is engaged, I will not call you a hussy, I will not storm out of the room.. and I also promise that I will never think I deserved to be involved in your wedding.

When my daughter tells me that she is engaged, I'm going to give her a heartfelt hug and tell her that she may be the luckiest girl on the earth... and then I'm going to ogle over her ring.  oh and btw-her  future mil told me that she plans on doing the same.

[pam1]

LFDS,

My MIL would (and has) lied about her involvement in our situation.  If she came on here, I could basically write you the script of what she would say before she said it lol. I'm unemotional, I don't know love, I am not grateful and I don't share, I also smoke and work (things ladies should never do!) I don't know how to bake or clean correctly and I'm not very nice.

No one is going to last long here with that frame of mine, it's simply not that kind of place.  Of course there are going to be posters you don't agree with, that's life -- I directly ask when I need more information and I haven't had a problem. 

Why not start your own thread about the problems you're having in your situation?  Without all the MIL stuff...

[luise.volta]

I think it's justifiable anger when a DIL has to live through what LFDL has been faced with. We have had just as many members dealing with the reverse. It's the personality, not the MIL or DIL title. We all eventually come to that truth.

In a state of anger and hurt it may also be normal to project that out onto all MILs or all DILs, as the case may be, but/and it is not productive, fair or even minimally useful. Any sweeping generalizations are going to be challenged here.

Every situation is different. All players in every situation are unique. There are Web-forums that are battlefields where members choose up sides and slug it out over generalities. This isn't one of them.

[overwhelmed123]

LFDS- where would any of us be if we assumed that all MILs or all DILs are bad just because ours is?  That's a dangerous mindset to have and it is sure to only hurt you eventually.  I too have sat here and read things thinking, "Interesting...this sounds just like something my MIL would say except it didn't really happen that way." But where would I be if I assumed everyone on here was a lying manipulative deceitful woman?  Just because someone is a MIL can't mean they're inherently bad- because they started out as just women (with problems obviously), something we ALL are, even DILs.  So it's safe to say there are going to be bad eggs in both "categories" because we're all women, and that's the common denominator unfortunately. I would bet your MIL was probably a pill of a DIL too.  Am I confusing or do you get what I'm saying?  There isn't a switch that's turned on when normal women become MILs to make them difficult.  It's whether or not the woman is predisposed to be difficult, and that's going to include both "categories," making it really silly to generalize that only one of these "categories" is more likely to come on here and lie about their situation.  Whatever type of woman it is, eventually the truth will come out in her posts.  Until then, I choose to believe in the good.   

[Pooh]

I am a Woman, Wife, Ex-Wife, Mother, Step-Mother, Daughter, Granddaughter, MIL and DIL.  So which group do I get lumped into if we begin to generalize people?

[pam1]

Well, I'd try to get the granddaughter title.  No one wants step mother or in law lol.  I wonder which provokes the most anxiety generally, I'm guessing stepmom.  So yeah, stay away from that one

[holliberri]

Hmm...I'll have to try that. From now on, I'll introduce myself as my G-ma's Granddaugther. No making waves with that.