Honest Advice - Should I point out the hurt that my mom caused 15 years ago now or let it go?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I highly doubt she will empathize with you and it will bring you two closer. Some parents are more secure in themselves and don't get defensive when you point out how their actions hurt you, but that's not common.

You are going to remember these details much better than she will because we tend to remember really emotional things. For her, these were not emotional, noteworthy moments.

If you decide to bring it up, I would think hard about what you want to get out of the situation, how likely you are to be able to get it, and how you can phrase things in a way that gets you what you want.

It is nice she has mellowed some and can be kinder with your sibling, but that also probably makes the old hurts sting double—to see that she can be more chill, but wasn’t able to do that for you.

Her resistance to accepting your version of events shows the defensiveness this PP mentions. It’s often hard for people to take an honest look at their actions and acknowledge the hurt it caused, intentional or not.

I would drop it with mom, but talk through this with friends or a therapist if you have one. As another PP says, I wonder what other hurts this is echoing from your childhood.

[Anonymous]

OP, my mother was also awful during my wedding. It's something you have to find peace with without your mom. Maybe that's therapy, maybe that's talking with your husband, maybe that's reframing it for yourself. Time does help eventually.

I asked my mom once about it and she said something about having a hard time seeing me get married and leave (kind of like what another pp said). We didn't speak about it again because she couldn't see why it wasn't all about her pain that day.

[Anonymous]

Many things with our parents we have to let go until and unless (or maybe never) we are in their positions.

Remember being an anxious and rude teen? Now, some of us have rude teenagers. We understand it now (perhaps now we understand both sides of it.) We can witness the attitude, wish it were different, explain our expectations, and ALSO see them for who they are and what they cannot help, see what they perhaps are capable of improving on, see where they will not change until they are in their 20s.

We don’t have that full perspective with our parents yet.

Yes some of them are jerks. Remember our grandparents’ generation. Maybe our grandparents would be worse! That’s where our parents came from. I think most of our moms and dads are trying to change, even if it’s too late for the stuff that happened a decade ago.

Have mercy on others, and they will have mercy when we make mistakes.

[Anonymous]

Id talk to a therapist about it instead. Bringing it up now when it’s your siblings time is not appropriate. Do you want to bring drama to their wedding planning? Maybe at a later time you talk with your mother, after you work it out with a therapist and AFTER the wedding.

[Anonymous]

I totally relate to you OP but my advice is to leave it alone.

I come from a similar traditional background where the wedding is about the family, not the couple....but even though I married someone outside the culture, she couldn't help herself. I'll never forget my mom saying "this is not your wedding. It never was and it never will be." It was hard to watch her approach my sister's wedding completely differently years later.

I never brought it up to her...just not worth it. I just confided in a close family member who knows her well - faults and all.

[Anonymous]

STFU and I mean that in a kind way.

You can have a good relationship with your mom or not. I can guarantee you that bringing this up will NOT make you closer. You dealing with your hurt will.

Plus I call it old person revisionist history. They chose not to remember so they don't. Or they think what they did for your sibling is what they did for you.

You need to focus on you and figure out what will help you without involving your mom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I got married over a decade ago about six months after a sibling. My mom was working fulltime and comes from a traditional culture where weddings are a very big deal. She was incredibly stressed at the time and took a lot of that stress out on me whilst wedding planning. I also didn't marry into money and that was stressful to her at that time, as well. I am still happily married and financially am fine and life has moved on from that time period. I have another sibling getting married this year and I am helping them a lot with wedding planning. My mom said and did some very mean things to me during my wedding planning time but it's been a long time and I have never brought them up with her since. Since she and I are working together to plan wedding stuff, my wedding is more of a topic now than it has ever been since it ended. She has mellowed some and realizes that people aren't as traditional so this is a very different experience this time around. I am also encouraging her to be more laid-back about this and she is on board after somewhat learning her lesson with other siblings, cousins, etc. Examples have come up about things she did to me back then and she doesn't seem to recall them and is now arguing about details that I vividly remember and she can't recall. I want to tell her that she was terribly mean to me then but I accept that she was dealing with a lot of stress and didn't know how to not make my wedding about her. Or I could STFU about it and keep it buried. There is no real point to bringing this to her attention other than it would allow me to say how she made me feel a long time ago. I can't tell if that's a terrible idea and as a 40-something that I should know better or that if telling her would make her empathize with me and ultimately bring us closer. Clearly we have issues so I am unable to think straight about this.

I guess I would bring it up, sort of. I deal with this with my own mother, but in a different context. She just completely spins everything to make it more favorable to her, when the actual facts were nothing of the sort. She gets a bit of slack only b/c she was also dealing with an emotionally abusive husband (my dad) and finally divorced him. During that period, end of marriage and divorce, she was . . . . well, she was something else. Having said that, she will say things like remember when X,Y, and Z happened (which is completely not what happened). I will say "that's not the way I remember it mom. I remember you said . . . ." And if she persists I'll just say "we'll have to agree to disagree on that." That at least flags for her that, no, it wasn't necessarily as she recalls. And, after several of these, my mom has finally stopped bringing up these stories through her rose-colored glasses as much.

[Anonymous]

Do not bring this up until after your sister's wedding (if you choose to do it at all).

[Anonymous]

OP, hard to leave it alone when the topic seems to be cropping up so much with the relevant wedding planning. I say you take the bull by the horns and tell her you respect how far she has come because your experience was so miserable. Be happy she has a totally different recollection and that 'must be nice' as you have had a hard time with it coming up, so it helps that even if you don't get an apology, you can see she knows she was wrong by how much she has changed.

[Anonymous]

Have you learned anything from your wedding experience? From what I read, when your mother is stressed, she lashes out. Have you seen that reaction with other life stressors? Keep that information in mind the next time she lashes out and say something then. For example, “We can talk later when you calm down,” or leave the room.

[Anonymous]

If you are arguing about -details- about your long-ago wedding, you are already doing this, Op.

Imo forcing some type of apology won't get you where you want to be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'd leave it alone. I confronted my mother about something in the past and completely regretted it. It did no good and just made us both feel awful. It was something that could not be changed, so there was really no point. I thought it would make me feel better, but it made me feel worse. My mom has since passed away, and I still think back on that conversation and wish I would have never have brought it up.

Thank you, I have dreamed about screaming and getting out all my rage toward my mom one day. But I guess I will bury it all down as well. I needed to see the regret you feel. No one is perfect and after having kids…ooooff.

[Anonymous]

My parents insisted I marry in my hometown, but were not financially supportive. I lived overseas at the time and experienced the months of wedding planning as a blur of stress. My mother asked whether I wished I had saved up more money to pay for the ceremony. I never confronted her but allowed distance to grow between us. After years of resentment, it occurred to me that the lesson for me was to support my own children when they marry and not pressure them about location. I hope to help them create the happy wedding memories I did not have.

[Anonymous]

Weddings are full of HIGH emotions from every angle. If this was the only period of time that you feel you were slighted, would let it go. There is more to life than your 5 hour wedding day.

[Anonymous]

Neither.

I don't point out this stuff to my mom because she would simply get defensive and want to prove I was wrong, or want to talk about it endlessly and justify her behavior. Or she'd feel so guilty and terrible she'd become depressed and I'd wind up having to take care of her. There's just no way that if I tell my mom "here's how your behavior harmed me over my life" that it ends with me getting what I need.

But I also don't "let it go" because we're talking about stuff that continues to impact how I think and how my life has gone. I have to deal with it. But I choose to deal with it in therapy or on my own via reading books and journaling. I think I'm pretty mentally healthy at this point, plus have a decent relationship with my mom, all without having to hash this whole thing out.

She's old and starting to forget things and get confused about things anyway. At some point she'll be gone. No point in bringing strife into our relationship at this point when I could instead just deal with it on my time, maintain good boundaries, and seek to maintain peace.