Re: Thanks Anon, and, planning a wedding with a BP mom

August 31, 2001

Dear ,

Planning a wedding with a bp mom is not fun.

Basically mine took over, and the only concession she

made to what I wanted was " chocolate " cake. Plus I

had a ridiculous low budget to keep to ($4,000 in

1982).

When my youngest sister got married, all the stops

were pulled out, money no object. She even got to buy

a wedding dress, while my nada made one for me that I

hated!

My suggestion would be to have the wedding you want,

the way you want it. If that means not inviting your

stepnada because you can not trust her to behave, and

you don't want your wedding ruined, then don't invite

her.

If you want to invite her none the less, I think that

you will need to be very clear and direct from the

outset that it is " your " wedding. If she isn't paying

for it there isn't much she can do except complain

about you to everyone else. And, she probably does

that already.

I guess the question is your father. Will he not

attend if she is not invited?

It is not fair that you are worrying about your

stepnada's reactions to what you want at your wedding.

A memorial to your mother sounds really nice -- too

bad if stepnada has a problem with it. It was your

mother, these are your feelings and you have every

right to have what you want.

In advance, you are not selfish, rude, mean etc to

have what you want. I'm anticipating her response

given my nada's response when she planned my wedding.

Note that she planned it - not me. I gave up fairly

quickly and let her take over when she kept being

abusive over what I wanted.

You deserve the wedding you want. Please don't forget

that.

All my best and good luck!

--- Starr wrote:

> Dear Anon,

>

> I haven't had a lot of time to post lately and it's

> been a while since you

> wrote to me, but I just wanted to say thank you for

> sharing your story about

> your dad. It was very encouraging for me to read

> about how you were able to

> let him know that his decisions about how to respond

> to your mother affected

> and affect you, too. I want my dad to know these

> things too. But I also

> still want/need him to validate my feelings, my

> experience of growing up the

> scapegoat in an abusive home. Somehow I think I

> need to get over, or at

> least get past that need before I can confront him

> with the abuse I suffered

> in his household. Because I don't want to be

> devastated if/when he doesn't

> validate me.

>

> You also mentioned how difficult it was planning a

> wedding with your BP mom

> - oh good lord, I can't imagine. I've been worrying

> about that very thing

> for some time myself. I'm in a serious relationship

> now that's heading

> toward marriage. Im not engaged yet, and we are in

> no hurry, but I'm

> already worrying about it. In fact I've always

> worried about it - other

> girls plan and dream about their weddings way off in

> the future, I live in

> fear of mine. In the eventuality of a wedding, my

> bf, knowing enough about

> my past and about my stepnada, doesn't even want to

> invite her! (Can you

> imagine the scandal then!! It would be the mother

> of all distortion

> campaigns!)

>

> He's right of course that after all she's put me

> through she doesn't really

> deserve an invitation, after all, your wedding is

> supposed to be a

> celebration you share with the people who have LOVED

> and SUPPORTED you in

> your life and who you know will continue to do so as

> you take the Next Big

> Step. But I'm not ready to go so far as to

> disinvite her. One thing is for

> sure: I don't want her occupying the honored

> position of mother of the

> bride. I certaintly don't want her involved in the

> planning, I don't want

> her money (it always comes with strings attached)

> and most of all I don't

> want to give her the honor that rightfully belongs

> to my late mother. My

> mother who did not abuse me, who loved and supported

> and cared for me, who

> laid the foundation for a mentally healthy life

> before she died and Stepnada

> came along to lay waste to my sanity!

>

> Problem is, I am so afraid of how stepnada will

> react to my decision not to

> involve her in planning my wedding that I'm

> seriously thinking of just

> running off to Vegas or the JP. Which infuriates me

> even more because I

> don't want that. I want a big wedding with my

> family and his family and all

> of our friends having a wonderful time. I'm afraid

> that she'll ruin it

> either way. Either I'll elope to evade her

> influence, and not have the

> wedding I want, or I'll go through with my big plans

> and she'll find a way

> to ruin it. Like she did my graduation, and every

> other big event in my

> life she's been a party to so far...

>

> To make matters even more serious, I fully intend to

> honor my mother's

> memory in some way during the wedding ceremony.

> Stepnada was so threatened

> by my dead mother that she forbade us to speak her

> name or even keep a photo

> of her in the house. So you can imagine she might

> not respond well to a

> memorial tribute to my mother. But I'm not doing it

> to spite her (which is

> the only way she'll ever see it), it's just

> something I really have to do.

> Anyone, any suggestions??

>

> Respectfully,

>

_________________________________________________________________

> Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at

> http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp

>

__________________________________________________

August 31, 2001

Dear ,

Planning a wedding with a bp mom is not fun.

Basically mine took over, and the only concession she

made to what I wanted was " chocolate " cake. Plus I

had a ridiculous low budget to keep to ($4,000 in

1982).

When my youngest sister got married, all the stops

were pulled out, money no object. She even got to buy

a wedding dress, while my nada made one for me that I

hated!

My suggestion would be to have the wedding you want,

the way you want it. If that means not inviting your

stepnada because you can not trust her to behave, and

you don't want your wedding ruined, then don't invite

her.

If you want to invite her none the less, I think that

you will need to be very clear and direct from the

outset that it is " your " wedding. If she isn't paying

for it there isn't much she can do except complain

about you to everyone else. And, she probably does

that already.

I guess the question is your father. Will he not

attend if she is not invited?

It is not fair that you are worrying about your

stepnada's reactions to what you want at your wedding.

A memorial to your mother sounds really nice -- too

bad if stepnada has a problem with it. It was your

mother, these are your feelings and you have every

right to have what you want.

In advance, you are not selfish, rude, mean etc to

have what you want. I'm anticipating her response

given my nada's response when she planned my wedding.

Note that she planned it - not me. I gave up fairly

quickly and let her take over when she kept being

abusive over what I wanted.

You deserve the wedding you want. Please don't forget

that.

All my best and good luck!

--- Starr wrote:

> Dear Anon,

>

> I haven't had a lot of time to post lately and it's

> been a while since you

> wrote to me, but I just wanted to say thank you for

> sharing your story about

> your dad. It was very encouraging for me to read

> about how you were able to

> let him know that his decisions about how to respond

> to your mother affected

> and affect you, too. I want my dad to know these

> things too. But I also

> still want/need him to validate my feelings, my

> experience of growing up the

> scapegoat in an abusive home. Somehow I think I

> need to get over, or at

> least get past that need before I can confront him

> with the abuse I suffered

> in his household. Because I don't want to be

> devastated if/when he doesn't

> validate me.

>

> You also mentioned how difficult it was planning a

> wedding with your BP mom

> - oh good lord, I can't imagine. I've been worrying

> about that very thing

> for some time myself. I'm in a serious relationship

> now that's heading

> toward marriage. Im not engaged yet, and we are in

> no hurry, but I'm

> already worrying about it. In fact I've always

> worried about it - other

> girls plan and dream about their weddings way off in

> the future, I live in

> fear of mine. In the eventuality of a wedding, my

> bf, knowing enough about

> my past and about my stepnada, doesn't even want to

> invite her! (Can you

> imagine the scandal then!! It would be the mother

> of all distortion

> campaigns!)

>

> He's right of course that after all she's put me

> through she doesn't really

> deserve an invitation, after all, your wedding is

> supposed to be a

> celebration you share with the people who have LOVED

> and SUPPORTED you in

> your life and who you know will continue to do so as

> you take the Next Big

> Step. But I'm not ready to go so far as to

> disinvite her. One thing is for

> sure: I don't want her occupying the honored

> position of mother of the

> bride. I certaintly don't want her involved in the

> planning, I don't want

> her money (it always comes with strings attached)

> and most of all I don't

> want to give her the honor that rightfully belongs

> to my late mother. My

> mother who did not abuse me, who loved and supported

> and cared for me, who

> laid the foundation for a mentally healthy life

> before she died and Stepnada

> came along to lay waste to my sanity!

>

> Problem is, I am so afraid of how stepnada will

> react to my decision not to

> involve her in planning my wedding that I'm

> seriously thinking of just

> running off to Vegas or the JP. Which infuriates me

> even more because I

> don't want that. I want a big wedding with my

> family and his family and all

> of our friends having a wonderful time. I'm afraid

> that she'll ruin it

> either way. Either I'll elope to evade her

> influence, and not have the

> wedding I want, or I'll go through with my big plans

> and she'll find a way

> to ruin it. Like she did my graduation, and every

> other big event in my

> life she's been a party to so far...

>

> To make matters even more serious, I fully intend to

> honor my mother's

> memory in some way during the wedding ceremony.

> Stepnada was so threatened

> by my dead mother that she forbade us to speak her

> name or even keep a photo

> of her in the house. So you can imagine she might

> not respond well to a

> memorial tribute to my mother. But I'm not doing it

> to spite her (which is

> the only way she'll ever see it), it's just

> something I really have to do.

> Anyone, any suggestions??

>

> Respectfully,

>

_________________________________________________________________

> Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at

> http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp

>

__________________________________________________

August 31, 2001

, I'm glad you found my story helpful, and I wish you the

best of luck in your efforts to build a healthier relationship

with your father.

As far as planning a wedding, I think the most important thing

is to not let her pay for anything. If she's not paying for it,

then she has no control over you. I don't know how old you are

or what your financial status is, but you indicated she wouldn't

be paying, and I think this is an excellent first step.

Even if she's not paying, I would expect that things are going

to get very, very ugly. Each of our moms is unique, so I

certainly can't predict her behavior, but I would guess that the

less you tell her the better. My mom gets an idea in her head,

and then she's just like a pit bull -- she clamps on and refuses

to change her mind until you beat her to death (which is just

not a practical option <grin>). For example, I (stupidly) told

her my bf (now husband) and I had discussed marriage and he said

he wasn't ready yet. I explained very clearly to her that I was

ok with this -- I knew he loved me and would marry me when he

was ready (I certainly didn't want to force him into something

he wasn't ready to do -- although I realize now that this is a

completely foreign concept to a BP... it's all about what the BP

wants, not what anyone else wants). I explained the situation

to her very clearly, and told her I was perfectly happy with the

way things were. As soon as I left her house, she called my bf

at work and told him I was SUICIDAL because he didn't want to

marry me!!!!!! She simply decided that we should be married,

and would stop at nothing until it happened (with her, the end

ALWAYS justify the means). And believe me, she stopped at

nothing. We were engaged within a month. This was long before

I had ever heard of BPD, and I was still a " flea " -infested KO

(regular flea baths have had a remarkable effect!).

Planning the wedding was probably the first time in my life that

I ever really stood up to her. It was terrible, horrible,

awful, stressful, did I already say terrible? I had finally

found something in my life that was so important to me that I

was willing to incur her wrath. And incur it I did.

Unfortunately, I was very poorly equipped to deal with it (never

having heard of BPD). I tried to rationalize and reason with

her, and get her to understand why I wanted to do things the way

I did. HA! Was that ever futile. But I just kept thinking it

was because I wasn't trying hard enough, because I wasn't doing

a good enough job explaining. After all, my desires were

perfectly reasonable, and if I could just explain it to her,

then she would go along, right? WRRRROOOONNNNGGGGG!!!!!!!!

And, unfortunately, she and my dad were paying half (my in-laws

paid the other half, bless them), so she thought she had the

right to make it into HER wedding. Of course, she vehemently

denied that she was trying to have the wedding of HER dreams,

but that is exactly what was going on. And we have completely

opposite tastes.

We ended up fighting about EVERYTHING. When I read that

had a chocolate cake, I burst out laughing. My hubby

and I wanted a chocolate cake -- and I mean CHOCOLATE, inside

and OUT. She was mortified. When I first showed her the

picture of what we wanted, she blurted out, " OH NO! OH NO! I'M

NOT PAYING FOR A SHXT BROWN CAKE!!! " She quickly recovered, and

started with the " logical " arguments, the major one being that

some people are allergic to chocolate. My response: ok, we'll

have a non-chocolate sheet cake in the back that will be cut up

and served as an option. But that didn't satisfy her -- and

this really confused me (not understanding BPD). I realize now

that my solution addressed her STATED problem, but it was not

solving the REAL problem. The real problem was that she didn't

want a chocolate cake because she didn't LIKE it. And there is

no rational argument against that. But she would never admit

that was the reason, because that would betray that she was just

trying to have the wedding SHE wanted. I finally told her that

*I* would pay for it, but that still didn't put an end to it.

She was bound and determined to have the cake SHE wanted. Now,

repeat this scenario for everything that has to be done when

planning a wedding (picking your dress, the flowers, the food,

the music, the musicians, the invitations, the colors, the

favors, etc., etc.).

After arguing about everything under the sun and getting

nowhere, I finally told her to f**k off, that I didn't want her

money, that we would have a backyard BBQ, and she wasn't

invited. We didn't speak for several weeks, and she started to

get the picture that I was serious. This scared her

tremendously. So, she patched things up with me, and agreed to

everything I wanted. HOOVER, big time!! She did concede on

several major things (including the chocolate cake, which, BTW,

EVERYONE LOVED -- INCLUDING HER), but then she just kept picking

and picking away at other things, and in the end, the wedding

was about 50% hers, and 50% mine (a pretty major accomplishment

on my part, all things considered).

If I had it to do over again, my first step would have been to

refuse her money (even if it meant having the backyard BBQ or

going into debt). My second step would have been to keep her as

uninvolved as possible. In fact, I may even have considered

planning the whole wedding before even telling her we were

getting married. Of course, this would have been difficult, and

she probably would have raged, but it might be an option to

consider. I think how successful you are depends on several

factors -- how enmeshed are you with your FOO? At the age of 26

(when I got married), I was still heavily enmeshed with my FOO

and had never heard of BPD. Are you, and have you been for a

while, financially independent? I have now been completely

financially independent for about 3 years, and I could not even

imagine a repeat scenario if I were planning a wedding right

now. My independence -- both financially, and -- more and more

-- emotionally, would make the whole process completely

different today.

If you're not accepting her financial help, and if you know

about BPD, then I would guess that you are going to have a lot

more success than I did. It may not always be easy, but stick

to your guns, and I bet you'll be happy with the outcome.

Keep us posted!

Take care,

Anon

--- Starr wrote:

> Dear Anon,

>

> I haven't had a lot of time to post lately and it's been a

> while since you

> wrote to me, but I just wanted to say thank you for sharing

> your story about

> your dad. It was very encouraging for me to read about how

> you were able to

> let him know that his decisions about how to respond to your

> mother affected

> and affect you, too. I want my dad to know these things too.

> But I also

> still want/need him to validate my feelings, my experience of

> growing up the

> scapegoat in an abusive home. Somehow I think I need to get

> over, or at

> least get past that need before I can confront him with the

> abuse I suffered

> in his household. Because I don't want to be devastated

> if/when he doesn't

> validate me.

>

> You also mentioned how difficult it was planning a wedding

> with your BP mom

> - oh good lord, I can't imagine. I've been worrying about

> that very thing

> for some time myself. I'm in a serious relationship now

> that's heading

> toward marriage. Im not engaged yet, and we are in no hurry,

> but I'm

> already worrying about it. In fact I've always worried about

> it - other

> girls plan and dream about their weddings way off in the

> future, I live in

> fear of mine. In the eventuality of a wedding, my bf, knowing

> enough about

> my past and about my stepnada, doesn't even want to invite

> her! (Can you

> imagine the scandal then!! It would be the mother of all

> distortion

> campaigns!)

>

> He's right of course that after all she's put me through she

> doesn't really

> deserve an invitation, after all, your wedding is supposed to

> be a

> celebration you share with the people who have LOVED and

> SUPPORTED you in

> your life and who you know will continue to do so as you take

> the Next Big

> Step. But I'm not ready to go so far as to disinvite her.

> One thing is for

> sure: I don't want her occupying the honored position of

> mother of the

> bride. I certaintly don't want her involved in the planning,

> I don't want

> her money (it always comes with strings attached) and most of

> all I don't

> want to give her the honor that rightfully belongs to my late

> mother. My

> mother who did not abuse me, who loved and supported and cared

> for me, who

> laid the foundation for a mentally healthy life before she

> died and Stepnada

> came along to lay waste to my sanity!

>

> Problem is, I am so afraid of how stepnada will react to my

> decision not to

> involve her in planning my wedding that I'm seriously thinking

> of just

> running off to Vegas or the JP. Which infuriates me even more

> because I

> don't want that. I want a big wedding with my family and his

> family and all

> of our friends having a wonderful time. I'm afraid that

> she'll ruin it

> either way. Either I'll elope to evade her influence, and not

> have the

> wedding I want, or I'll go through with my big plans and

> she'll find a way

> to ruin it. Like she did my graduation, and every other big

> event in my

> life she's been a party to so far...

>

> To make matters even more serious, I fully intend to honor my

> mother's

> memory in some way during the wedding ceremony. Stepnada was

> so threatened

> by my dead mother that she forbade us to speak her name or

> even keep a photo

> of her in the house. So you can imagine she might not respond

> well to a

> memorial tribute to my mother. But I'm not doing it to spite

> her (which is

> the only way she'll ever see it), it's just something I really

> have to do.

> Anyone, any suggestions??

>

> Respectfully,

>

__________________________________________________

August 31, 2001