It’s difficult to please everyone while planning a wedding. This can be especially true if there is already tension among family members before the happy occasion was even a thought. This seems to be the case for one groom who has a strained relationship with his dad.
This groom lost his mother at a young age. His dad remarried a woman who tried to replace his mom. This never felt right to him or his brother. As a result, he was closer to his grandparents growing up and wanted to do a special dance with them instead of her. When she found this out, she was not pleased. The groom wants to make sure he was not in the wrong here.
Grandparents are the best.
The groom explains his future wife is going to dance with her grandpa and mom at the wedding. These are the people who raised her. She asked who he wanted to dance with and he replied his maternal grandparents. He has always felt closest to them.
Everything was going great. “I asked my grandparents and they were over the moon,” the groom explained. “Grandpa even started practicing for it. My grandma was a little more emotional about it because my mom died when I was only seven and for my grandma, it was a reminder that she and grandpa had to step in for some stuff so it could feel as close to having mom there as possible.”
He is not close to his dad.
The groom goes on to explain how he came to this decision: “The reason I asked my grandparents is I am not close to my dad or his wife. My dad is a cold man. He was always that way. After our mom died it was my grandparents who were there for my younger brother and I. Dad would tell us to stop trying to make him something he wasn't. The only time he wanted emotion from us was his second wedding to his wife.”
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His dad's wife tried too hard and made it all about her.
His dad’s wife was overbearing and too much. “She dreamed of stepping in and becoming our mom and filling in the gaps mom left behind,” he continued. “We never wanted her to do that. In fact for years my brother and I hated her for trying to fill in for mom. She was a stranger, some woman our dad chose, who was nothing to us. She went too far at times and because of that in my heart she never became my stepmom and instead remained my dad's wife. My brother feels the same way.”
Here's a list of his dad's wife's crimes.
He goes on to explain some of the things she did that made him feel uncomfortable. “She'd put her name down under mom instead of legal guardian,” he recalled. “When she'd buy herself Mother's Day cards and put our names on a card that said best mom. When she cut my brothers hair against his wishes because it bothered her that it was almost exactly like mom's hair and she hated it being pointed out.” This list goes on.
The groom does not want to dance with her at his wedding.
Because of these reasons and more, the groom declined to dance with her when she asked him to. “She asked me to do a mother/son dance with her. I said no,” he explained. “I didn't give a reason or make a discussion. Just no. She started crying again and told me that we loved crushing her and putting her in her place when all she ever wanted was to love us. She's mad and so are my dad and his parents. They said my brother and I always treated her unfairly and I should have agreed to the dance after all these years of her trying.” He wanted to know if he was wrong for refusing her.
The groom set a healthy boundary.
The forum did not think the groom was in the wrong in this situation. They applauded him for prioritizing his mental health on such an important day in his life. Boundaries are an important tool for dealing with difficult family members.
Weddings are important occasions.
“It's clear from your post that you have deep-seated emotional reasons for not wanting to share a mother/son dance with your dad's wife,” one user responded. “The wounds from your mother's passing and the way your dad's wife tried to insert herself into your lives are still very raw for you and your brother. You're entitled to your feelings and boundaries, especially during such a personal and important event as your wedding.”
Some harsh words for the dad's wife.
Some users were appalled by the dad’s wife’s actions.
“It is NEVER the child's responsibility to make the relationship work,” one user commented. “It's the parent/adult job to figure it out. She failed in a frankly abusive way.”
“Who buys themselves 'world's best mom' card??” wondered another user. "You are right, some of her moves were outright abusive. Total psycho."
The internet has the groom's back.
The groom can rest easy with the thought that he has the support of the internet. Here’s hoping his family comes around and respects his wishes on his big day. The wedding is not about them, after all.
These stories are based on posts found on Reddit. Reddit is a user-generated social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website where registered members submit content to the site and can up- or down-vote the content. The accuracy and authenticity of each story cannot be confirmed by our staff.
