-- planning a wedding

[Guest guest]

Ok, I've sent this several times, but I keep getting an error.

Apologies in advance if it comes through multiple times...

, 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

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