" I do n’t have meter for myself or to go on real engagement with my fiancé . I ’ve been give it all to her , and it ’s still not enough . "
This post is an advice editorial and shares the generator ’s personal views .
Hi BF Community! My name’s Ashley Holt, and this isDear Ashley— a lovingly honest, shady, and safe corner of the internet where BuzzFeed readers like you can submit your relationship issues to me for advice.
Today’s issue is between a 25-year-old woman who wrote to me about her mother.
“My parents are emotionally manipulative and unsupportive of my relationship. My mother has always been the kind of person who claims that real friends don’t exist and that she doesn’t need any friends, so I’ve been an emotional crutch for her since I was a kid. She has openly told me that I’m the only person she can talk to because nobody else understands her point of view, including my father, who she is still married to and living with.”
“It’s always felt like I wasn’t allowed to have hobbies or relationships outside of her. For example, if I were ever reading a book for fun, she would come into my room to interrupt me and ask if I wanted to watch a show or movie that SHE wanted to watch.”
“Now that I’m in my 20s and living with my fiancé, if I fall asleep to a movie when visiting her, she gets angry and tells me to go home instead. This is normally after spending an entire Saturday at her house. It’s never felt like she wants me around because she misses me. It feels like she wants to be able to control how I spend my time.”
“I normally go over to her house every Saturday, but I haven’t been able to the past three weeks because there wasValentine’s Day, and then my fiancé’s car broke down, so I was helping them fix it over the weekend. When I was finally able to go back and visit her, she proclaimed that I would be buying her boba because ‘I owed her for not coming over.’ She was 100% serious.”
“With all of this in mind, I feel like she’s never warmed up to my fiancé because she feels he stole me from her or I chose him over her. Even though every weekend for the past three years I have made every effort to go see her, she says I’ve distanced myself from her and makes accusations about how my whole world is my fiancé, and there’s no room for anybody else.”
“Whenever I’m unable to go over, she starts throwing shade at my fiancé about how he emotionally or financially manipulates me, and I’m just too naive to see it. Very truly, my fiancé and I work together, and everybody thinks highly of him. He’s one of the hardest-working employees and a sweet person overall. I’m not exaggerating when I say that literally, every single other person that we’ve announced our engagement to has been more excited than my parents were.”
“I’m at the end of my rope and am not sure how to navigate this anymore. We’ve been working on the guest list for our wedding together, and the absolute dread I felt as I reluctantly marked my parents as ‘yes’ to invite them truly cannot be understated. I don’t want them there because I know they’ll sour the mood. It’s suffocating. What should I do?”
Hey friend, let me first say that you sound like the most amazing daughter, and your parents are blessed to have birthed someone who put up with this for so long. But I have to acknowledge that it’s a tough transition for parents when we go from being their kids to their adult offspring. However, families who successfully make the transition often understand that the relationships are very different.
While your parents have (presumably) supported and loved you for your entire life, my hot take is that it doesn’t mean you OWE them for the rest of your life. Once you become an adult, your relationship with your parents is a choice. You all get to choose what it looks like and raise concerns if you feel it doesn’t serve you, or harms you or your future marriage.
A conversation with your mom is crucial because, as crazy as this sounds, she may not recognize that what she’s doing is a big deal because she’s always done it. She hasn’t changed since your childhood, but YOU have. Lay everything out. Make it plain, and leave space for her to have humanemotionsabout it. That’s a lot to take in from your child. This may take more than one conversation.
While I can’t, in good faith, say you shouldn’t invite your parents to your wedding, you need to clearly state your concern to them and tell them you would only like them to attend if they are happy for you and supportive of your fiancé being in your life. That way if they show up, they’re communicating to you that they’re agreeing to that. You also need some ride-or-die cousins, siblings, or friends that your parents like to sit with them at the reception to keep them in good spirits cough, cough (and keep them in check).
Listen, friend, we can love our parents DEEP, but that doesn’t mean we have to tolerate their behavior or lead the charge on their healing. Every grown adult is responsible for their own happiness. That means you AND them. Love, Ashley.
The compliance has been edited for duration / lucidness .
