Excluding my Parents. Getting pressure from the rest of family. Help.

Ivycorley · December 2013

My parents and I have been estranged for over 10 years. As a result I am excluding them from my wedding. Recently, my grandparents have been pressuring me to "make up" by inviting my father to my wedding. They have implied that they may not be able to attend if he is not invited. I do not intend to change my decision on excluding them but, if my grandparents do not attend it will drastically effect my plans, including not having someone to walk me down the isle, not having much family at my wedding, and not having a "parents" dance which I think my fiancee's parents should get to enjoy.

I'm not sure how to navigate this situation. All this drama is steering me towards elopement which I think I might end up regretting. Anyone ever been in this situation? What did you do?

coronado11 · December 2013

First thing you do is DO NOT ELOPE! You will regret it. I am in a similar situation with my biological father who I have met Once and my mother wanting him to walk me down the aisle! Yeah right! I am however sending him an invitation. An invitation is only that, an invitation. You do not have to talk to him or include him in the wedding at any point. Let him be simply an invited guest. That should suffice for your grandparents wishes. I am letting my father see me before the ceremony but he is not walking me down the aisle. You can choose to have nothing to do with him. He may take the hint and not even show but at least you put that envelope in the mail. Ultimately its up to you but don't let family drama ruin your day.

phira · December 2013

I've been estranged from my father for about 10 years, so I can relate. I am 90% sure my paternal grandparents will decline to attend, especially since the only other relative from their side of the family who will be invited is my godmother, who's our officiant. Here is my advice.

Weddings are not the time for reconciliation. Your wedding isn't a deadline for mending relationships. It's one day of your life, and the people you share it with are the people who are important to you at this moment in time. There will be people you'll meet later in your life who will be very important to you, but they won't be at your wedding because you don't know them yet. Always change the focus from, "Will I regret it if I don't invite my parents?" to, "I do not have a relationship with them, so there's no reason to invite them."

Focus on inclusion, not exclusion. I have had to do this a lot, since my little sister is struggling a lot with the estrangement now that I'm getting married. Always shift the focus to the people you ARE inviting. If grandparents focus on how your parents aren't being invited, tell them, "What's important to me is that [partner] and I really hope that you'll be there with us to celebrate our marriage. It would mean a lot if you were there."

Additionally, remember that one of the most important things to focus on when you're estranged from blood family is that you have people who are your family of choice. I have friends who are like family to me, and I'm really excited when I think about celebrating with them. Additionally, I love my in-laws; think about how you're becoming part of a new family (and not that you're ditching an old one).

Fit the traditions to your situation, and not the other way around. This is one of the most annoying things people bring up (the whole "wedding as reconciliation deadline" is the other). Who will walk you down the aisle? Who will give a toast? Who will you dance with? It's enough to make me want to elope.

Weddings are not meant to be forms you fill out. Just like you don't need to follow the "old, new, borrowed, blue" tradition, or do a bouquet/garter toss, the family-relevant stuff is entirely not required. Instead, think about alternative ways to get to the altar to your partner. Maybe the way the venue is set up, you can each walk down an aisle towards each other. Maybe you can walk down together. Maybe you can walk yourself down the aisle as a display of independence. If you're anxious about walking alone, ask a dear friend to walk you down (male or female is irrelevant). Do you like your in-laws? Are they walking your partner down the aisle?

My mother is walking me down the aisle, but only because she requested to (I was initially going to walk down the aisle by myself and have my brother escort my mom). We are doing a mother-son dance so my partner can dance with his mother, but we are not doing a father-daughter dance.

Bean dip like a pro. Keep in mind that this is really personal shit and you might not want to talk about it with people who are curious. When people ask me about the situation with my dad, I nearly immediately change the subject. "No, we are not inviting him. Anyway, we're trying to figure out what hotel to book a room block with. Do you have a preference regarding location or hotel?" Or, "We're not doing a father-daughter dance. No, we're not going to do a brother-sister dance either. We're just going to do a mother-son dance. I'd rather not go into details about why, but thank you for asking. Anyway, here are the song ideas we had for the mother-son dance."

And finally, stand firm. You and your partner have every right to invite the people you want to invite. Your grandparents might implicitly or explicitly threaten to decline the invitation if your parents aren't invited. That's their fucking problem--do not let them bully you, no matter how well-meaning they seem or how sad they are. I know that it's devastating for my grandparents and my siblings that I'm estranged from my dad. I don't like that my dad's absence from the wedding will cause them pain. But it's not like I'm estranged from him because I'm feeling particularly capricious or something. There are several unbelievably good reasons that I'm estranged from him, and inviting him to the wedding makes absolutely zero sense given the estrangement.

CMGragain · December 2013

What did I do? I asked another relative to walk me down the aisle, I didn't have a father-daughter dance, and I had a very small wedding. I almost eloped.

[Deleted User] · December 2013

I agree with everyone else. I've been estranged from my father for two years and my paternal grandmother continued guilt-tripping me about it. When she called me an ungrateful daughter and said I was going to hell I rescinded her invitation to the wedding and told her if either she or her son tried to come to the wedding they'd be arrested for trespassing. Now two unhealthy, narcissistic personalities are out of my life. The rest of my father's family has been respectful of my wishes and there were no more issues. If your grandparents threaten to not come, call their bluff. Don't let threats from so-called loved ones cloud your judgement.

HisGirlFriday13 · December 2013

DH is estranged from his parents, for a lot of reasons. Courtesy of his PITA, meddlesome, BSC grandmother, they found out when and where the wedding was (in a church, which is a public space). They announced they would be attending.

Since we couldn't legally bar them, we tolerated it, but DH did call his father and say, "You can attend the ceremony, because we can't legally stop you, but if you show up at the reception, which is at a private venue, you will be arrested for trespassing."

His grandmother (father's mother) wasn't thrilled -- she would have liked us to invite the father but not the mother, even though they are still married -- and she let that be known. She was told that if she didn't like it, she could join them in not attending the reception, because it was her damn fault they were coming at all.

I second everything @phira said. Weddings are not a time to mend fences, and they're not a time to pretend everything is picture-perfect when it's not. If your (I assume paternal) grandparents want to push this issue and threaten to not attend if your parents aren't invited, call their bluff. Say, "I'm sorry you feel that way, and we'll miss you, but I am not inviting them and this is no longer up for discussion."

CLI242009 · December 2013

I'm in the same boat. Not with my parents of course but with my parent's adopted son.

They adopted him before any of my siblings were born. Doctors told her that she wouldn't be able to have kids after 3 miscarriages. Lord and behold after they adopt the son she ends up having 5 kids xD

Anyways, I have uncles and aunts, some cousin and even my own father (he has let up thank god after I told him that I wasn't having it!!) are trying to use our wedding as a reconciliation between my mother and her adopted son. Long story short he became very bad (gangs, drugs, prison, stealing money and valuables from other people and grandparents, etc.) so they severed contact with him when he went to prison for beating his at the time GF.

He has been saying he's found himself and he's a new man. He's done this 3 other times and has ended up robbing my now deceased grandmother. So we do not trust him. My father and relatives on his side of the family are all for getting back together with him. The one he stole and did most of the things to were my mother's parents/family. So they have been trying to convince me invite him to the wedding so everything can be patched up.

This man is not a brother of mine. He has the same last name as me but he is not my brother. I have met him once (that I can actually remember) in my entire 26 years of life. I do not know him. I don't want him in my life or there at our wedding. Period. I have been told I am being insensitive and bitchy because I have been standing my ground on this but this is what I want and how I feel. I don't want the worry, added to the usual wedding day of stress, on my shoulders.

Do not give in! Stick to your guns and call their bluff. If I had relatives not going to show up because I didn't invite my parents' son then I would just say "Sorry to hear that you can't make it! We'll miss you"

zitiqueen · December 2013

Ivycorley said:

My parents and I have been estranged for over 10 years. As a result I am excluding them from my wedding. Recently, my grandparents have been pressuring me to "make up" by inviting my father to my wedding. They have implied that they may not be able to attend if he is not invited. I do not intend to change my decision on excluding them but, if my grandparents do not attend it will drastically effect my plans, including not having someone to walk me down the isle, not having much family at my wedding, and not having a "parents" dance which I think my fiancee's parents should get to enjoy.

I'm not sure how to navigate this situation. All this drama is steering me towards elopement which I think I might end up regretting. Anyone ever been in this situation? What did you do?

They can still have a parents dance. And you can walk yourself down the aisle. Like a previous poster said, your wedding isn't the time for a family reconciliation.

Lily9911 · December 2013

Ivycorley said:

My parents and I have been estranged for over 10 years. As a result I am excluding them from my wedding. Recently, my grandparents have been pressuring me to "make up" by inviting my father to my wedding. They have implied that they may not be able to attend if he is not invited. I do not intend to change my decision on excluding them but, if my grandparents do not attend it will drastically effect my plans, including not having someone to walk me down the isle, not having much family at my wedding, and not having a "parents" dance which I think my fiancee's parents should get to enjoy.

I'm not sure how to navigate this situation. All this drama is steering me towards elopement which I think I might end up regretting. Anyone ever been in this situation? What did you do?

I can't stand it when other people get involved on your day. Seriously? If you haven't spoken to someone in 10 years, there's probably good reason for it. I invited a cousin who I wasn't speaking to but, he wasn't speaking to me, not vice versa, I had no issues with him. I gave him the choice to come or not. But, my mother wanted me to invite her brother, who is a scumbag. I refused and she was going to send him an invite instead. After a lot of fighting, I got my way and she let it all go.

Wedding's aren't for making up, it's your day and you should enjoy it. If it means things gotta change then so be it. I didn't have a father daughter dance because I'm not close to my dad, it was fine. I had him walk me down the aisle just cause...it didn't change our relationship at all- he's still a jerk. If I could re-do it I would have just walked down on my own. It's no biggie.

If your grandparents love you enough, they will be there. If they are going to threaten you then...do you really want that in your life?

Excluding my Parents. Getting pressure from the rest of family. Help.

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