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

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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Yeah, it seems like she mellowed and learned her lesson, and we're not talking about some horrific thing. It's not like she, I dunno, no-showed to your rehearsal dinner or got drunk and made a scene or screamed obscenities at you or called someone a racial slur. "Said some mean things" + 10 years ago + personal growth = why bother?

It does raise the question - why is it still bothering you? You seem to have a good context and understanding for why this happened and where it came from, and it's not ongoing, which is usually a recipe for letting it go. Why are you still hanging on emotionally? Seems worth a little soul searching on your end. [/quote]

This is OP.  These are good questions... so to clarify you are right, it wasn't one thing she did, it was just her overall treatment of me during my wedding planning process.  Instances like taking showing up an hour late to the time I was showing her my chosen wedding dress (I dress shopped alone because she was too busy).  Driving to pick up my veil and her telling me all the families she knew where the groom's side paid for half the wedding, etc.  To put it visually, she was a black cloud hanging over my wedding planning times and putting her own stress above trying to make this a special time.  I'm going to assume from the rest of your questions that you have a pretty good relationship with your own mother.  I wouldn't say that I am hanging on emotionally but I am still hurt that an otherwise happy time for me was overshadowed by her selfishness and lack of empathy for her child.  But to be honest this is par for the course, I could probably take her behavior and apply it to almost any instance in my life, it's just that getting married is so special and I wish for me that time had gone differently.[/quote]

PP here - this is really helpful. Also, to clarify, when I said "Why is this still bothering you?" that wasn't meant as a dismissive or, that it shouldn't. It was truly a straightforward request for additional information. And the information you provided is helpful. I'm sorry your mom wasn't able to put you first when it came to your wedding planning. That stings, and it's disappointing.

I still think that saying something to her would be counter productive. But I think taking some time to sit with your disappointment can be helpful. In fact, reading through this thread, I wonder if just you typing all of this out and hearing other people's responses isn't helpful.

The thing that jumps out at me is that this was par for the course for her. I think often expectations are our worst enemies in these kinds of situations. When the stakes are higher (like a wedding) we expect that people will be able to behave [I]better[/I] than their default. But in reality, when you're talking about people who aren't emotionally reliable, they often behave [I]worse[/I] in situations with more emotional layers (again, like a wedding). A shift in perspective - to "of course mom behaved selfishly, she's pretty selfish" can really help here.

Oh, and I do have good relationship with my mother, but we had a few negative interactions before/during and actually the worst was right after my wedding that also left a sour taste in my mouth. So I do understand where you're coming from.

Actually, now that I think about it, the other thing that helped me was to understand what was going on emotionally for my mom. I realized months later that while both my mom and I moved around a lot in our 20s, when it came time to settle down and have children, she came back "home" and was about an hour away from her parents. I, on the other hand, was settling down quite far away. In fact, I was quite settled before the wedding, but I think the wedding being in my city kinda cemented in my mom that I was never coming "home" and that's why she acted out. Of course she NEVER said anything like this, and it's just speculation on my part. Some people aren't good with certain emotions - my mom is terrible with sadness. She's a sunny, upbeat person, so it's rare, but when a situation calls for sadness, she tends to turn to some other emotion that she's more comfortable with, like anger or anxiety. So, her sadness about me being far away turned into anxiety about wedding planning and anger about an inconsequential thing that went wrong. That doesn't make it okay, she behaved in a really crappy fashion - but it did help me to understand and let go. Possible to look at the whole situation through your mother's eyes? Even if someone is behaving objectively terribly, understanding why can help. [/quote]

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