Hi all,
I apologize in advance for the length of this post! I will do my best to keep it concise and relevant!
SO and I are not engaged yet, but I know he's planning to pop the question sometime soon (we recently custom designed and ordered the ring together, so it's kind of a given
) and I am 95% sure I can anticipate how his parents will react when we tell them we're engaged. We've been together over 7 years and live near them, so I know them very well. I was hoping to get your advice ahead of time so I know how to respond to what I expect will happen, if/when it does.
SO's family was poor as he was growing up, due in large part to both of his parents having trouble holding down a job and making financial decisions demonstrating poor judgment on a regular basis. There isn't really a way to say this gently, but his parents have a long track record - ever since he was a kid - of not providing basic necessities for him when he was younger and, as he got older, making promises (seemingly with genuinely good intentions) and later not following through. Most of these situations have involved money; they wanted to support him and raise him well, but from what I can tell, have never really figured out how to have a healthy relationship with money or how to budget properly, even now as they're turning 60. Their financial situation hasn't changed in the past few years (thankfully, they have held down their current jobs for a while now), but they're now moving out of the house they moved into just a year ago because they realized they can't afford it after all, and their cell phone service gets shut off at regular 3-month intervals because they only pay it when it gets past due and the company shuts them down. The last time their power got shut off because they couldn't pay the bill, they ate out
at nice restaurants every meal for a week because "we can't cook at home." Years ago, they grandly promised to pay for SO's college education and then pulled their funding right before his last semester - sadly, he couldn't get approved for student loans or afford to pay it himself with the money from his part-time job, and had to drop out. (They never even apologized for that one.) Hopefully you get the picture. Obviously I have a lot of resentment toward that, and SO does too (though, strangely, not as much as I do) - we plan to do some premarital counseling before we get married to help us sort out how to handle some of these feelings and issues.
ANYWAY. As I've said, I know SO's parents and their behavioral patterns pretty well at this point. I am about 95% sure that when we tell them we're engaged, they will be very happy for us and tell us they want to pay for some part of the wedding, or contribute in some significant way. They've been saying for years I'm the daughter they never had and they can't wait to celebrate welcoming me into the family officially one day, and I know they'll want to pitch in. However, SO and I have absolutely zero confidence that they would follow through with this promise - something will come up right before the wedding and whatever they've committed to will fall apart.
I hope I don't sound ungrateful here. SO's parents, while they can be misguided at times, are good people at heart - I care about them, and I don't want to upset them. I'm afraid they'll be deeply hurt if we decline an offer to pay for something or contribute somehow, but I don't know what else to do. I also don't want for some major thing to go wrong at the wedding, like we have no food because they didn't pay the caterer!
I know some of you may be wondering where the money for the rest of the wedding will come from. My dad plans to contribute a significant amount, and I know he will follow through. I don't think my mom can afford much, if anything, but I trust that she'll be honest and direct about what she can or can't do. So, realistically, SO and I expect to pay ourselves for anything beyond what my dad's contribution will cover. We don't make or have a lot of money, so it won't be anything terribly fancy.
Thank you for your time, everyone. I really appreciate you reading all this, and I hope someone can suggest how I might be able to handle this situation if/when it arises. Thanks again!