Hey guys, I guess I'm just looking for a bit of empathy right now and some impartial advice...
I really don't get along with my family. I've tried very hard over the years to mend relationships, but I feel that even at the best of times, whenever I turn to them for support I end up feeling blown off. At the worst of times, things are very bad. My parents are still together but my father works constantly, lives far away, and isn't capable of remembering the most basic details of my life. Meanwhile, my mother is trying to hold everything together with my multiple siblings and their multiple problems, and we've just never really developed a relationship. Which becomes especially painful as I try to include her in wedding planning - she can't relate to me and warps into a font of irrelevant, unsolicited advice about what I should do and how I should feel. A listener she is not.
So. I've been trying to involve everyone. What I would really like is to have a little friends-only wedding, but I don't want my family to feel ignored and shut out. I have 4 sisters, and I know that if I don't have a wedding that includes family, I'll feel awful when it comes to their weddings. But working with them IS HARD. I don't trust my family members to take care of me and I feel way too exposed to them now. I'm so, so angry at my mom for a thousand reasons that it's difficult for me to talk to her about anything without bursting into tears. I've decided against having a wedding party because I won't feel comfortable with all of my sisters standing up with me, but I can't pick-and-choose. I am thankful to my father for helping financially but I don't want him walking me down any sort of aisle.
Ugh, ugh, ugh. Anyone else with challenging family situations? How do you deal with it? Has it been worth the effort and emotional pain?
ETA meanwhile my fiance feels awful that this is causing such difficulty for me and is all for getting dressed up, inviting a few of our closest, heading to city hall and taking everyone to dinner afterward. Sounds wonderful to me, minus the fall-out of excluding the family. Writing this all down and putting it out there has made me feel much better, at least for the moment
