to feel bereft since my DS got married?

[GluttonDressedasLamb]

I didnt expect to feel this way. DS has lived in a different country from me for 10 years, so Im used to him being away. He lived with his girlfriend for three years before marrying her, and I was fine with that, too.

But I cried all through his wedding service, and the tears are still welling when I think of it.

I am glad he found someone he loves, and who loves him, and yet I can`t stop crying

Ive always got on well with his wife, and have no intention of morphing into the mother-in-law from hell, but I suppose I feel shes taken him from me, and where I am is no longer home. AIBU?

Though I do have hopes of a massive Monthly meal with everyone together, GC too, where I am feeding the 5,000 and all the GC can play together, and I get to see my DD, SonIL, DS's and DIL's, and have a jolly old knees up!

"A son is a son, til hes got him a wife, a daughters a daughter, you've got her for life"

I don´t agree-I think it depends on the son/daughter concerned.

My husband & I are both close to our parents & that didn´t change once we married.

What did change was that we both saw our parents together at weekends and perhaps for less time for example as we also wanted time as a couple.

But we phoned as regularly-but then perhaps initially didn´t spend as long chatting as we had done.

But shouldn´t our spouses be more important?

As an adult, parents aren´t always the most important people to their "children"-married or not.

See - i think exactly the same couthy My DDs are still young, but i think of the day when they're all off and living elsewhere - and how i'll want them all round regularly for a jolly meal.

BUT - when we are summoned for the 'big monthly family get together' my DH and are both a bit
... We're busy. We're tired. We just want a bit of P&Q this weekend ..... ect

:)

I probably would have written snarky judgy posts about the op right up until ds1 left to go to uni.

I love him. I love his independence. I realise he has left now and I just enjoy it when he hoses to visit. I want him to have a girl he lose and who loves him. I want him to travel and be happy and all that ood stuff.

But a little bit of me, a tiny bit of me, fels all these things as being steps away from me. And that would make me a bit sad if I let it.

It's not logical or reasonable I know. And the selfish bit is swamped out by all the good things I want him to have in is life. But it is there.

That doesn't make me selfish or narcissistic or pathetic.

And fwiw I will be really happy when narcissistic stops being the buzz word of choice. A few people are dealing with relatives with narcissistic personalities. Most people just have some selfish or crap ones. It's right up there with OCD used for every bugger who likes things neat.

I cried through my sister's wedding, she'd been living with my BIL for years, they had a son together, but for some reason I got massively upset that she'd now have a different last name to me and that I was losing her somehow.

Rationally I knew that wasn't the case, but for some reason my emotional response was way OTT.

YANBU at all. You are feeling emotional at a change in your and your son's relationship. A positive change, but that doesn't mean you won't feel anything about it. As others have said, you are not weeping and wailing at your ds and dil, nor are you causing problems. You will get through these feelings and move on to the next stage of your life, just as you did with all the other things like starting school, first sleepover etc.

I think people are being harsh if they think you have no right to feel sad about losing what's gone before, but now it's time to look forward to what's coming - lovely visits, maybe even gc... I think it is hard to let a child go, whether it hits you when they leave home, have their own child, or when they get married. When I married my Dad said something about he and my Mum 'having loved waving me off on all the different journeys in life with joy and pride, but always with a silent tear in their hearts'. you don't get that perspective till you're the parent.

Let yourself feel sad at times, then get out your dc's pictures, have a laugh, go for a walk and get on with your own (can do absolutely anything you want to with!) life. x

I think many parents think their adult children think of their house as home long after they have ceased to do so. I stopped thinking of my parents house as home age 18. My parents were lovely but home was where I slept and where my stuff was.
Crying for a bit of the wedding sounds normal, crying for all of it sounds OTT especially as they were tears of self pity. Perhaps you are exagerating or it was a very short service though.
Maybe being divorced makes you less clingy with your kids.
I'd hate to be tied to a regular monthly meal, and suspect my kids would too so don't see that happening.

"A son is a son, til hes got him a wife, a daughters a daughter, you've got her for life"

I disagree too. It depends on the individuals. My brothers are both much closer to my parents than I am, and always have been, in fact one still lives with them and the other is always going 'home' at weekends etc.

It's probably more about individual personality (and maybe birth order, I was the stereotypically independent middle child) than gender.

DH is also closer to his mum than I am to mine (probably because he had a less dysfunctional upbringing, and also was the 'baby' of the family!)

ephiny i think you're spot on. And i find 'family placement' fascinating.

My DH is quite family oriented and he is the 'baby'. (still baulks at the monthly get together though) His eldest bro lives at the other end of the country. The middle 2 drift a bit. One is a D, one is a S. The D is quite close to her mum. The S - successful, previously rebellious.

It was the same with my ex's family. Same with friends that are eldest/youngest/middle.

I'm an OC. So ... a bit odd

I hope the OP comes back.

That's the thing, if one set of DC & family can't come, I'm sure another will. I don't mean it has to be every fourth weekend or anything, just that it'd be nice to do!

If they had plans, or needed P&Q, I wouldn't feel bereft or anything, I'd go out and do something instead!

I said it would be nice, not that I'd expect it every month without fail or I'd have a hissy fit. Life gets in the way, we all know that.

As much as we love and care for our DC's when they are small, they grow up, get jobs, get married, have their own children.

I didn't have DC so they could keep me from being lonely when they are older - I get enjoyment from each stage of their life. Of course I look back at them as toddlers, and miss that, but it doesn't drive me to tears, or sadness, because growing up is a natural thing to do.

I haven't seen my parents house as 'home' since I moved out at 15, and I'm quite sure that when my DC's move out, they won't see my house as 'home'. But that's normal.

I don't want to become a terror of a MIL, that sees my DIL's as having 'stolen' my little boys, I've had one of those already, and am determined not to be like that.

So I am set upon seeing it as gaining DIL's and a SonIL, rather than 'losing' my DC's.

This is why I think its important to keep up non-family friendships and interests/hobbies in the really busy years when children are younger as far as possible. (Not inferring that the OP or anyone else didn't BTW). They aren't a substitute but they can soften the transition.

I agree singinginthesun.

I am not suggesting that the op is too wrapped up or has no life without her dc, but the more you see your own life ahead of you the less you mourn the passing of the stage you are at.
Sometimes we can focus on transition stages as the end or of things lost rather than a whole new stage and the beginning of new ones.

Do you think it's something to do with him living abroad. Does the marriage make him living away permanent whereas before he may have come back one day??

I can imagine feeling this way too and I am already hoping that they choose to live near home and marry women I can get on with!!

Keep yourself busy and always have a trip arranged to visit them so that you always have that to look forward to.

OP, I do hope you come back by the way.

If it's any consolation I cried very recently after my best friend got married. I like her husband very much. I am married myself and she and her husband have been living together since 2006! I just hadn't expected to find the symbolism of the wedding in terms of her moving from the old life into the new coupled one so powerful. We all like to pretend that we are rational creatures but ceremonies and festivals have survived for a reason.

Please think about taking up a new hobby, or maybe reconnecting with an old friend or something which will enable you to see this next stage in terms of growth and not loss.

You reap what you sow.

If you don't feel you're gaining a daughter (as you did a son when your daughter got married) you won't and therein will lie the basis of your relationship.

I would worry less about what other people said at the wedding. They are newly weds and bound to be absorbed with each other.

You are already looking to find fault with her. So he doesn't talk as long when she's there, maybe they've got things to do?! It doesn't mean she's timing the phone call!

Gah there are so many alarm bells with what you've written, I haven't the time. It's sad and don't be surprised if you mess it up.

Glutton, I also just wanted to add you are an amazing mother if you have raised your children to live their own lives.

This might seem like cold comfort now, but think of the alternative. I know several men who have never flown the nest in the psycological sense. Either living round the corner from their mothers, taking the washing home and falling over themselves every time she gets so much as a papercut or living at home, barely working and spending what little income they do have (often supplemented by mother's purse) on cannabis and alcohol.

DHs uncle was in the latter catagory. DH's grandparents loved it in the early years but he got older and his substance abuse problems got worse, his friends moved away from him so they had to provide all his emotional support, he got so used to being "helped" financially that he took to selling their stuff/stealing from purses, the whole set up became so warped that their friends and their other children kept their distance more and more.

I cried all the way through DS1's wedding too. It was both happy and sad. Happy because he'd found someone who he loves and who loves him, but sad because it was final- I was never going to be the No 1 woman in his life again.
Obviously I hadn't been for quite some time, but the marriage underlined it.
Still see him at least once a week, still love him to bits, but he has made his own family now, and they come above me in his priorities. Wouldn't want it any other way though. If he put me before his wife and children I would feel I'd got it wrong somehow.

Also - was it mostly single men at the wedding commenting on how involved your DS is with her? Is it possible that they don't appreciate what the dynamics of the early years of a relationship are like?

"I was never going to be the No 1 woman in his life again."

But what makes you think that you were up until the day he married?

Read the whole post diddl

Obviously I hadn't been for quite some time, but the marriage underlined it.

Sorry, missed that bit

But I don´t really get it.

I´m my kids mother-that´s it.

What is this no1 woman thing?

No wonder some DILs feel as if MILs are competing!

Oh, but they are! My MiL had terrible trouble accepting me, because I had taken away he darling son . After about 20 years we got on like a house on fire!

I agree with diddl. I want to be the number one woman in my husband's life but am happy to just be my son's mum.
He will always love me as his mum but I expect him to have women his own age he'll love more and differently. I'd be concerned if that didn't happen.

I have been teetering on the brink of tears all morning, then this tipped me over the edge. I was holding it together until I got to Pag's post; this is my vision of 2 short years into the future. Thanks a lot Pag. (Heartily agree with the rest of your post, btw.)

DS1 started 6th form college today and I thought that I'd be OK, but it's serving to remind me that in 2 years he'll be off to uni. And so on and so on.

You'll always be his DM; but it's natural to mourn the passing of the status quo as you've known it.

I guess the reason I agree with Athing is because OP didn't have the same reaction at her DD's wedding. If it's a 'flown the nest' sorta thing, surely it'd be the same with a child of either gender?

Real question to parents of adult children out there, not being snarky.