My mother, who in general is a very nice person and doesn't stir up trouble, has emailed me and made it clear that since DH and I don't live together most of the time and that when he did work and live at home (about 8 years ago), we fought a lot, that our vow renewal won't be taken seriously by anybody. She wrapped it up with, "Don’t want to be a party pooper but that is the way I see it and think everyone else will probably have about the same opinion." What am I supposed to do with THAT?! Heck, I didn't even ask for her opinion!!! So she must have felt very compelled to give it to me anyway. If I actually go to people and ask what they think, my family is the type that won't say anything negative so as not to be rude, but will think it anyway. She is closer to certain family members than I am and probably does know better what they think. I just didn't realize that my family was being so judgey about our wedding, especially considering how their own solid marriages started off with as much (if not more) turmoil than ours did!
The way we see it, we've got two choices. One, we can plan like we don't care what they think and hope it doesn't mess with our heads at the renewal/anniversary party (which, of course, it WILL because it is already taking some of the joy out of planning!). Two, we can ditch them all, grab the kids and our best buds, and do a destination renewal blowout that doubles as a family vacation. But doing that means telling everybody why we've decided not to invite them afterall.
This reminds me of when we got married. We had to make a choice between two options with neither one being what we REALLY wanted. We could have had a nightmarish wedding run and ruined by my crazy mother-in-law OR eloped and skip the misery but not get to celebrate with friends and family like we wanted to so bad. Funny, it was HIS mother that screwed up our wedding and MY mother that is messing up the renewal!!!
Ok. Vent over and I do feel better. Sort of.
Julie
