Hello all, first time poster here, hope this is the right thread for it, it’s about my relationship with my mum rather than a partner!
My mum is in her sixties, my parents have been divorced for 15 years. My dad has issues and none of us speak to him anymore. He abused my mum emotionally (and a bit physically too) for 20 years. She has been left with anxiety and depression, very nervous, lonely, no self esteem, over thinks things and catastrophises a lot. She finds social situations difficult as she likes to create a “perfect” persona and only my sister and I know about her issues. She drinks to deal with the anxiety and in social settings this can make her loud and tactless. She often says things that she doesn’t meant to be insulting but are, casual racism, that kind of thing. She manages fine day to day, works part time and goes to several clubs. She has tried all kinds of talking therapies and medication but won’t go back down that route. In short, I love her but she is hard work and I worry about her.
I am getting married in a few months and I am starting to worry more and more about how my Mum will be on the day. She fell out with my sister some time ago and although they have patched things up they’re not exactly close. I have invited one of mums old friends to the wedding which I thought might help, but I don’t know her. My partner has a big family and I’m worried my mum will be so nervous about being with that many people and having a central role (mother of the bride). I don’t have any other family coming. I’ve talked to her about it and she says I’m fussing about nothing, but she does like to pretend everything’s ok when it’s not. My sister agrees it will be a hard day for her. I don’t think she will
actually have a a meltdown and ruin it, I just think I’m going to spend half my time stressing about how she is, are people being nice to her, has she managed to upset anyone, that kind of thing. It’s starting to really eat me up. It doesn’t help that my mum has already been quite vocal about how she doesn’t like many of our choices for the wedding (we are self funding and it’s quite informal). I don’t know what I can do. I’ve asked my sister and close friends to keep an eye but you know what people are like at weddings after they’ve had a few drinks.
Any advice? Thanks