Uninvited to family wedding

[R0SEMARY]

Sorry this is long as there’s a lot of background and I don’t want to drip feed. Names/ details changed of course.

I’ve been married for 20 years to John, we have teenage kids together and John has a daughter, Helen, from a previous marriage. Helen is in her 30s and so was a teenager when I married her father. And no, I was not the OW - they were divorced years before we met.

Our marriage has been very difficult for the last 10 years, mostly because of my husband’s many affairs (among other things) . I’ve tried to leave several times but it’s complicated and I’ve stayed for the sake of the children. It’s bearable because he works away a lot and we pretty much lead separate lives.

When Helen was a teenager she lived with us for half the week. This was hard for me, I will admit, because she had a lot of behavioural issues and was very challenging. I tolerated a lot of verbal abuse and inappropriate behaviour as I knew she was troubled and unhappy. She was occasionally physically aggressive towards me, especially when I was pregnant.

After she left home things got better of course and during her 20s and 30s we have got on OK. She lives at the other end of the country with her girlfriend so we only meet up a few times a year but keep in touch by phone, what’s app, zoom etc .

They are getting married this autumn, postponed from last year. We are all involved - my teenagers are bridesmaids / ushers - it’s been years in the planning. Naturally I have my Step MOB outfit and I’ve arranged ( booked and paid for ) a week’s holiday for us all around the event, as it’s a 9 hour drive away.

However my husband has always struggled with Helen’s sexuality. He disliked her last girlfriend and really hates her current fiancée ( says she’s fat and ugly ) but I’ve always tried to smooth things over and persuade him to keep on good terms with them both. He originally didn’t want anything to do with the wedding, partly because he hates her girlfriend and partly because he has an issue with same sex relationships in general. He still thinks it’s a phase that Helen will grow out of ( sorry I know that’s offensive ).

However I talked him round and made all the arrangements so he can’t say it’s too much hassle. He didn’t even want to walk her down the aisle but I persuaded him to suggest instead that she ask her mum as they are closer.

Then tonight, out of the blue, Helen phoned me to say that she doesn’t want me at her wedding any longer but she still wants my husband and children to attend.

I was absolutely gobsmacked. We’ve been talking about this wedding for three years, I’ve helped her choose bridesmaids dresses, flowers, menu etc (at her request). She wouldn’t say why she was doing this.

There’s been no arguments or falling out of any kind - all recent conversions have been about the wedding, her work, her cats etc.

Of course I asked her father what was going on and after a long conversation he admitted that he has been lying to Helen about me for years. Basically all the negative and nasty things he has been saying to me about her, he has told her that I said them, not him.

I am so shocked. Ever since I’ve known him he’s been complaining to me about her. About her refusing to attend school as a teenager, about her self harming ( which he said was just attention seeking ), her lies and stealing, her sexuality, career choices, her dropping out of university, cheating on her previous partner, her character, her lack of religion ( he is from a conservative religious background and raised her in it ).

I’ve spent years listening to him talk about her . So often I’ve defended her and tried to get him to be a little more open minded about her beliefs and lifestyle. Persuaded him to be polite to her partners and talked about their good points. Made the effort to keep in touch, sending gifts and cards etc.

Don’t get me wrong, some of what he complains about is right and I’ve agreed with him . But I’ve never said it to anyone except him and I assumed that what we said was between us. It never crossed my mind that he was telling her anything that we discussed. It’s one of the few things I thought we were united on - that we support each other in dealing with her. Even during her adult life there’s been a lot of drama and I’ve always supported him.

And now I discover he has been undermining me to her for all these years. I’ve worked so hard to try to keep things friendly and to keep open the lines of communication and he’s been working against me behind my back.

It’s not that I thought DH loved me - I’m not under any illusion about that. He only stays because he likes the domestic servicing and he doesn’t have to pay child support or parent his children.

But I just don’t understand why he would tell all these lies for years. Why would anyone do that ? I’m just so shocked I don’t know what to think or what to do.

It's really chilling to realise that is how he thinks and you and the DC don't matter

How are you actually feeling? Please don't be surprised if you feel 1,000 things including complete trauma and disbelief.

Please really look after yourself and do what you need to survive this revelation

I hope you have a shl, and can move things along ASAP. You and your children really need to get well away from all this hideous drama with these dreadful people.

@R0SEMARY I know you have a well thought out plan and timetable for the divorce but with everything you’ve gone through you really need to be able to extricate yourself from all this incredibly toxic crap.

From everything you’ve said I can honestly expect her at your funeral (hopefully many many happy years down the line) saying to anyone who will listen how you were like a mother to her and how upset she was that you weren’t able to go to her wedding. Honestly you are living in gaslight city and there seems no escape from it.

@RandomMess thank you for asking . Most of the time I feel shocked and that my life is no hold, like you do in the days / weeks between a death and the funeral. You know you can’t afford to feel too much because you will fall apart and you have to keep it together because there’s so much to organise. You don’t have the luxury of a breakdown and you need to be strong for others.

And then you look around you and there’s all these normal people getting on with their normal lives and you feel resentful and almost angry . Because your life has been blown apart and they are just fine.

Because it’s lockdown and we are all at home ( inc teens ) its so busy and there’s no space to process anything. And I’m used to John being away ( out of the country ) most of the time .

But now I’m reading all these websites / blogs / you tube videos and it’s all starting to make sense after years of confusion. I keep having all these lightbulb moments.

I know it sounds melodramatic but it’s almost like a religious conversions- you see things in a totally different way. But it’s hard at the same time because you realise how stupid and deluded you were before and that the evidence was always there , you just didn’t see it. You were blinkered by your own beliefs and world view.

My head is spinning with it all . But I know I need to keep focusing on the practical / legal / financial matters that need to be resolved in the months ahead.

I’m doing a lot on this BTW, just not posting about it for obvious reasons.

I hope you and your kids will have a lovely week away somewhere when the wedding is on. Book a cottage somewhere now so it's all done and dusted. I'm quite sure she will be expected you to actually come to the wedding, after the appropriate period of drama and character assassination, so I think showing her that actually you are fine about not going is the way to go. You have already had more patience with them both than I would have done. I would have disengaged and ignored them years ago.

From everything you’ve said I can honestly expect her at your funeral (hopefully many many happy years down the line) saying to anyone who will listen how you were like a mother to her and how upset she was that you weren’t able to go to her wedding

Ha! She will be wearing a bright pink mini dress slashed to the waist at the front !

How you are feeling is perfectly understandable and I would think entirely "normal" reaction under the circumstances.

This is the first time he has outright admit that he has been telling huge massive lies for YEARS hence the clues suddenly making sense.

I wish I could give you a huge hug and rescue you.

I know that feeling of finding the person you've built life with, that you love and you believed loved you isn't that person at all - that it was all one massive fat lie. I got very very ill, the utter confusion, not knowing what to believe, who to believe, not being able to trust my thoughts or feelings.

Complete and utter mindfuck.

I know that everyone presents differently but a close friend has Bi Polar disorder and her issues are nothing like Helen’s, in nature or scale.

@R0SEMARY Yep, I have bipolar and am not particularly like this I hope. So she might well have been misdiagnosed. But it is possible for people to have bipolar and also have a personality disorder/other issues.

The difference is bipolar is episodic, with episodes that lasts for weeks or months and are a change from the person's normal behaviour. Some people can later develop rapid cycling bipolar, but are diagnosed earlier wheen they are still having long episodes.

A personality disorder is part of the person's personality. It is what they're like all the time and/or their response to stress (Bipolar episodes can be brought on by stress but it's more of a slow burn of an episode developing.)

Anyway, what matters is she's awful. And John is awful too, his being able to not feel bad about what he's done shows that.

Do you think the reason Helen was so dismissive of John’s confession was because she never believed the lies in the first place? From how you’ve described her, I can’t imagine her not calling you up to have a rant if she actually wanted to meet your baby. I expect she wasn’t interested anyway, so whether John said she could or couldn’t visit was probably irrelevant to her. If she wanted to come then that’s what she would have done.

I wish I could give you a huge hug and rescue you

I know that feeling of finding the person you've built life with, that you love and you believed loved you isn't that person at all - that it was all one massive fat lie. I got very very ill, the utter confusion, not knowing what to believe, who to believe, not being able to trust my thoughts or feelings

Complete and utter mindfuck

Thank you, that’s it exactly.

John has helpfully told me now that he married me for convenience. Years ago a poster on MN told me that he didn’t want an equal life partner, he wanted staff at home. I’ve never forgotten that and she was absolutely right.

When John told me , I felt like he had punched me in the stomach. Because even though things have been bad recently, I truly believed we married for love ( well I did ). And that somehow things had gone wrong somewhere along the line.

So it’s better to know the truth now I guess.

Being positive at least he has given you easy grounds for divorce on unreasonable behaviour (if that's relevant where you live).

Recent revelation by John of x y z.

Please seek therapy for yourself and do the Freedom Programme so you ever fall for someone else with a personality disorder.

I'm sure John can afford to pay for your therapy, you can blame needing it in Helen.

I've been following but don't have much to add other then support. I'm so sorry you're going through all this. I hope (in time) you're able to extract yourself from this clusterfuck.

My father is a suspected narcissistic. He also caused drama at my wedding in the lead up and on the day. I didn't see it at the time but he had to shift the focus. How dare I have a day just the way me and DH want it. I still have a text message on my phone that says he's very disappointed I can't be more flexible with my wedding. Trust me it's not you, it's them.

@Shelby2010

Do you think the reason Helen was so dismissive of John’s confession was because she never believed the lies in the first place? From how you’ve described her, I can’t imagine her not calling you up to have a rant if she actually wanted to meet your baby. I expect she wasn’t interested anyway, so whether John said she could or couldn’t visit was probably irrelevant to her. If she wanted to come then that’s what she would have done.

I don’t even know @Shelby2010. I don’t know who is lying about what and when.

But you are right, she does what she wants when she wants. And if I banned her from the house, when did I unban her? And why has she never mentioned it to me or teens in the last decade ? It’s the perfect piece of gossip to try to get them on her side against me.

I never had an issue with her visiting / not visiting, I don’t even remember when she did actually see youngest . And If there had been a ban and then it was lifted, wouldn’t it have been a Big Deal and Momentous Occasion with photos etc ?

Helen is VERY vocal about the slightest little thing that offends her and yet she has kept silent about this for 12 years ??? Makes no sense.

I think what John actually said on the zoom call was that he doesn't remember any such conversion. He admits that he was angry with Helen at the time, I think it was a money issue. It might have been the time he gave her a large sum of money for a Particular purpose and she spent it on something else.

He also did admit that I never said any such thing. I thought Helen would go “OMG I can’t believe you’d do a thing like that dad, I was so hurt “.

She didn’t skip a beat and her face registered zero emotion. Katy sitting beside her looked really shocked. I mean she actually sat back in her seat and put her hands up to her face.

I was stunned.

John tells me that he doesn't remember the “ bannning “ conversation but I assume he’s lying. Then he changes to “ I think I remember “.

He asked Helen for info to jog his memory but she refused as it was “ all in the past “. Which is odd as two days previously it was the event that had ruined her whole life.

Which is almost laughable if you knew the other bad things that have happened around her, many of them Caused by her.

Sometimes I wonder if she made it up to justify my banning from the wedding. And that John has told so many lies over the years he can’t even remember what’s real and what’s not.

But then I conclude, as a PP Says, they are both crazy and you can’t figure them out.

I hope Kate is beginning to realise that the shit show of Helen's life is mainly he own doing...

I'm sure Kate is one of the few that will put up with Helen and she may come across as controlling but how do you know it's because she hasn't fallen for all Helen's lies hook line and sinker???

Hopefully Kate is seeing that there is no "truth" just manipulation by both of them. I think Late is probably a rescuer that has been truly duped and believes Helen's every suicide threat and cries of victim.

Still not your problem!!!!

You sound like a hamster on a wheel, at the moment, my lovely. They are enjoying watching you race round and round, getting nowhere. Take this thread as permission to get out of the wheel. You can't fix crazy, but you can sort yourself out as you are finding.

My only suggestion is to get to a solicitor's office and file for divorce before your husband realises that you are serious. This is because the person to file is 'in charge' of the process. If he decides to file first he could leave you hanging for five years and you would not be able to intervene.

@R0SEMARY

I know it sounds melodramatic but it’s almost like a religious conversions- you see things in a totally different way. But it’s hard at the same time because you realise how stupid and deluded you were before and that the evidence was always there , you just didn’t see it. You were blinkered by your own beliefs and world view.

Please don't see yourself as "stupid". You have spent these years being an ordinary, "normal" person living your life as well as you could. Loving your husband, who hid four fifths of himself from you - apart from when the truth could really hurt and distress you. You have worked, grown and given birth to your own children, given your heart to those you loved and did all the ordinary, lovely, mundane and ordinary "mental loaf" things you needed to do to live your life as a decent human being, as well as dealing with so much undeserved anxiety and emotional aggression from those who you've cared for. That is not stupid.

What would be stupid would be, now your husband and his daughter have taken a scalpel to your beliefs and sense of self, is to stay any longer than you absolutely need to, in order to secure a better future for yourself and your children. Just, please, be careful in keeping your plans as secure as you can until you are ready to leave.

But then I conclude, as a PP Says, they are both crazy and you can’t figure them out.
You are absolutely right, so try and expend as little energy as possible on them until you are free, and even less when you are living a better life.

Good luck OP - and here's a hug 🤗🌹.

Oops. Mental LOAD, of course...

Thank you @Newestname001. And the mental loaf made me as it reminded me of the famous MN malt loaf.

OP, I could not read and run. I cannot imagine how shocking this must be for you and the kick in the stomach comment struck a chord as I can imagine how that would feel knowing everything before has been false.

Take your time, get your ducks in a row and then get gone. At least your DC will have seen why, now.

@R0SEMARY
So I’m a bit skeptical of the value of it. All I can see is that I’ve paid a fortune for people who are mistreating me to have emotional support and help. But I can’t afford it for myself.

An interesting thing about therapy. When someone pays for someone's else's therapy, it means the payer is more invested in that person's therapy, than that person.
I think therapists prefer clients to pay for their own therapy, because it shows they are committed and engaged and actually wanting to work through things.
Naturally Helen wouldn't ever actually pay to have therapy, because she thinks it's everyone else who is responsible for the bad stuff in her life. She probably doesn't imagine she even has room for improvement.

John is seriously such a fucking bastard. I want to punch him /not helpful

But what a nasty, self-absorbed man.

That is really fucked up.
You need to leave him.

I didn’t know that @FantasticButtocks ( your name makes me snigger every time I type it) .

TBH I don’t know how much therapy Helen ever went to, all I know is that we gave her a lot of money for therapy. I think it was originally to help her deal with her parents divorce or being gay or something.

She’s very good at getting money and other valuable things out of people and creating total devastation in other peoples lives.

I will try to be more open minded about therapy / counselling.

@grapewine well your post helped me. I’ve spent so long trying to be reasonable with him I’ve lost touch with the part of me that wants to build a patio. And of course years of lies hasn’t helped as I’m constantly questioning myself ( maybe it’s me and not him ).

So it’s reassuring to know that he has that effect on you too .

Oh I would totally love to come help you build a patio, it would be awesome if Helen popped by at some point so the narcissist pair could enjoy it together forever.

Honestly I feel angry at the damage they have DELIBERATELY inflicted on others because "it suited them".

@R0SEMARY

I’m so sorry this has turned out this way, John seems terrifying. How is he with you day to day? Is he kind? Is he cold? Do you laugh? Sorry I’ve just never met/heard of someone who is the way he is. He sounds like a psychopath.