to expect my family to be happy that I got married?

[beachtent]

OK, so, we planned a more traditional wedding, but my family drove us nuts with their various demands, so we cancelled it. We always wanted a small wedding, so we decided to do it all completely the way we wanted to - with two witnesses, and tell everyone afterwards. We knew our families (particularly our mothers) would be upset they weren't there to share the moment, but we thought that our own preferences for our own wedding should take precedence, so we decided to forge ahead with our plans. We got married, it took 20 minutes, we loved it, it was perfect. We had two friends as witnesses, then went on holiday. When we got back, we invited our parents round, opened some bubbly, and told them.

All seemed to be going well, until I was alone with my mum, then she started crying. I expected her to be upset and I too was sad that she hadn't been part of it all. But now her sadness about not being there, her feelings of being 'snubbed' and denied the experience of attending my wedding have dominated my entire family's response since. I expected some negative emotions in response to their lack of involvement, but the scale of the negativity is unreal. I'm getting shit from all angles. I've had my sister tell me she's 'never seen mum so upset about anything in my whole life', that she spent the entire day crying after we broke the news. My sister was crying, saying, 'how could you do this to her? How could you do this to us? We thought we were a close family' and reduced me to tears. My brother has just been on the phone and reduced me to tears again with the same kind of talk - 'what did you expect? You've denied her and she feels left out, rejected, snubbed' etc.

I'm so fed up of trying to justify myself. I got married, I didn't kill someone, I did something incredibly positive with the man I love. We've lived together for 5 years, we have a child together, getting married to us was no big deal. Both of us hate being on show, getting married felt like a very personal thing to do, and we wanted to keep it simple, short, and cheap. And we did.

My partner's family have all congratulated us and sent us gifts and cards. I've not had a single card from anyone in my family.

Have I committed a crime? I know a marriage is the union of two families, but having a child is more so (in my eyes), so we felt that getting married on our own terms in our own way wouldn't be such a big deal.

My mum now wants to take me out for lunch and buy me a present as a way of celebrating my marriage...

Thoughts, please! [bracing self]

I guess what I struggled with was trying to work out whose views, emotions, opinions etc, were more important on the wedding day - those of my husbands, or those of my mother. Seems most of you think my mother should have taken precedent over my husband. I think that would spell disaster, for any marriage.

Of course my mum is important to me, she is my mother after all, but my wedding day was about marrying the man I love, and we had to find a way to get married in a way that pleased us both. I think to prioritise her feelings over his would have been very wrong.

Ummm, quatro, are you implying that somehow a second marriage is less significant?

Sorry, quattro not quatro.

I wanted to note that for many people, the second marriage is the one that sticks, which they remain in for the rest of their lives. It seems unnecessarily judgmental to discount someone's point of view about family and marriage because you suspect they are not on their first marriage.

I don't Beachtent, and I can also see why when your Mum says that the two of you should go out you would want your new husband there too. But then I figured that for her it's like a substitute for the whole mother/daughter chooing a dress thing, so I doubt it's anything against your husband.

I thought when you agreed to make vows to eachother, part of that was promising that you would put eachother first. Above everyone, except your children. That's the point isn't it, otherwise we would be having ceremonies where we promise to be the best daughter possible?

the point I was making was not that second marriages are in some way inferior

Curly had said that her DH's family were not especially (or in fact at all) relevant because her DCs had their own grandparents etc. So for her the issue of the wider family did not have the same significance.

Oh ok!

But even then, the children are the factor that make me have a relationship with their other side of the family, and my husband is the person that I have the relationship with his family for. That's about my children and my marriage, not who was present to see me take wedding vows. The love and the relationships between the various people are the same regardless of the wedding.

Exactly curlymama. And I agree about the lunch thing being a substitute mother/daughter bonding thing, that's why I'm going and I'm sure it will be lovely. I just hope we don't get into a deeply emotional conversation and end up blubbing throughout lunch! I'm sure it will be lovely, and I am looking forward to it. A good chance to tell her that our wedding was not a personal rejection of her.

beachtent, you and your husbands views are more important - of course they are. But why did your dh insist on your mum being absent?

If he had really strong reasons as to why he didn't want his own mother there, then fair enough but to take that to the extreme and exclude the whole family does seem massively over the top.

Your making it sound as if your dh gave you an ultimatum and you also mentioned about not wanting to take your mum for lunch if your DH couldnt be present. Your portraying your DH as a bit of a spoilt brat tbh.

I do sympathise, I come from a very large, extended, disfunctional family (ie totally normal ) but DH and I had a very small, low key wedding, exactly as we wanted it to be as we brokered NO argument whatsoever from anyone. We told them the plans and they all fitted in with them. I'm making it sound so simple when it is really far from it. Its such as shame that you felt you had to take an 'all or nothing' approach when surely it would have been better to have offered a compromise?

beachtent, let her blubber if she needs to. Would it really be so bad if she did?

I dread being in my 50's/60's. Hormones all over the sodding place, elderly parents to care for or mourn over , peers dropping like flies , kids having long flown the nest. Tits heading even further south

Erm.....why should she have to compromise her wedding?

I'm 51 ..I'm not quite over the hill yet ..in fact I still have a teenager living at home ..tits have gone south,but nothing that a good bra can't sort out

I hope you can sort it with your mum

But life is all about compromising curlymama. Although you wouldnt think so reading this thread, as opinions have been very polarised.

By compromise, I dont mean letting someone have their way. But allowing small, measured gestures of involvement (as determined by the op and her dh) would have been a more gentler and kinder solution.

It takes courage to offer a compromise though

usualsupect - get yerself to Rigby and Peller!

Given that two people CAN (not always, perhaps) be devoted to each other without marrying.
Given that two people CAN take out major financial commitments such as a mortgage without marrying.
Given that society now has no stigma about cohabitation.
Given that two people will be accepted by each other's family if in a long-term relationship with children even if NOT married.
Given all these things, I really, really cannot help see marriage as a way of sorting out the legalities between a couple AND for them to declare to the state that this is the case - after all, the state is not psychic and can't judge this to be the case for them, it would be illiberal for them to do so.
So fair enough if they want to make a day of it, but I cannot see why anybody would be miffed if a couple who'd cohabited with children just went to the register office
and signed the forms with minimal fuss.

Congratulations BeachTent - YANBU

DP and I have been together for in the region of 20 years and one of the reasons why we haven't got married is because whenever I mention it certain family members turn into bridezilla's by proxy.

Our dream would be to run off and just do it quietly and by ourselves. However, I can't begin to imagine what my mothers reaction would be like. Well I can actually. It would be a friggin' nightmare.

It wouldn't bother me at all if my DD's or my DS'eloped' - a wedding/being married would be about them - not me. And I'd be proud of them and happy for them.

All this 'Oh I'd be heartbroken...' bollocks spouted on here, and the behaviour of the OP's mother/family smacks of control freakery.

Why are we going back to the "they have got the right to do as they please?" Of course they do - that's not what we are discussing here.

The OP's initial post was ranting because the family did not come across as being happy for you, did not send cards, and your mum cried.

Your own actions caused an upset which was hardly unforeseeable, particularly because your mum HAD to exclude her own due to particular circumstances: was it really that hard to foresee that this could have caused her upset, given that her own decision was probably not taken lightly at the time? I find it unbelievable that you did not see this coming at least a little bit.

You cannot blame your mum for feeling like she does (isn't that another MN mantra? You feel as you feel). You took a risk, now you have to deal with the fall-out - you are entitled to have a moan if you want (although perhaps AIBU is not the best place ), but overall I still think YABU.

Good luck with the "patching up"

Wow, lots of issues here.

OP, can totally understand why your mum is upset, for all the reasons others have already posted. FWIW, I think she deserves huge respect for holding out an olive branch so promptly, when she is very obviously deeply hurt.

Also, I have to disagree with posters who reckon people shouldn't think or feel a certain emotion (eg devastated, gutted etc). People write as they feel. It's not up to someone else to tell them how they feel, to say that their feelings don't merit the description they have given them. All our brains are wired up slightly differently, so something I might think is acceptable, other people might think utterly deranged. It's part of what makes us human and why many of our relationships are so complicated!

Also, I don't understand why many people think there are two such extremes of weddings: firstly, the running away and telling nobody type; and secondly the full-on 300 guests, 8 bridesmaids and a meringue dress type. There is middle ground - a lot of it!!

You could easily have invited your very closest, most loved relatives (parents) as witnesses and avoided much of this angst. Yes, you might get fallout from other members of your family, but it would probably not have been as unpleasant as the situation you now face with your mum.

Betty I am going for lunch with my mum, without my dh, and I've never said I wouldn't. I appreciate that she's doing something very sweet to try to keep things positive between us. I think it's a lovely gesture, just a little odd perhaps that she wants to celebrate my marriage with just one of us there, that's all. But I'm going with it, because I see that there's been hurt in our relationship and we both want to try to resolve it. I just think it would be nice to celebrate my marriage with my husband there, that's all.

And yes, I do think we could have done things differently and perhaps compromised in some way, and we chose not to. The upset it has caused is not a surprise, but the extent of it is. My original post was about wondering why my family don't feel able to celebrate or acknowledge that I've done something positive. Their reaction is all about them and what I've deprived them of. And while I understand and anticipated that there would be some sadness about not being involved, ultimately I hoped that the overriding response would be one of happiness for us in taking such a positive step in our lives, and an acknowledgement of our own personal preferences in the method for getting married.

I can see my mum is hurt and I really do feel bad about that, but to have got married in any other way would have compromised on my dh's preferences and undoubtedly led to a spiralling of events and invites and therefore a wedding that we didn't want. Perhaps our actions were selfish, but I really do think that people should get married in the way that they want to, not the way that social conventions say they ought to, or families or friends or strangers say they ought to, because at the end of the day when the wedding is over, the marriage is between those two people and that's what matters the most.

I don't think it's unreasonable of my family to feel they've been left out of my wedding since they basically were, but I do think it's unreasonable not to express any happiness for us, but instead to lay on the guilt and make it all about them and their preferences and needs. But perhaps things will seem more positive once we've gone for lunch and had a good chat about it all.

If my sister upset and insulted my parents like that my first priority would not be telling her how happy I was for her. If she said the reason she had done it was to keep her dh happy I would have been even less impressed.

The problem is you did deprive them of something: you planned a big wedding, your mum was probably daydreaming about her outfit, feeling invested the whole wedding scenario, then you changed your mind, didn't discuss the dilemma with them, and sneaked off and got married without telling them, then presented it without warning and were surprised when your poor mum cried.

I don't think you should have to have a big wedding, and I don't think you had to invite your family if you didn't want to (but actually, you did, it was your husband who didn't). It's the secrecy and lack of upfront communication that has left her feeling upset and like she misunderstood how close you were. But what's done is done, and she should now be happy for you (which she may well be once she gets to re-establish your relationship a bit).

Sorry I feel my "good luck with patching things up" could be seen as sarcastic, but it really was not, it was meant to be supportive!

In any case I still do not see how your mum has "laid on the guilt and made it all about them and their preferences and needs". She just lost control for a minute and is trying to make it up to you (the other relatives I would not be bothered about - given that they were making your life difficult with the "big wedding", why do you have such expectations of them now?). Good luck with it again though.

As a side thought - I am rather saddened and suprised that a lot of posters feel that they would be OK with excluding their parents from a wedding (or whatever event/milestone is discussed) if their partner wished them to. There is no way I would let any man force me into a position where I had to upset/choose one over the other in this way - it' just my opinion but that's not what a relationship (let alone a marriage) is about.

Onetoomany said '/...then you changed your mind, didn't discuss the dilemma with them, and sneaked off and got married without telling them, then presented it without warning and were surprised when your poor mum cried.'

Just to clarify, I was not surprised when my poor mum cried. I was not remotely surprised she was upset about not being at my wedding. I knew it would upset her. As I've said about a squillion times already, perhaps we ought to have told them our plans beforehand, but we felt this would lead to a spiralling of events out of our control (which had already happened) and we really were happy to get married without our mums there. I was too, and so minerva your statement about not letting any man force you into choosing one way or the other simply doesn't hold in this situation. None of it was as black and white as you're making it out to be. I was ambivalent - I was easily swayed either way. I could see advantages to having them there, and advantages to keeping it a secret. And at the end of the day, as I've also said many many times during this thread, it's not the ceremony that's important to us, so we really didn't see the problem with doing it how we wanted to do it.

Anyway, it seems to be a matter of opinion and obviously there are lots of ways in which such behaviour and choices can be interpreted.

Beachtent I think it's obvious that my view on this is that you've done nothing wrong.

Having said all this illogical as I believe your family's reaction to be (I mean all this stuff about 'tradition' no offence, but if we're going to go down the 'traditional' route then it is not traditional to live together before wedlock, divorce, have children out of marriage, either- so if any of them try the traditional line on you, gently put it to them that unless THEIR lives have been absolutely the Daily Mail idea of conventional they've got no right criticising you for not marrying in a 'traditional' way),I think you've got to try to make it up with your mum, but don't let yourself be cowtowed, stuck up for yourself in a non-confrontational way.

Thanks marantha that's what I plan to do. I do feel sorry, even though my dh says I shouldn't, and other friends of mine who believe we've done nowt wrong say I should't apologise for doing what we wanted to do. Hmm.

So, how exactly should I make peace with her? Is going for lunch enough, or should I get her some kind of gift, or something else?