She’s going to ruin the whole wedding isn’t she?

[princesspadam]

I keep my mother at arms length, she’s always been very selfish and lots of narcissistic traits.
shes just turned 81 and moans about her mobility but still manages to be out for lunch most days and get away on holiday.

my Dd is getting married in London next month and we have to drive from our location. She wanted to come to us ‘for a few days’ first but I put a stop to that as I would have to wait on her.

so ive told her to get the train to london from her location, which she’s not happy about even though we will meet her in off the train

now she’s complaining because I’m going to meet dd at her hotel in the morning, she asked if I would be going back and I said no I’d meet her at the venue (DP & rest of family will walk with her), she’s not happy as ‘there will be no one to help me with my fascinator’

honestly I know she’s going to spend the whole day playing the victim and expecting everything done for her, I would just like to enjoy my DDs wedding as MOB

Yeah this. ^ I would love to hear the OP's 81 year old mother's side of the story.

As I said, if she was such an absolute monster then why on earth was she invited (to her daughter's wedding?!)

My BFF had a dreadful, abusive, sociopath of a mother, and she went NC with her when she was 19-20 years old - around 1991, and when she got married a few years later, her mother was not invited. Her daughter is getting married in October, and she is not getting an invite to that either. Some other family members are coming, but why on earth would she invite her abusive mother who she went NC with about 35 years ago?

I find it very strange that the OP's mother is invited to her daughter's wedding if she is soooo dreadful.

They all get a bit grumpy at that age, I’ve got a similar relationship with my Dm but I think to create a nice and positive atmosphere I would want to start on the right foot and make sure dm was well taken care of and that there was nothing to complain about - all hell would break loose if I stuck her on a train

That didn't tickle me. That's the way a parent would talk to a 5 year old who is being 'naughty.' How horribly patronising. 'If you're a naughty little girl, we'll leave you and you can make your own way home, so play nice, there's a good iccle girl!'

Good grief! 🙄

Just because YOU have a nice mother does not mean every mother is nice. Some are obscenely selfish, mind-blowingly self-absorbed, and extremely hurtful to their children. And those traits do not get better with age.

Read Harpy's Child before judging from your little bubble and fulminating at OP for being non-compassionate,

This mother is lucky OP still agrees to have her in her life.

As MOB many years back I was on the ‘top table’ sitting right next to the elderly unsociable rude FOG to ‘look after him’. It was then it dawned on me my DD didn’t like me. I have proceeded with caution ever since. Everything with mums and daughters isn’t always rosy.

Many people invite family to weddings out of convention.
Or in the hope that on the day they’ll let the focus be on bride & groom.

The OP’s mother isn’t incapacitated. She has an active social life & takes holidays. She sounds perfectly able to take a train. She will be collected at the other end. After that she will be escorted to the wedding venue. She will have the OP’s DP and extended family around her.

Yes of course the Op wants to vent a bit. Isn’t that what MN offers?
It’s not AIBU.

So why is she invited to the wedding if she’s that awful, and guaranteed to ruin it?

i don’t get on well with my mum. However she is also in her 80’s and if she was invited to a family wedding, i’d do my best to facilitate. She is also relatively fit and independent, but is getting increasingly less able to navigate long journeys on public transport. A train to London for a wedding, with suitcases and bags etc, would be a struggle. Taxi to the airport is more doable.

it sounds more like o/p is worried it will ruin the day for her or her sons if she has to bother with her mum. People have offered solutions, all she’s said is why it can’t happen.

bottom line is the bride wants her there. If o/p refuses to make that happen then she needs to speak to her dd and explain why she is not going to help the grandmother attend, or risk ruining the wedding herself.

Probably not helpful op but would you consider contacting the hotel about the fascinator. I attended a wedding recently where one of the older guests mentioned that she asked a lady who was in the housekeeping staff to zip her dress up and put a hair piece in her hair. The lady mentioned that it was not unusual to be asked for assistance with that.

I don't think she is being unreasonable tbh. My mum is a similar age and her mobility would be an issue getting herself to and on the train without help, but ... You need to be with your daughter so you cannot help her, but I'm sure someone else attending the wedding can?

We said it was going to happen and it did! She even text DH a photo of a lovely black dress she was going to wear and then turned up in the white gown anyway! She knew if she showed us the white dress it would have been shut down instantly.

I’m so lucky I was having too much of a great time to be upset by it. It wasn’t until the breakfast the next morning when my MOH mentioned it, I thought oh my god she did. Then I saw the photos, she looks ridiculous. We only got one photo with her but me and her are standing there next to each other in long white dresses 😂 Everyone said as soon as they saw her she must be the MIL! So I’m not sure what she wanted to achieve but all she did was embarrass herself!

I can't imagine saying that to anyone, especially not an 81 year old lady who is the grandmother of the bride.

.

If the suggestions are unhelpful then they’re unhelpful. She can’t magic up a sibling

"So why is she invited to the wedding if she’s that awful, and guaranteed to ruin it?"

Because we are dependent on our parents and love them: it is extremely painful to cut off a parent, even if they're evil and soul-destroying. And - as is witnessed by the condemnation here by some on this thread - cutting off such parents is a major taboo in our patriarchal society, which privileges parents over children and romanticises especially mothers.

So most people with horrid parents cope by reducing contact to bearable levels.

I find the infantilisation of a woman in her 80s very odd. She goes on holiday and has her faculties. She’ll be fine

So she speaks to the bride and tells her she can’t help with gran on the wedding day. If gran can’t attend without assistance so be it.

if the bride is ok with that and gran not attending, fine. If she wants gran there, o/p puts her own feelings aside for her dd and does her best to make it happen.

Could you pay for a carer for the day to travel with her and look after her?

Difficult family members are invited to weddings/Christmas/BBQs all the time! Anyone pretending that doesn’t happen is living in LaLaLand.

My mum can get a taxi from her home address to an airport fine. Trolley for the cases, taxi driver usually helps load at drop off, check in bags and off she goes.

getting a train, with bags, no trolleys, lifts miles away from platforms, stairs, escalators, having to load bags, not to mention dealing with delays, information boards etc, that’s a different story. mum no longer travels by train as she can’t do it at her age on her own. Airports usually have staff that will escort the less mobile to boarding gates as well.

especially London, where presumably she’ll have to change at the major hub and tube to her destination. While o/p is speeding down the motorway with her family in two mini’s that can’t possibly take more than three people each…

I’m really jealous of the people on this thread who have no clue what it’s like having a narc parent. It’s so blissfully innocent.

These people are not like you, they are soulless attention vampires. It’s not like dealing with a normal mother.

She's obviously doing that, isn't she? She's here to get tips on how to prevent her mother from ruining the wedding for her DD.

And also, DD probably felt forced by social convention to invite her grandmother - OP said she tolerates her as much as OP does.

Does your daughter even want her there? Surely if she's that badly narcissistic your daughter is old enough to see it for herself now. I wonder if she's told grandma no plus ones to make it hard for her to get there hoping that she doesn't bother coming? I certainly wouldn't invite my mother to my own wedding let alone my kids inviting her to theirs cos she's also a narcissist to the point I've gone no contact with her so I get why you don't want to rally around after her now

I'm a lot of things, but under-qualified is not one of them. "Hear we go"? I'd get off that high horse if I were you. He's having a detrimental affect on your spelling.

You can literally book assistance and she’s going away for two nights. Taxi to the train station, small bag, have assistance booked if the bag is too heavy, direct train to London, and her grandson will be waiting on the other side. She can get to the train station early so there’s no rush. She’s not being expected to navigate some complicated route. OP has made it nice and easy for her, I don’t get why people are suggesting that it’s beyond an 81year old abilities who is still active

You have my sympathies, OP. My ex's mum was a raving narcissist who had to be centre of attention in any gathering. I used to joke to my ex that if we ever got married, she would turn up in a wedding dress and veil, then have the first dance with him and cut the cake. Either that or fake a heart attack during the service, which was also part of her MO.

If someone else was centre of attention - usually a birthday celebration - she would feign illness in an awful am dram way. She carried this on through her eighties and into her early nineties when I split up with my ex, and thankfully she was no longer my problem.