Hey Girls-
I need your advice regarding wedding stuff and my mom.
Background: my parents are divorced and my mom has had primary custody of me. Also, my mom is an addict. Throughout various times in her life, she's been addicted to alcohol and drugs. When I was younger she was addicted to pot and cocaine...asI got older, she was doing heroin. My mom has always been physical and emotionally abusive towards me, and one time, she came dangerously close to being sexually abusive when she was high/drunk. When I say physically and emotionally abusive, I can't begin to describe the torture and hell she put me through; I still have physical scars from her. As I got older, I would question her on her erratic behavior; she would tell me that she was having trouble sleeping and that's why she acted funny (like falling asleep while using the bathroom) and because I was young I believed her (I later found out that she was doing that because she was high on heroin).
As I got older, I started defending myself from her physical abuse by hitting her back; I still remember the last time she hit me...I pushed her against the wall and I looked in the face and I told her "if you ever hit me again, I will beat the sh*t out of you." She never hit me again, but the emotional abuse continued. I graduated HS early and I moved in with my dad. At that point, we kept in contact for a bit, but her addiction overtook her and she got evicted and was in and out of jail. The emotional abuse continued (she would collect call from jail, asking me for money and when I couldn't give it to her, she would berate me) until one day, I cut her out of my life. It was great because I was finally strong enough to break the abusive hold she had on me. We didn't talk for about 5 years; during that time, I finished undergraduate and managed to pursue my veterinary medicine degree. She was in and out of jail, living on the streets, and abusing drugs.
She eventually got sober and she's been sober for ~6-7 years now (I can't remember exactly) and we've started a new relationship. Our relationship has been pretty solid (I'd say we have fairly "normal" mother daughter fights). However the issue is that she is an addict and b/c she's not longer using drugs and alcohol, she has to be addicted to other things and for her, it's being addicted to ALWAYS having all attention on her. Examples include: sobbing/crying histerically loudly at my vet school graduation so that everyone around her was looking at her, grabbing all the attention during a funeral by yelling for her friend (it was the friend's dad's funeral), walking UP THE AISLE at my cousin's wedding, while they walked down the aisle to get married, to run after my cousin's now step-son, despite the fact that he doesn't know her and has issues with strange people trying to touch him. Another class thing she does is negatively speak very loudly about people, when they are 10 feet from her. Bottom line is that she's an addict.
Redgarding the wedding: we're not taking money from her, because she doesn't have any to give; in fact, I even bought her dress b/c she couldn't afford it (not that I can really afford it either). She has insisted from day one that she's wanted to get her MU done and I've told her that she's under no obligation to do it and I've been honest regarding the cost of the MU from the get-go. She still wanted to have her MU done, but she also wanted a trial. So, I set up a trial for both of us on the same day as my first dress fitting. During the trial, she was her typical, it's all about me self, but I rolled with it. We left and I went to the mall inbetween the trial and the fitting b/c I wanted to look at some MU the artist was telling me about; mom came with and bought the $18 dollar eyeliner they used on her. Then she tells me she's going to be late to the fitting b/c she's got to drive the speed limit and blow into a breathilizer in order to start the car, which takes longer (all parts of her conditional driver's liscense due to her mulitple DUIs). Ok, fine. She finally shows up to the fitting, after we're almost done, with COFFEE FROM DUNKIN DOUGHNUTS! She couldn't make it on time, but she had time to get coffee. This really bothers me mostly b/c she tells me I'm excluding her from the wedding planning, but when I include her, it's ALL ABOUT HER!
We go out for lunch and then we look at a couple of stores for bridal shower invites (which at first she doesn't want to do because she doesn't want to get stuck in traffic--says the woman that claims I exclude her). I don't find anything I love and we stop for the day.
The next day, I'm at work, and she's texting me that I need to call her b/c she's got to send out the invites and she needs to touch base with me. I responded that I'm at work, and I'll call her when I am available.
So, I get off of work and she's texted me a lot of pictures of invites she went out and bought. There was one I liked and I told her, use those. We went back and forth on what to write in the invite. I sent her a draft via google documents, which she had permission to access. She couldn't get the document and I asked her to walk me through the steps she was using to open the document. At this point she was being really nasty to me and I asked her why she was being so nasty? She flipped out on me, started yelling at me, and calling me nasty names, so I hung up on her, after saying "ok, I'm hanging up now". Then she starts sending me really nasty text messages about how I'm a bridezilla b/c nothing she can do is right and I don't like anything she's picked out, and I won't let her do anything for the wedding. I let her cool off for ~30 mins and I then I called her back to try to calmly discuss things with her; that was a mistake. I had her on speaker so FI could hear how she was acting, she was screaming at the top of her lungs (she sounded like a toddler throwing a tantrum) and generally being abusive towards me. I remained very calm and tried to discuss things with her; she yelled at me b/c we're having the bridal shower at FMIL's house (why can't we have it at her house? Because mom, you live in a one bedroom apartment that isn't big enough for a bridal shower and you live 2-3 hours from where the majority of the guests live). Like I said, I remained calm until she said to me, "I'm done". At that point I said, "Oh, you're done. I'm done too" and hung up.
She started texting me again and saying, I forced her to have a trial and now she only has $50 dollars to last her until the end of March, and other generally manipulative things. She also started calling me constantly on my cell and house number. The text messages ranged from blaming me for everything to saying she was sorry to begging me to let her finish the invites for the shower. We haven't spoken since and I honestly don't know what to do.
I don't not want her at the wedding, at the same time, I'm reluctant to have her there due to her behavior. I really just want this day to be about the love FI and I have. The shower invites need to get sent out ASAP b/c the shower is April 21st, however, FMIL is out of the country and won't be back for a while, and my bridemaids that live in town are not available to help with the invites today. Should I do the invites myself? I feel weird doing my own bridal shower invites, but I really don't want my mom to do them at this point. I really don't even want my mom at the shower b/c I'm afraid of what she'll do.
If you've read this far, thank you. I would love to hear your thoughs and opinions regarding how I should handle my mother. One of my bridesmaids said, invite her to the wedding, but don't involve her with any details...act as though she's just a guest. I'm afraid though if she's not listed as a host of the bridal shower, but she's a guest, people question why she's not a host. It's the first time FIs extended family will be meeting her, so I'm really nervous.
Thank you again.