Weddings are stressful, which is something we can all probably agree on. It’s not surprising that conflict happens within the family during wedding planning and that some compromises have to happen along the way.
For one woman, she didn’t expect her conflict to come while helping her daughter plan her wedding. The two didn’t see eye-to-eye on the guest list, with the original poster wishing one person in particular wouldn’t be invited, but the bride was adamant.
Unable to get to that point where she could see her daughter’s side, OP sought advice.
Taking to Reddit's AITA community, the mother of the bride gave the backstory needed to understand what she was concerned about.
“My baby daddy was an narcissistic jerk and was often emotionally abusive to me and made me cry regularly,” OP began her Reddit thread. “We had a daughter ‘Mia’ (22F) he left when she was 8 but regularly sent about 1500$ a month to watch her while he traveled the world.”
OP shared that when her daughter was younger, she “would often cry about him missing her birthday but he would make up buy it by sending her consoles and makeup but it still hurt her that the guy didn't even bother showing up to her Birthday.”
OP's daughter is engaged and they're working on wedding planning.
“Mia is getting married soon and we were working on the guest list,” OP wrote. And in their wedding planning, OP and her daughter got to talking about who would walk her down the aisle.
“When we were talking about who was walking her down the aisle she would constantly switch the conversation,” OP wrote, so she decided to be direct. “Me and my husband asked about it and she said she wants her biodad to walk her down the aisle.”
That hurt OP’s feelings as well as her husband's.
“My husband said ‘Bullshit I've been raising you forever it's not fair,’" but her daughter felt differently.
OP recalled Mia saying, “my real dad bought me a car, he paid for my surgery, and he even sent me money for a dog.”
And that left OP’s husband with hurt feelings. “My husband looked heartbroken and went out the house and told me he was going to the bar.”
After her husband left, OP and her daughter continued to talk.
“Mia looked at me and said ‘sorry mom but I want him I know you and him have bad blood but I want him to do it I've been sending letters and he's been sending them back,’” OP explained.
“I then said something I regretted,” OP admitted. “I said ‘if you invite him I'm not giving you my wedding dress or coming.’”
OP shared that after she gave the ultimatum to her daughter, things got emotional. “Mia started tearing up and said fine don't come and ran out and now my family is calling me heartless now I feel alone.”
After sharing what happened, from her perspective, OP asked Reddit if she's in the wrong.
The feelings in the comment section was pretty mixed.
“Sounds as if your AH narcissistic ex is working his charms on her and she's buying it,” one person replied. “If it happens, he may let her down on the big day. As at least one other person here has said, you should have a quiet talk when things calm down.”
The same Redditor continued with some advice. “If you haven't given her the full story about him yet, maybe now is the time to tell it, so long as it doesn't get heated with her again,” the person shared. “A nasty slap in the face for your husband, but bear in mind that she's likely being manipulated by a selfish liar who is playing at being daddy.”
“Yes it’s the daughter wedding day but the dad wasn’t parenting her in any way. Just buying gifts to make up for his lack of parenting,” another person wrote. “So yea I get why the step dad is upset when he was there when her bio dad wasn’t. OK he got her a car but didn’t show up for her birthday. She is sure he will be at the wedding? Burning bridges slowly and I hope your daughter sees her bio dad for the crap dad he really is.”
“Your daughter is grown enough to understand that your ex was abusive and she is basically disregarding the parents who were actually there to support and raise her for a deadbeat sperm giver who tried to buy her with things (and it worked apparently),” someone else shared. “Maybe be she will finally realize her mistake when her 'oh so lovely father' won't even show up for her wedding.”
“I feel like you and him could've done a better job explaining to her why this is such a problem, before making your decisions there was a missed chance to de-escalate the situation,” another person wrote. “Ultimately it is her wedding, but you don't owe her your dress or support.”
“She was sad about him missing life events … and now you're insisting that either he continues to miss life events, or you'll be the one missing the life event … because of how bad we was for missing life events,” someone else shared.
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