Would this upset you? Mother of Groom

[Weddingspeechsad]

Would you be upset if your son got married and made a speech and thanked both families. Thanks Mum and Dad for everything and brides family for welcoming him into it.

Bride then stands up and does a speech. Thanks both families and grooms parents for welcoming her into their family and being kind. Then does a whole section on her Mum and how much she loves her, how there’s not usually any special moment for mother of the bride in the wedding so special mention for all of the help she’s given.

would you feel upset and singled out as mother of groom? For context I’ve really tried with her, invite them over for lunch and takeaway but always too busy. She is always pleasant enough but quite prickly. Myself and his dad both gave approx £1k each (divorced) towards wedding. Feeling quite hurt but not sure if AIBU.

Sorry but the bride doesn’t need to give a speech devoted to you like she did her own mum. That was up to your son to do.

I have definitely been to weddings where grooms have said a lot about their mums so it’s definitely an oversight by your son, as opposed to a nasty slight by your dil

It wouldn't bother me in the slightest. Surely her relationship with her mother is much more special than her relationship with you?

Your DIL has my sympathy if she is going to have to put up with this jealousy for the rest of her life.

Your son’s speech was normal and sounds lovely. Hers sounds really OTT and bizarre tbh. Typically bride and groom say a quick thank you to everyone and talk about each other, they don’t gush about their parents. I can understand how the discrepancy may make you worried about differences if grandchildren arrive etc but just keep a good relationship with your son.

What a bizarre comment. Its not “gushing” or inappropriate for the bride to reflect on her relationship with her sole parent at the wedding. And OP didn't think so either—she was just jealous that her don and new DIL didn’t make an identical fuss about her.

I do think it’s bizarre. I grew up with a single mother also. OP was upset that her DIL made a really long speech about her Mother. What her son did is typical in a wedding IME. I did a quick thank you to my mother and grandmother in my wedding speech and thanked all the guests. I spoke to my mother in private when getting ready. I’ve never attended a wedding where the parents get much more than a thank you.

Yabu.

Gently OP, it sounds that you’ve got wider issues that you need to unpick.

Your son didn’t live with you until he was 16, and you aren’t happy about the “new rules” you had to follow once his now wife was on the scene. Reading between the lines, it sounds as if you’ve been pushy/pressuring your DS or perhaps ringing for no reason later at night. It’s not normal for an adult child to have to give his parent rules…unless they’ve been massively overstepping boundaries.

It feels as though there’s a big backstory here which has contributed to you feeling weirdly jealous about the bride praising her mum. She sounds lovely - loyal and loving - and could be a great DIL if you perhaps just gave them a bit more respect and found some new interests to keep you busy.

Would therapy help you unpick what’s going on? I only suggest this as virtually no one would be hurt about a bride praising her mum, especially when you’d already been thanked by both the bride and groom. If you’re torturing yourself now over perceived slights, you could end up really upset once grandchildren come along.

Agree the bridge has done nothing wrong. It’s up to your son to give a gushy speech. Also sounds like a bit of a different circumstance, bride being brought up by a single teenage mum and wants to thank her for that, compared to your son who didn’t live with you until he was 16.

Also sounds like you’ve been overbearing a bit although there are nicer ways for your DS to deal with it than putting in place rules.

I would try and forget how the speeches made you feel, focus on the positives of the wedding and building a relationship with the new of them as they start their married life.

And if they don’t want you to talk to the bride’s mum on Facebook, there is always Linked In

So they've felt the need to implement boundaries - this can't be for no reason whatsoever.

You might need to have a look at your behaviour.

You were thanked. Maybe your ds felt it was enough!
Your dil gave a special thanks to her own mum for specific reasons.

It sounds as though they feel they have needed to put what are reasonable boundaries in place, and that you are having difficulty recognising the inevitable changed relationship with your son once married. You need to give them both some space.

And yes, YABU to be upset at your DiLs speech. It doesn’t sound as though either of them said anything wrong in what they said (or didn’t say).

I have to say, implicit (or explicit) requests for company can be very draining. If I say I’m relaxing at home, not busy, I don’t want to get up and go out again to have dinner somewhere else- I want to have it in my pyjamas on the sofa! I’d much rather have an arrangement in place in advance. I also wouldn’t want to start a conversation with anyone after about 8pm.

A better solution might be that you see them once a week or once a month, say Tuesday dinner- maybe both of them or maybe just him.

I suspect they were not new rules but boundaries.

It’s tough when DCs grow up and move out and get married but that’s what we raise them for. To build a good life for themselves, love someone and be loved. Your DIL is number one in your DS life now.

I say kindly OP that, as a few PPs have already said, building a life for yourself now is so important. Do you work, see friends/other family, have hobbies or a sport you do?

Make a pact with yourself to call him perhaps once a week on a day/evening you know would perhaps suit his work schedule and maybe send a check in message or something too. You really do need to let him go, hard as that may be for you.

Why are you more upset with your son's wife than your own son? To be fair, you are not the bride's mother so she's not really obliged to make a speech about you. But you are your son's mother - if anyone should have made a speech about you, it should have been him.

You're going to lose your shit when she wants her mum in the delivery room aren't you. Yikes.

Sorry but you sound just like my mum. Always needing it to be about her.

YABU. I wouldn't expect my son's wife to mention me in her speech at all! It sounds like you were already on edge about her and just looking for something else to criticize. Just relax and take a step back.

OMG! Big head wobble time! My son got married less than two weeks ago, so it’s all fresh in my mind. Our son thanked us in his speech, but didn’t gush over us. Our daughter in law spoke more about her mother, but so similar to your situation, her mother brought her up alone.

My mind just went, WTF while reading your post. You’ll need to stop keeping score or you really will alienate her very quickly. We also gave a very significant contribution to the wedding and I don’t think that there was any money from the other side, the couple funded quite a bit themselves. Our large contribution wasn’t mentioned. This is exactly as it should be. Even our other adult children don’t know how much we gave. We gave this money willingly, not in exchange for a bigger thank you.

As a mother of four sons, I’ve always known that when married, men tend to gravitate more towards their wife’s family. This can be hard, especially when grandchildren come along, as you’d like to get an equal look in, but if you don’t learn to take things like this with a grain of salt really quickly, you will be on the outer.

That may all sound harsh, but you really do need to get a grip or you’ll have the exact opposite result of what you want. You can’t let any of this turn into any form of competition. Start looking instead for ways to bond, create family moments that they will want to come to. But be glad when you do see them and try really hard not to see slights against you in things that aren’t there. Sometimes, you will be hurt by something said or done. I don’t doubt that you were hurt, but it wasn’t intentional (she just wanted to naturally talk about her own mum), so you have to move past this.

This sounds unusual, why was that?!

Having read a couple more of your responses OP, it sounds like you desperately want more of a connection with your son.

I find that once our grown up children have partners, we naturally see less of them, even more so when they’re boys. We organise semi regular lunches and dinners, with plenty of notice, but don’t take offence when someone can’t make it (I have four adult children). Even then, when everyone is around, you don’t get to deeper conversations. One thing I do is try to have lunch with each adult child on a regular basis. We do this on a work day, so it’s only a quick one, but still good to see them and we do discuss different topics without everyone around. Recently my husband mentioned that he’s left out of these. But I’ve explained, this is MY one on one time with each son and he’s perfectly capable of organising his own lunch with them.

For the adult children, lunch during a work day seems to be easier for them to manage, doesn’t take away from family or hobby time etc and as I try to do it once every three months, not too often to manage either.

Just thought I’d mention it in case it’s an idea for you too. Work out what works best for you and your son, it could be a Saturday breakfast or a Thursday afternoon drink somewhere. But might give you that time together that it sounds like you’re missing.

🙄 it’s not about you.

Her Mum has always been a single Mum who had her as a teen so I know they are very close

I think this is at the heart of this. She was aware that this was going to be a bittersweet moment for her Mum, and also wanted to acknowledge that her Mum had had it much harder than most. Plus of course she had particularly relied on her in preparing for the wedding. It's hardly surprising that she wanted to single her out, and she literally couldn't have talked about you the same way because she could never have the same relationship with you.

But you aren’t her mother OP- she doesn’t need to treat you the same as her mum. If you are sad that you feel you didn’t get the recognition you wanted then that it on your son not your DIL. It seems unfair that you are blaming your DIL for this. If I were you I would also reflect on the other things you mention about your DIL that you appear to be blaming her for - ie inviting them for lunch but they are too busy - if you invited both DS and DIL then it could have been DS that was busy rather than DIL. And blaming her for instigating the ‘rules’ - unless you have clear evidence that they were enforced by her with no say for your DS then you are being very unreasonable and clearly scapegoating your DIL for changes in/ issues with the relationship between you and your DS.

You are being ridiculous.

She probably meant that in comparison to father of the bride who normally gets a star role including a speech and giving their daughter away, rather than in comparison to mother of the groom. Who gave her away?

You just made that comparison yourself because it seemed more gushy than your son’s speech. But perhaps your son is a less gushy person than her? I am not gushy at all and did not make a fuss about my mum and the thought of doing a speech would have killed me, but each to their own.