Would you be upset if your adult child didn’t attend your second wedding?

[perfectsoundok]

I’m the adult child. I have my reasons, which are compelling, but I wonder if I should be the bigger person and quash my feelings of discomfort and upset.

I’m genuinely keeping on open mind here (and deliberately leaving out context) as I have no one to ask who isn’t obviously biased towards my point of view. So your input is welcome!

OP, I was the child invited to a parent's second wedding, and I didn't go.

It wasn't a totally clear cut situation, but there was a lot of shit that had gone on that was shoved under the carpet when it suited them to be playing happy families. I felt that I'd be a hypocrite to slap on a fake smile and wish them joy through clenched teeth, and I didn't want that.

We are NC now, in part because I didn't go. I don't regret the loss, in fact I think my life is better without the drama and pressure to be a performative 'perfect child' when it suits their narrative. I made the right choice for my situation.

Perhaps you should ask yourself, if I don't go and therefore lose contact with the parent, will I be ok with that? If the answer is yes, then it's an easy call. If you do want the relationship to continue then you might make a different choice to facilitate that.

Best of luck whatever you decide.

@Gingerboy22 deliberately hadn’t said, you’re right - but it is my mum. Which makes it even more upsetting that she wouldn’t support me through this pregnancy! On the bright side I am closer to my dad than ever. He needs a lot of more help as his mobility and health aren’t great, and I’m an only child so I tend to fend for him a bit more. My mum on the other hand has a big extended family and even more now she has her partner’s family.

I am on the lookout for signs of abuse/coercive control but I honestly feel like this is driven by my mum. She is so head over heels for her fiancé and I think dead set on building her ‘perfect’ life that she felt robbed of with my dad. I liked him initially and he was nice to me - helped build furniture when we moved house, for example. As many have suspected, there is a lot more to it as I’m just giving recent examples from my pregnancy. But I had hoped my DM would be happy to meet her first grandchild and not shouting at me on the phone.

Bloody hell, you’ve hit the nail on the head! Thanks for sharing your situation. It sounds very similar and the shoving under the carpet is the thing that bugs me the most!

I want to be able to acknowledge that we have grown apart, that they have treated me poorly, that they have expected too much from me and offered little in return - and for us to move past this. That’s the irony. I would like to attend their wedding and I am happy for my mum to be getting married - I just wish it didn’t come with all these strings attached.

No. They mentioned it a couple of weeks later. They had been together for 40 years or so, it was a legal thing, tying up loose ends.

My sils never went to mil second wedding. Although they live in Oz, they could’ve made the effort, it certainly wouldn’t have been finances.
Dh was conflicted about how fil would feel. Mils new dh’s eldest dd didn’t go, but it was his 3rd marriage.

Myself and my three siblings weren't invited to my mothers second wedding, well I tell a lie, she said if us girls wanted to put on our best clothes and stand outside the register office we could, not one of us did.

She held a 'B' list reception at a hotel, I also declined that.

Imagine how William and Harry felt

Do whatever you think is best for you. If you don't care about your relationship and effect not going has then don't go. If you want to go, then go.

Hi @perfectsoundok sorry but yes i would be upset. Now i'm a Mum i know how much a Mum has to go through for her child.
All the best in your decision.

I think if you're not going for own reasons then fine if it's out of loyalty to the still single parent I don't think they should expect to hold you back from a family occasion.
It will cause bad blood if you say why though. If you don't go then you'll need to blame pregnancy or new baby if you don't want arguments

I think OP is also a mum but that’s neither here nor there. Children, who didn’t ask to be born, often go through a lot for their parents and in OP’s case she’s been treated poorly by her mum. Her mum may be upset but she’ll have brought it on herself.

I’m about a year late here. I’m getting married soon, it’s a second marriage for both of us. So I can tell you a couple of things that might help.

I have been estranged from one of my children for about 12 years. His choice. He was given the choice to come to the wedding, but has ignored the conversation that was brought up by his brother with him. I am fine with it, I just want him to be happy and if he feels happier by not having me in his life, then that’s OK. It did take me a long time to get to that point though.

However, FH’s daughter (1 of 3) said she probably couldn’t afford tickets to come. In the past, he has generally helped her financially when she needs it. But she said we’ll just wait and see what happens and it was left at that. He recently reached out to her since the wedding is coming closer and she sounded uncomfortable and said oh yeah sorry I completely forgot and I bought plane tickets to go several states away to a concert with an old school friend of mine and I can’t cancel it because I haven’t seen my friend for a long time. I highly doubt she forgot because our wedding weekend is also an important weekend of hers and her partners. (the trip to the concert is not a couples trip, his daughter is going alone) We had a whole conversation about it with her much earlier. But I think there are other dynamics at play. I have been at the family home for six or seven Christmases now and all the girls come to the house that day. It’s the only time this particular daughter visits. Aside from that she really doesn’t talk to FH unless she needs something. This particular daughter has an affinity for telling me how things are done at the family house. THEIR family house. She never does it in front of her dad. She has some pretty obvious control issues. I feel like it’s pretty obvious that she doesn’t want an outsider entering into their family group even though the mother had an affair and left way back in 2013 and I met the dad in 2016.

When she broke the news to him, he couldn’t make it through the conversation without crying. I felt really bad for him. There were so many things. Obviously she could afford plane tickets when she wanted to. She could afford a concert. I personally don’t believe at all that she forgot that was the wedding weekend. And I hope the next time she needs money or something else, he remembers this.

The other two daughters are in the wedding and one is the maid of honor.

And aside from adult children, I think what’s hurting me about the RSVPs are the people that are giving fake explanations for why they aren’t coming. People that we thought were sure thing. my sister was supposed to be a bridesmaid and now that the wedding is getting closer she said she’s not coming because her daughter has a track meet the day before. (I have traveled the four hours to her town many times for many of her family events, but I think maybe she has a problem with showing up for me. And probably a problem with this event being for me and not about her.)

we had one person who was told the date of the wedding on February 7 and again on May 6 and she sent me a text message to say she just wanted to let me know that since the save the dates didn’t come out till June, they didn’t have enough time and had already scheduled a vacation. It was odd because she doesn’t usually text. But I think she didn’t want to respond in Facebook messenger where she would normally communicate because the last message on Facebook messenger was from February 7 and included the date of the wedding in it lol so she was trying to be sneaky. It’s the ones that are like that are kind of bothering me.

so I know this is probably coming in too late and I don’t know if these situations help you but I kind of felt like talking about it anyways so here it is.