AIBU to feel deeply hurt my daughter hid her marriage for 18 months

[MrsLangton]

My daughter, whom I believed to be very close to me, has just told me she got married 18 months ago!
I am so hurt and confused not so much that she got married without me being there (although that hurts) but more that she didn't tell me straight away.

We need the details @MrsLangton ! There must be more to this...

Or she just treated it as something to tick off

I think you're going to have to come back with the missing info @MrsLangton, or your thread won't really achieve anything.

We got married and didn't tell anyone for 18 months too. For us it was just legal paperwork to sort out an inheritance tax situation. We didn't want a big party so we just went to the registry office with our 2 adult DC as witnesses. We just wore jeans and a t shirt so didn't have new clothes either. We had an amazing meal with just the 4 of us (splashed out on this) but said nothing. It wasn't until we were chatting at a family event and someone said "you've been together ages when are you getting married?" that DH said "we already are!" We don't wear rings so it wasn't obvious.

Perhaps your DD is the same and didn't want the fuss and had seen other family weddings get out of hand with the planning and guest lists and the hen etc etc.

Op, you must have some idea why.

Did they marry in a registrar office on a Friday afternoon and disappear off for a quiet weekend? Did she and hubby get married abroad? Was anyone else there or did they pull random witnesses off the street? Does she hate fuss? Would you have insisted on inviting other people?

Would you have wanted to be involved - dress, reception etc?
Do you get on well with her dh and his family?
Did she regard it as a tick box since they already had a mortgage and a dc?

OP has disappeared

This is the kind of stuff my cousin does. Her parents are lovely and are regularly upset by her antics. She’s just immensely self absorbed and loves to “shock”.

There is clearly a back story here op and you know why.

I'd be very upset as well. In fact a not-close friend/colleague got married (to another colleague!) and only told me 6mo later and I was very offended, so I can't imagine how upset I'd be if it was a close family member.

(I wouldn't have expected to be invited or anything, but I'd been so supportive about her divorce and let her offload about that, then she kept her remarriage on a need to know basis a mere few years later. Ugh, rude.)

I'm sorry, op. I think no matter what, she could have told you immediately afterwards rather than 18 months, unless you were completely non contact

I can understand you’re disappointed she hasn’t fulfilled your dreams of being the mother of the bride, sharing the wedding excitement and all that. It’s understandable. But honestly I think the only smart way to deal with this is just to put on a happy face and congratulate her on her marriage. How would you react if a good friend told you this? I’m guessing you’d find this exciting and happy news and give her warm congratulations- you should do the same with your adult DD. Saying this without knowing any of the context and backstory.

DH and I eloped. We didn’t want a fuss and knew if we mentioned it pre-marriage then we would have had people turning up on the day uninvited/guilt tripping/wanting to make it a ‘thing’.

We told family a week later and only DM kicked off (AI-laden letter of assumptions presented as fact/manipulation etc.). She would also have said we were incredibly close before this.

The main thing is how you now approach this going forward. It has happened now, it is unlikely to be redone(!) so I would recommend remaining neutral/positive towards your DD and her husband. Be curious- don’t make assumptions about how/why they did things without asking. You may find that, while you disagree and wouldn’t do it that way yourself, you understand their reasons.

You can be disappointed and hurt, but ultimately no parent is entitled to attend a marriage/wedding, your DD probably has some valid reasons why they did it this way and it’s all about how you choose move forward now.

It was for practical reasons..she lives abroad with her partner
The weird thing was they came back and announced their engagement including ring 3 months after they got married
I've never ever pressurized or mentioned weddings or outfits etc before or after apart from asking when they thought they might get married and where and there's no doubt I really would have liked to be there but as I say the main reason I'm so upset is because she didn't tell me
We've been on holiday together and I've seen her at least 5 times when they stayed with us

Does your daughter live in a different country, do you know the man she married?

There must a reason she kept it secret and I wonder why she has chosen to tell you now. She may be pregnant and want you to share in the excitement of that.

I am sorry you are hurt but you know now and it's the here and now, and how to move forward, that is important.

@MrsLangton
I appreciate you’re hurt, I probably would be to. But she has told you now for whatever reason.You need to be careful how you respond now……..If you make her feel guilty you could drive a huge wedge into your relationship ( I’m not saying she hasn’t, but she’s finally opened up.) I’m not sure a lot of questions and guilt tripping is going to do you any favours
The truth will emerge in time

I talk to my mother every day and she doesn’t know I have a boyfriend, plan to get married and probably won’t know until well after the fact 🫣

I intend on telling her about him some time this year though (it’s been……… 4 years…………)

Exactly this. DH and I had been together for many years, and just wanted it done. Even only having immediate family would have involved far more organisation that we had capacity for (I’m one of five, DH is one of seven, and everyone lived in our home country, plus our elderly parents would have needed to have flights and accommodation and airport picks ups arranged and escorted around London as they were terrified of the tube), so we just got two witnesses and did a registry office quickie, and didn’t tell anyone for years. Mostly because we’d nearly forgotten about it ourselves. It was just paperwork.

I wouldn't tell my mother either because she would expect to be in the centre of it all.

Could it be that they see what they've done as having got married, as in the legal side of things, and are planning a wedding at a later date?

It sounds as though maybe it was a small quick wedding but not the wedding they actually want to have, which is why they are pretending that they have only just got engaged. Maybe she thought you wouldn’t be very excited to go to their “big day” if you knew they were already married

I think it's extraordinary of her and very hurtful, if you have a good relationship.

You might move on from it, but it's not something you can ever forget.

Not to derail OPs thread, but do you mind if I ask why?

@MrsLangton quite honestly if your daughter had been living with her now husband before they married I would be very hard pressed to get excited about the wedding. It would just be a formality. A bit like locking the stable door after the horse had bolted (as awful as that may seem).

I would be hurt that she didn’t mention it but would respect her decision.

“It was for practical reasons..she lives abroad with her partner”

So maybe as far as she was concerned, it was just a formality. The fact she told you three months later that she was engaged implies that she wants to get married “properly” at some point. I think it makes a difference that your DD is abroad, so you are necessarily not so close to every last detail of her life. Whatever her reason, I would respect her choice and welcome her husband into your family.

I got married abroad for visa reasons. We had no family present, just two random witnesses. We chose this, and did it before the wedding-wedding, because both DM and MIL would have tried to make a huge to-do about it. Neither of us wanted that. MIL was initially very upset but mollified when she found out DM wouldn’t be there either.

Subsequently we did have a wedding-wedding and lo and behold - both women made a huge fuss and, frankly, spectacle of themselves. It was like DH and I were guests at our own wedding. But we didn’t care, in fact we let them have it. It was win-win for everyone. 20 years on, guess which anniversary we celebrate? And which one we get happy anniversary messages on 😂

Perhaps your DD sees some of this in you? Or perhaps she just sees the legal marriage as paperwork and the thing she’s excited for and actually considers to be the real moment is the wedding wedding?