My Future Mother-in-Law Ruined My Wedding Day
By: Elle Silver
Tags: Relationships, Self, Marriage, Divorce, Family

My Future Mother-in-Law Ruined My Wedding Day

Photo by Meryl Spadaro on Unsplash

Imagine being wed in a big, splashy wedding, but the colors aren’t the ones you’ve chosen. Neither is the theme of the event, nor the food, nor the flowers, nor even the religion of the person who’s officiating your ceremony.

This is what my wedding was like. My mother-in-law took complete control over the event.

Women are sold a myth that our weddings are supposed to be the happiest day of our lives. It’s the “bride’s day.” This wasn’t the case with my wedding. My future mother-in-law ruined it by creating the kind of wedding she wanted.

And my fiancé did nothing to stop her. Does it surprise you that our marriage ended in divorce?

It was never my dream to get married.

In a sense, it was a stretch that I was getting married in the first place. I’m an unconventional person by nature. I’ve rebelled against tradition my entire life.

As soon as I turned eighteen, I left home and traveled the world by myself. I was (and still am) fiercely independent and open-minded.

I didn’t grow up dreaming of having the perfect wedding. I wasn’t even sure that I wanted to get married.

I’d already declared during my teenage years that I would never become anyone’s wife. Even as a woman in my twenties, I had no interest in settling down. But then I hit thirty and realized I was lonely being single. I wanted a partner in life; I just didn’t envision getting married ever.

By then, I was living in Spain as a single American woman. I came back to the States because my mom was sick. Deep down inside, I knew that part of my reason for coming home was also to find a mate. Not to get married — just to have someone I could call my own.

I met my husband-to-be online.

I returned to the States and lo and behold I met the perfect guy. It was magical. I say this because we met online. Our meeting felt magical — even surreal. One day I didn’t know he existed. The next thing I knew, we were talking on the phone without even having met in person.

I found that I really enjoyed talking to him. We met and both decided we were crazy about each other.

He was much more traditional than I was though. He had grown up always knowing he wanted to get married. He had dreamt about having a big wedding since he was a kid. Seeing both of his siblings were already married, he was ready.

You might ask why I ended up with a guy like this. Blame it on blind love — hormones and dopamine. I knew early on in dating him that marriage was part of the equation. I told myself that getting married would be but another wild adventure to go on, just like moving abroad alone had been.

And it was until his parents got involved — especially his mother.

The first bone to pick was what religion we would adopt as a married couple.

The man I loved proposed during dinner at a beautiful restaurant in the mountains. I was thrilled that he asked for my hand. We had been dating for a year and a half by then. I’d met his parents and felt like we got along. However, I also knew they were upset that I wasn’t Jewish.

I thought my fiancé was Jewish like I was Christian. I hadn’t grown up religious. I had zero interest in religion, in fact. I’d been brought up a secular Christian. I celebrated Christmas and Easter, but only as a cultural tradition, not as religious holidays.

It was only after we were engaged that I found out our views about religion were very different.

I had envisioned us blending our family traditions. In my fiancé’s parents’ eyes, blending traditions was not an option. His parents wanted us to choose Judaism as the only religion we would practice with our future children. When I said no to this, I offended them deeply.

They claimed I was anti-Semitic. That wasn’t the case. As a freethinking independent, I simply didn’t want to be told what to do. I didn’t want to have to become something I wasn’t. I certainly didn’t want to suddenly become a religious person. It wasn’t that I was against Judaism. My distaste was for all religion.

I would have felt the same way had the parents of my fiancé been evangelical Christians. As you can imagine, I got off on the wrong foot with my future in-laws. Our relationship developed into a kind of power struggle, especially when it came to planning our wedding.

My future mother-in-law took control of our wedding.

My mother died shortly after I met my husband-to-be. Because my mother wasn’t in the picture to help me plan, my future mother-in-law got involved. When I say she got involved, she took control. I would have been happy for her to help me plan the day, but the issue was she wanted to take over everything having to do with the wedding itself, from the colors to the flowers, to the food and the music.

I resented her for this. My fiancé’s family was wealthy. The kind of wedding that my fiancé wanted was not one that I could afford on my own.

As his family was putting in so much of the money, I had no choice but to go along with what they wanted. However, this just made me even more resentful.

I resented my fiancé for not standing up to his mother. I wanted him to side with me. I know he was just trying to make both of us happy, but he just ended up angering everyone.

I didn’t want the “perfect” wedding — I just wanted a wedding that reflected who I was. I got to the point that I preferred to be married barefoot at a cheap buffet if it meant I could take back control over my own wedding.

I lost control of the event.

The planning of our wedding took a turn for the worse when my fiancé decided he wanted the ceremony to be held on his parents’ huge estate. The grounds were gorgeous. However, holding our wedding at his parents’ house meant his mother would take over completely.

I just sat back and let her create the day she wanted. I should have known that this wouldn’t bode well for our future together. My husband-to-be was this close to his family, but I couldn’t even get along with them? How were we ever supposed to be happy in this kind of situation?

We couldn’t be.

My husband and I bickered on our wedding day.

I felt miserable and sad on the day of my wedding. My fiancé’s family made me feel like a powerless beggar, a guest at my own “special day.”

We were married by a rabbi. After the ceremony, we went off to take photos. By the time we finally got to our table, our food was cold.

We danced and ate cake and then the wedding was over. All that arguing — for what?

My new husband and I went off to a hotel and spent the rest of the night at each other’s throats. We didn’t even have sex.

We recovered and managed to have a few good years together. I gave birth to our first child soon after our wedding. Our second child came just a year and a half later.

And, yes, I refused to bring up our children as “only Jewish.” I infuriated my new in-laws, and for that reason, I stayed on the family sidelines, never fully integrated into the family affairs.

I never did reach a point where I got along with my husband’s mother either. We would continue to be at odds even after I asked my husband for a divorce.

I don’t think my husband and I were ever really right for one another. I definitely wasn’t right for his family. They weren’t right for me.

What did I learn from this experience?

I’m not bitter that our marriage ended. And I learned something from this experience. Even if I love a man and get to the point that I want to remarry, if his family suddenly demands I become a different kind of person and adopt only their traditions, I will never agree to tie the knot.

And if I can’t get along with a man’s mother, I won’t stick around in a relationship. Especially if my partner stands back while his mother tries to control our lives. That is definitely a deal-breaker.

And if I do ever get married again, our wedding will be carried out as cheaply as possible. A barefoot buffet is fine for me.

I don’t want to buy a fantasy. I just want my wedding to reflect who I am.

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