To think I wasn't being selfish to expect a bit more, and they should stop bringing it up!

[LRDTheFeministDragon]

My mum is driving me up the wall because she keeps niggling at me about my wedding (nearly a year ago ) and she's now got my brother in on it.

Basically, I tried to include my mum and dad, told them all about our plans, did the 'give them one big thing to be responsible for', etc. Because my mum is the way she is, she threw massive tantrums and made things quite difficult. But she had no interest in actually helping - everything like trying on a dress or choosing flowers was 'a ridiculous fuss' that I shouldn't bother with/was frivolous.

I ended up doing all the planning myself while telling her how lovely it was that she was doing the cakes and trying to keep the peace when she made a fuss about everything. I have two brothers and I asked them on the day to help out by leading the guests to the reception venue (a few hundred yards away) where wine and capanes were waiting, so we didn't bore anyone doing pictures. On the day, instead, they didn't. I asked them to and both shrugged and said they'd rather I did it. Not a big issue I know ... but it was the only thing I'd asked them to do. My lovely MIL made me feel great by making a beautiful speech, but I felt a bit alone from my family.

The thing is, my mum obviously knows she wasn't exactly nice about it all. Since my brother got married, my mum saw his MIL helping her daughter organize and helping out, and I think she realized it's not actually usual for the family to do very little to help with a wedding. Since this, she keeps hinting things like 'I was nice at your wedding, wasn't I?' and 'We put a lot of work into your wedding, didn't we?'. I feel cross because I can see she must be feeling bad, but she isn't apologizing, she's just trying to pretend it happened differently! She's now got onto my brother who has told me I expected too much from mum and the family, and should realize I'm lucky they were 'so nice' about it. It seems to be that they'll carry on about it until I cave and admit they were great on the day ... I think my brothers are totally oblivious to the fact that I was hurt they didn't bother to help, and think I am being mean to my mum.

Sorry, ranting and it is so fucking crap to have this keep on circling at me.

Maybe one way to be "nice" without saying they did stuff which they didn't would be to say you forgive her and that she doesn't need to compare herself to your brother's MIL.

It must have been very hurtful. Next time she says anything,say the fact you keep bringing this up suggests to me you know the answer mum,we had a lovely wedding but through our own actions not yours. If she presses furthur then say,you have only mentioned this since brothers wedding & perhaps you didn't realise what some mums do,you didn't & it's a little late to drive me mad now needing reassurance for what you didn't do.Also you want to remember the lovely aspects of the day not this nonsense a year on!

I wouldn't expect my family to do jobs for my wedding. I sorted our wedding with DH and wanted our families/friends to just have a lovely time. The bits of help offered/taken on were very much appreciated, but I'd never have asked for it and didn't feel I needed any kind of 'support'.

But I totally see the "pretending it happened differently" thing and the brothers not getting it - just seeing their mum upset and blaming you.

I agree that you perhaps need to more direct then.

How about words the the effect - aah for goodness sakes! - stop making this all about YOU!

and - yer you were crap.

hey, I'm only joking mum - can't you take a joke.

....or just laugh. Like she's said something genuinely funny.
"seriously though, those cakes were good"

I'm so sorry you feel like this . I am in the middle of Wedding planning myself and my parents have been great but a wee bit too opinionated at times which is causing me stress !!

If I were you , when you mum asks how helpful she was I would say "yes with the cakes, but tbh mum I pretty much did everything myself" and whatever she says , just say "I'm not starting an argument / criticising / being bitchy etc etc , I'm just telling it like it is , I thought you could have done more" (if you are her only daughter emphasise this her)

As for your brother - if it's the same one that's getting married now please don't do anything for him - he doesn't deserve it .

I know you feel very hurt LRD and you have every right to be, but I've learned with my own mum that there's a point at which you just have to give up expecting things and move on, otherwise you just tie yourself in knots and it just drives you mad. My mum was a pain about my wedding too - she helped out with money but on the day she caused a fuss at the hairdressers and nearly made me late, freaked out about tying up my dress (so much so that I had to shout at her and she actually listened for once as she could see how annoyed I was), didn't say a single positive word about any aspect of the wedding, and basically didn't act in any way like I would expect a mother to act on her daughter's wedding day. That was made even more apparent by my lovely MIL who kissed me and hugged me and told me I looked gorgeous, all simple things that my mum should have done but didn't.

If she asked me about it now (she hasn't) I'd say "I had a great day," but I wouldn't make any comment about her. You know why? Because I've tried that before and I've come out looking the baddy every time with my sister telling me how horrible I am to mum and making out like I'm some sort of bitch. Nothing has changed and I only feel worse. I've had to basically sit myself down and explain to myself what my mother is like - she's a bit cold, quite self-centred and pretty immature - and expecting anything else from her is foolish and will only lead to disappointment. It's a hard thing to face but I feel better for it really as now I know what to expect.

Clearly your mum has an inkling that she has failed you in some way (which is a lot more than my mum will ever have) and is looking for reassurance. You can't give her that reassurance so I'd say the best thing to do is say nothing unless you're willing to have a huge heart to heart to her about everything. Just saying she failed you and not elaborating will not solve anything and will only makes things worse IMO. If you think a heart to heart will actually do anything then go for it but from what you describe I doubt it will. I've tried heart to hearts with my mum a few times and it's only made me more and more disappointed as again I was expecting empathy and understanding when I know that my mum isn't capable of that.

WRT to the smacking, I think you need to lay the boundaries very clearly when you have children. Be very explicit about what you expect and don't brook any objections. That's one situation where you do have to be firm because you're protecting a child.

Thanks for helping my straighten out my had everyone much appreciated! I am going to take up the suggestions from several of you to just be very direct next time and explain that it was not good, really. I think humouring her/giving her softly-softly answers isn't working and it sounds as if, by and large, I might have expected a bit more from family members. At the time I was trying very hard not to be bridezilla-y (as you do).

paisley - I would love to say I didn't need any support, but short of hiring someone (can you do that?), there were things I couldn't do myself. I couldn't both get my photo taken and show people where the food/drinks were (I know, because I tried!). I don't mean I wanted them to do loads of stuff, but I honestly think it is surprisingly difficult to make everything at a wedding happen yourself - there are moments when it is just conventional for someone other than the bride/groom to be making a move. DH's mum was absolutely lovely and did a beautiful speech, but she and my FIL don't speak English (DH translated) so there really was a limit to how much they could do.

writer - I agree about the smacking. My view at the moment is I will make clear every time it comes up how I feel, but currently (and very sadly), it looks as if I may have a situation where I won't want to leave a child with them because I don't trust them to follow my wishes. Obviously I want to avoid that, so DH and I are both really keen to see if we can work on this aspect of my relationship with my parents before we get to that point, if that makes sense? I know from other threads that it can be a really big issue so it seems to make sense to anticipate.

LRD, I think I've read a few of your threads about your family, and I just don't know why you bother. Am I right in thinking your major concern about your wedding reception was that your mother wouldn't throw a tantrum? (Apologies if I have misremembered.) Truly, they are crap to you. Why do you feel the need to maintain a relationship with them? It sometimes sounds as if you need their approval (which you are never going to get, for no good reason).

Next time your pathetic brother dares suggest they were 'so nice' about your wedding, ask him to explain how he arrived at that conclusion. In what way were they 'nice'? And send him packing.

You are too nice for them.

What are the pluses and minuses of telling her she was crap and upsetting her? Because you're (hopefully) not going to have another wedding for her to ruin so any criticism won't help in a similar situation in the future.

So, I think you need to think about it carefully. It'll make you feel better, but if there's a massive fall-out, will it have been worth it?

Ask your mum why she is so bothered. I would say to ypur mum, that 'you did as much as you could, if you knew better, you would have done better' This would mean that you were not letting off the hook.

giraffe - well, as I say, it seems that she knows she did something bad, and she hopes that if she keeps niggling about it I will tell her it's all ok - I think my brothers really think I should do that, too. But I think that if I do that this time, she will feel she can keep doing things that she knows will upset me and keep pestering me afterwards. This is the first time really that I've not straightaway given in to her and told her it's all fine, and the first time my dad has said that actually she wasn't very nice, you see.

forehead - I just find it hard to believe an intelligent adult woman doesn't know better. I think she does know - but she has always lost her temper as a means of getting her own way, it's just how she operates and obviously when we were children there was nothing we could do about that.

It's just that, although she is like this, she is my mum and she can be lovely - I don't want to cut contact completely and I don't want her to miss out on being a granny. I know she's already done a few things that got on the wrong side of my brother's wife re. their baby, and it seems important to me to sort this out. It took me ages to realize everyone's mum wasn't like this, it's still all fairly new to me.

I would ask why she keeps asking? It's been a year Let it go fgs!!! And no I wouldn't say oh you were all crap. What would that achieve? unless you're so bitter about it you have to get it out? In which case do so but I wouldn't expect it to do much good tbh? And this is coming from a very straight talking person. My friends would be the ones to help me though, plus my sister I would never be able to rely on mam.

emphatic?

oh I'm being a bit feisty of late... comes of dealing with fuckwits, the X, my dad, stepdad etc... I'm having ishoos with em all, so not tolerating any shite at the moment... sorry if I was a bit bold....

I'm the same, if you ask me once was it OK when it wasn't really, I'll lie, but if it's over and over and over, then I say, what do you want? to tell you it was crap? OK then it was, you know it, cos you keep asking, and I keep saying OK OK, but you are pushing it, fine, here's the truth... you could have done more, I felt let down at the time, but I'm over it.... as long as you drop it now.

curious, I've said what I think telling her would achieve. If you disagree, fair enough, but asking teh question again is a bit irritating when there's a three page thread.

HerH - oh, I'm sorry to hear you're having fuckwit problems. Your post made me grin though - you sound like a good strong-minded lady!

I didn't mean you let it go fgs, meant her. And ok if you think you'll achieve something trying to get her to see her faults then good luck. Just don't see it happening, she sounds very selfish as do your brothers. Like I said, I never rely on family my friends are my chosen family.

he he, I'm worrying that I'm being too feisty at the mo, i think it's years of living under an abuser, now free, I'm not letting anyone boss me about ...

Seem to have lost the ability to "suck it up"

I think you have to weigh it up, calmly in your mind and see, is/was it that important to you. if it really IS that important to you that you don't want history to be re-written, then you need to find a way of calmly stating that at the time it was a disappointment to you how support you thought you had, wasn't there, that it's no big deal to you now, that you would rather just put it to the side and forget about it, but if you keep getting asked then tbh, it'll all come out one day and it won't solve anything.

Yes, I got that you meant she should let it go - just wasn't sure about your post. I take your point about relying on friends though.

Cross-post: good for you not 'sucking it up'! I agree, it's a horrible expression.

You speak a lot of sense.

I agree with HerHissyness.
It obviously matters a lot to you, both because it was upsetting at the time and because you want for once to stand up to your awful mother.
I don't think you should roll over and let her have her way this time. Go brave and tell her the truth next time she asks. Nothing wrong with that?who knows, in normal families it might even be common.
It probably won't even penetrate anyway if she's not used to being told unpleasant truths.
If it does, what harm could it do? Why shouldn't she for once have to face the consequences of behaving badly?
And what can she do to you that you can't handle? You're chafing at the bit to respond to her like an adult and not a cowed child.
Regardless of whether it makes her see the error of her ways (unlikely), telling her might be very useful for you if it liberates you from automatically giving in to her every time.

thanks LRD!

The other thing to consider is that now you are married, probably planning on littler dragons, you need to be the matriarch of YOUR household.

You can't do that if others run rough shod all over you and your life and you don't have an opinion about it. You will have to stand up for your family one day.

Just as blokes have their rites of passage, so do we women, but it's triggered by different events.

when you do start standing up for yourself against traditionally controlling characters, it's immensely liberating!

LRD I know they bang on about narcissistic parents on here. A few of my friends have them, funnily enough like seems to attract like and most of those friends seem to have both parents like that? I also have a friend who is narcissistic and married one! Anyway, do you think perhaps your mum is?

I will keep that in mind, HerHissy. I love the phrase 'littler dragons'
too!

Curious - I don't know really. I'm not terribly comfortable with labels - mum won't see a doctor (my dad did try), so she's never been diagnosed with any mental illness though I can't imagine she doesn't have one. My dad is different - I disagree with some of his fixed ideas (hitting children, especially!), but I think he's mentally perfectly sound, just easily made angry. Unfortunately he alternates between acknowledging my mum has a problem and being fiercely loyal - at one point I asked if he couldn't help me with some wedding planning and keep quiet to mum as she was kicking up a fuss and I got a massive lecture about how she is his wife, how could I suggest such a thing, etc. I think he probably has to think that to stay married to her, tba!