Weddingbee boards

So this is probably going to be a long post. Bear with me! I appreciate it...

Fiance and I have been together about 5 years (since beginning of college) and we've known each other since grade school - dated for a short time in high school. About a year ago we got engaged. Probably as a result of pressure from me. I was moving across country and was looking for an assurance of commitment.

Several months before our engagement, my FSIL got engaged (she's in her early thirties). As soon as I got engaged, she called to make sure that I wasn't planning our wedding near hers. Since it was literally minutes after the proposal, and I hadn't thought at all about planning, I just brushed it off.

Six months later I was getting sort of antsy being engaged and ready to be married, but not doing any planning because of SILs wedding. So I brought it up to my fiance and suggested we have a small ceremony (family only) in about six months time. He agrees and I start planning, picking out flowers, setting up a ceremony date, ordering invitations, etc. I make an appointment with out pastor to set down a date for sure and start moving along the process (our church has a sort of pre-marriage counseling type program).

A few minutes before we're getting ready to leave to meet with out pastor, my fiance starts bringing up all these reasons why we shouldn't get married this year. And they all have to do with his sister and her wedding (which would be almost four months after our wedding). He says that she and his mother are furious because I (not us) am "springing" this on his family. His sister is upset because she's spending upwards of 30 grand on a huge lavish ceremony, and our backyard bbq wedding will "steal her thunder." She also says that it's rude of my fiance to get married before she does, because she's the oldest child (more than 5 years older than my fiance).

His mom is also mad because her extended family (we're talking 100+ cousins, second cousins, aunts, uncles etc. that she hasn't seen in DECADES) live in Europe and won't be able to make a second trip. I understand this BUT! they aren't even making the trip for SILs wedding!

So, we're late for this appointment, and I'm trying to be understanding, but I'm really pissed off. I suggest that we change the date until 4 months AFTER SILs wedding (so she can get married first...whatever). He says that will work. So we cancel our appt. and reschedule for next week.

The next day, we're working on planning again and he says that we can't do it after his sister's wedding, because she's been planning really hard so doesn't want any other big events that year. That's right. She doesn't want any other weddings in the family that YEAR.

I'm fed up at this point, and I decide to just postpone the whole thing. I'm frazzled because I'm tired of dealing with his high-maintenance mom and sister, and I'm feeling seriously underappreciated. So I'm bawling on the phone to my mom and she tells me that we need to just set a date as a couple, and whoever doesn't want to, or can't come, doesn't have to show up. She says that even if we wait a year, that doesn't mean something else won't come up (true: SIL is planning a baby the year after she gets married). I think her advice was sound, but at the time I just dropped the fight with my fiance and the planning altogether.

It's been six months since all of this happened, and I'm feeling incredibly resentful, because I had to give up what I wanted to suit other people. I also have residual anger because I feel that my fiance should have supported me. (FYI we'd been living together for over a year when we got engaged). I've tried to bring this up with my fiance in order to get some closure, but he hasn't really acknowledged that he hurt my feelings.

I guess I'm just looking for some advice on how to move forward from this. I'm wondering how to get over what happened. In my opinion when people commit to marriage they should defend and support their partners, even against their own family.

Anyway. Thanks for reading through, and thanks for your comments.

Rachael: I understand having some distance, but since I pay for everything, he'd be the one looking for a place. ;)

But that also seems like such a definitive step.

ALSO: I should mention that I'm a bridesmaid in FSILs wedding soon (...). I'm wondering how I'm going to stand up there looking pleasant without thinking how this day is the reason I don't have a wedding being planned right now.

Thanks, ladies, for all your input.

I'm pretty sure that FSIL and FMIL were actually saying the things he was relaying to me at the time. First of all, FSIL called me right after we got engaged to make sure that we weren't planning our wedding close to hers, but like I said in the first post, I didn't really address it at the time. His mom has also been less than stellar to me (she once told me to my face that I was ruining her sons life - and yes, he was surprised to hear that she had said something like this).

I tried talking to my FSIL about this about three months after the initial drama, but she wasn't apologetic at all. She just said that she's been planning this wedding for over a year and she didn't want anything to "ruin" it. She also said that because she's older, she should get what she wants, because we have more time to plan (she's gotten a lot of family pressure for being and "old maid" - gross, I know).

A couple of weeks ago I brought it up to my FI again and we had a long talk. He apologized and said he realized how wrong he was, and said how it wouldn't ever ever happen again. He said in the future he would defend me against his family. I accepted his apology, but I'm still, obviously not over it. I think it just never should have happened, and I shouldn't have to tell him to defend me.

I'm trying to move past it, but I know if stuff like this is still happening 5 or 10 years down the road that I'll be really frustrated with myself for having seen the signs so long before.

Do any of you have personal experience with difficult FSILs and FMILs? Did it ever get better?

Thanks again girls.

We're paying for it, although my parents might help a little. If my FI had stood up for us, we would have gone ahead with it, no matter what she had to say. But the fact that he didn't made me not want to push it. After all, you can get married without a MIL, but not without a groom.

soccerball, I understand wanting to have your time to shine, too, but my FSIL was engaged a year before my FI proposed. She'll be engaged for almost two years at her wedding, so I felt like she'd had her time in the limelight. Again, it just felt like everyone around had to put their lives on hold (and two years is a long time to be the center of attention in my opinion).

I know she's really emotionally invested in this wedding (and financially, too - 30 grand!), and I'm sure that her mom is stressing her just like she stresses my fiance, but I just don't think the world has to stop for several years while someone plans a bank-breaking wedding.

But I also have a different perspective because my family is very supportive and I'm not going into debt.

I actually don't think it's terrible that people don't want to have two weddings within months of each other.  Not because of the "limelight" issue - that's nonsense.  There is no limelight, except on your wedding day.  No one else is sitting around, obsessing over the fact that you're about to get married, or you just got married.  They focus on you on that one day, then they return to their own lives.

But it is difficult to have two family events within months of each other.  You have a lot of the same guests, and a lot of preperation from the family.  Even if your wedding is casual and the groom's family is not involved in the planning, the mother of the groom is still organizing her guests, getting a dress, cleaning her house, etc.  It's just easier and less stressful if weddings are more spaced out  Not that they HAVE to be.  But it's not crazy that in the midst of all this stress, your future SIL and MIL are selfishly thinking of themselves.

That being said, it does sound like you have a tense relationship with them, especially your MIL.  So it seems very likely that she may constantly be in search of something to delay your wedding to her son.  Which sucks, but that's her problem.  Don't make it yours.

YOUR problem is your fiance.  This isn't him not standing up to his mother.  His dismissive attitude towards you in the beginning indicates that he didn't care, not that he was unwilling to fight them.  And for all that he is saying the right words now - did he propose setting a new date for your wedding??  It doesn't sound like it.  He sounds like he is grasping at the reasons to delay the wedding.  Which isn't terrible - getting married is scary.  But as opposed to focusing on the reasons he is grasping at, like his family, you should focus your talks on setting an actual wedding date.  This sister's wedding is coming up, you could set your wedding 6 months from now and move it into the new year.  The time is right to start planning.  So see how he feels about doing that now.  If HE is actually ready now.