You all have been so helpful with words of encouragement and advice in the past, so I am posting yet another question / quandary…
My father passed away in 2006. We were never particularly close. I had a difficult childhood, made worse by his reactions to my behavior which was to beat the “crazy” out of me. I have very few happy memories. He provided the basic necessities for which I am grateful sure, but what I really needed was love and understanding. Sad though I was at his passing I was secretly relieved.
Fast forward to today and I will be marrying in January. During the planning, my matron of honor suggested we do a “tribute dance” like they had done at her wedding for her husband’s dead father. I agreed to such a thing, because it seemed like a nice idea. Upon further rumination, I find the idea disingenuous at best. She also suggested we display a photograph of me and my father together. I don’t want to do that either. I feel like an inhuman monster for not wanting these things. My mother is old and starting to slip, so she has had nothing to do with the planning, it’s not like she would even realize her dead husband is not being remembered in some way. She can’t even manage to get me addresses that I ask her for everyday because her short term memory is shot. But that’s neither here nor there.
When I mentioned to my fiancé how I did not want to do the dance, he balked at the very thought. He actually seemed mad. (He never met my father, and I have told him of my abusive past, but he doesn’t seem to take it seriously). He went on to say that if it weren’t for my father we would have no wedding. The convoluted truth of which is that yes; because of an inheritance due to him, passed on to us because of his death, we can afford our little wedding.
I think he believes me to be ungrateful, I’m not. I just cringe at the idea of “tribute dance”. But if I don’t do it everyone will think I’m a horrible human being. I loved my father but also hated him for everything he did to me. I’m having a hard time resolving that dichotomy.
So…anyway that’s about it. I’d like us to have a nice happy day, without the spectre of psychological and emotional pains rising up.