The Vine: August 5, 2009
I recently got engaged to my awesome boyfriend, and we are starting to plan a wedding for next year.Even though I am not much of a planner (or maybe because I am not much of a planner), the one thing I want to do sooner than later is choose a wedding party, so I can start torturing my girlfriends and sister-in-law with questions about various aspects of the wedding.
Also, having been in more than a few weddings, I know that once a good friend gets engaged, you may start wondering whether or not you are going to be asked to be an attendant, either because you would really love to participate, or need time to find the appropriate way to decline the offer to spend six precious hours of your life wrapped in an unflattering swath of lime-green silk shantung with an itchy underskirt. Anyway.
Long story short, my fiancé is having trouble making up his mind about groomsmen, and I haven’t been able to come up with much helpful advice for him.He has two brothers and one sister, of varying degrees of emotional and geographic closeness.He is the oldest, and is very close with the elder of his younger brothers — let’s call him Brother A — they played sports together growing up, went to college together, share a circle of friends, etc.
He has less in common with his youngest brother, Brother B, because of the age difference (8 years) and also because they have pretty opposite views on basically everything.That being said, they get along pretty well and Brother B is a good guy, and because he lives nearby to us, we see him much more frequently than Brother A, who lives 3,000 miles away.
Brother A is getting married in two months, and has asked my fiancé to be his best man, and Brother B to be a groomsman.My fiancé always planned on having Brother A as his best man, but now feels like it might hurt Brother B’s feelings if the two of them choose each other and he is left out.Now he is feeling like he should either choose Brother B or ask them to be co-best men.
Do you think this is overthinking? Did you know guys cared about things like this? Is it weird to have two best men?
Sincerely,
All I want to do is be able to squee with my friends and strong-arm them into choosing a reception venue for me
Dear Squee,
Maybe it’s overthinking, but people do tend to take selections like this very seriously and personally; weddings often turn into referenda on relationships, no matter how hard the couple tries to avoid it.I don’t think it’s weird that guys care about things like this, and I certainly don’t think it’s weird to have two best men, not anymore.My brother had a groomswoman, I served as a bridesmaid, and he and Gen didn’t have equal numbers of attendants; who cares. Bean had a man of honor; who cares.Everyone felt good about their roles in both cases, which I think is (or should be) the aim.
So: co-best men sounds like the best idea to me.Brother A will no doubt understand the rationale, and if he doesn’t, your fiancé can explain it to him — or can give him various best-manly duties that feel a bit more special or specific to their relationship.But this is the option that seems most likely to avoid hurt feelings while still letting your fiancé feel like he’s got the wedding party he wants.
Dear Sars,
Let’s start here: I don’t like my stepmother.This isn’t particularly unusual, I know, but she really is a pretty unpleasant person.Not always and not overtly, but the kind of snide, undermining, condescending meanness that peaks out occasionally and disrupts everything.This animosity was mostly aimed at my dad (never the kids) and frequently at her other family members, but never really at me.
She married my father when I was living elsewhere and I have never had to share a house with her.It’s always been pretty clear that when I go home to visit, I’m mostly there to spend quality time with my dad and my half-siblings. I can usually manage to make it through a weekend without saying something snarky on behalf of my father, but every time I do I feel a little bit guilty for interfering with someone else’s relationship.
Everything was pretty much going fine until about a year and a half ago, when my stepmom was diagnosed with a seriously debilitating disease that has been progressing aggressively and pretty much ignoring every kind of treatment that the best doctors in the country can come up with.It’s a really terrible thing all around: for her who can’t even get out of bed some days, much less drive the kids to school or play catch with them, for the kids who are too young to understand much more than “Mommy is sick,” and for Dad who is now left trying to hold things together.
The medical difficulties have made being in her presence completely intolerable.No one around her can ever do anything right, especially my dad, none of us are successfully anticipating her needs or listening to what she’s asking.Her friends have been doing a lot to help support the family, and are generously thanked by homemade baked goods that she has my dad bake.
But all my dad gets are severe reprimands and “We talked about how you were going to…” type conversations.I know it’s not unusual for people to try and exert control over whatever they can when their life is spinning out of control, but she’s not making it easy for anyone to help her.
I’ve been spending weekends down there every few weeks to try and help out and take some of the pressure off of everyone, but after this holiday weekend of perpetually being berated and ordered around, I don’t know how much more I can take. But I can’t just abandon him and the two little ones, can I?
Do you have any suggestions on books I can read or approaches I can take to help break the cycle (getting angry, then feeling guilty about being angry and then feeling angry about being guilty, and so on…)? Should I stop going down and trying to help out?Spread my visits out more?Spend my time taking the kids out and leaving my dad with her?
Guilty Angry Daughter
Dear GAD,
Perhaps the readers can suggest some reading for you about integrating a critically or chronically ill family member.I will start by telling you that everything you’ve told me sounds totally normal, and getting frustrated and fed up with a woman you don’t enjoy spending time with in the first place, whose unpleasantness is now several factors increased by a medical situation, is natural and predictable.You have sympathy for her difficulty; you’ve lent a hand without hesitation; now you need to forgive yourself for coming to view her as a demanding chore, because she is, at this point.She may realize that, and just find herself unable to control how she behaves; she may just not care, and feel entitled to compassion without pushback.
Either way, the behavior you can control here is your own, not hers, and I think you have two questions here: how you can stay involved without wanting to kill your stepmother, and how you can get her off your dad’s back.The first one is pretty easy, and you’ve mentioned it yourself — switch things up on your visits for a while.Pick the kids up and take them out for the day, or identify a time when a friend has come in to help out with Stepmom, and bring your dad to the park for a picnic.Help them out and let them know they can rely on you, while at the same time taking yourself out of any interactions with her.
You don’t have to do this forever; just take a time-out for yourself.You can also skip a visit if that works better for you, but the trick here is to avoid burning out on this obligation, and if you need a short vacation from visiting, or to set a temporary boundary where you don’t deal with Stepmom at all, you should do that before it reaches a crisis point and you cut yourself off from all of them.
As far as your dad goes, well, he married this on purpose; her illness is not an excuse to treat him like crap, but my sense from your letter is that she hasn’t needed an excuse in the past.Your best bet is to ask him how he’s holding up, and gently suggest that a couple of visits with a counselor or social worker might benefit him and the whole family in terms of avoiding burnout on his end.
But you’re both just trying to hold things together, which is great.Just remember to rest your arms now and then, so that you can keep going.
Dear Sars:
I am not the world’s most, er, proactive person. I’ve always done things because they were “easy” and then found out that they weren’t so easy after all: I went to a university where I would know people and was close to home, but ended up disliking the atmosphere (which I knew about before I went). Nevertheless, I stuck it out until I got my degree.
I took a job that didn’t fit my interests or talents because I knew it would be easier to get a job in that field than get a job that really interested me. I stuck it out in that job for years; it ended badly. I worked in a decent job for a few years, then chose to go abroad to study for a year — I love school, I love traveling, so it was perfect for me. (Disclaimer: I do not love school enough to publish academic papers and go into academia, although I wished I have been smart enough to do so several times; that is for bigger brains than I and as I have said, I’m lazy.)
After I graduated, I didn’t have any plans, and ended up making the “easy” choice again: coming back to my old suburban hometown. I went through a really rough patch of readjustment/unemployment, and got through it with therapy and medication.
Right now I’m extremely lucky; I have a job that pays well enough for me to live independently, and another offer for a much better-paying job. I know, I have two jobs to choose from, I really shouldn’t be upset, right? The only catch is that the job has a really different work environment than I’m used to. (At my last workplace, my boss and co-workers spent most of their time talking about the relative merits of Frank Black and Kim Deal. The new job…well, there’s a reason why I’m being so nonspecific in this letter.)
I applied for these jobs because I was living with my parents and needed money to move out before we all ended up on the local news as a “shocking scene at a local house”; personal suitability and interest wasn’t much of an issue. Like I said before, this was the “easy” choice.
I know I should be happy because I have a job, my semi-own place, and the area that I’m in isn’t a bad place. But I can’t make myself like it — I lived in one city or another for a long time, and I miss the liveliness, the walkability and the closeness of everything. I also really liked where I lived abroad, and keep thinking about it. It’s kind of like when you break up with someone and can’t stop thinking about how awesome they were, only with a place instead of a person. The idea of settling down here doesn’t make me happy, kind of like I’m throwing out the prospect of ever having a passionate relationship in order to settle down with a nice accountant who really hates foreplay but does own his own townhouse.
The question: how do I make the screaming voice in my head telling me that I’m making the wrong choice and that I want to be somewhere else shut up? Looking back over my history, I realize that I’m not very good at making plans or thinking of alternatives, so this could very well be it for me — this job path and this one place. I dread the thought of spending the rest of my life stuck in one place, visibly unhappy — and taking it out on everyone else. There’s family precedent for this sort of acting-out behavior, and if there’s some non-“go see a therapist!” way to stop it other than constantly telling myself “buck up, little fuck-up,” I’d be glad to know it.
Thanks,
Little Fuck-up
Dear Little,
I don’t understand what I’m being asked here.Do you want me to tell you how to swallow your obvious discontent, and want/enjoy things you think you “should”?Wrong advice column, sister.
You make that voice shut up by stopping and listening to it.It’s screaming because it thinks you won’t hear it otherwise, and it’s right, so give the little guy a chance.You say you make the “easy” and “safe” choices, but honestly, how “easy” is it to grit your teeth and endure everything in your life instead of living it?How “safe” is it to feel like you need instructions on how to enjoy things that you just…don’t enjoy?
Look, everyone’s pretty lazy.I’m very lazy.I’m also ambitious and puritanical, which works out nicely in terms of cancelling out the sloth at critical points.Accept your laziness, stop giving yourself shit for it, understand that you will have to work against it just like 90 percent of everyone else ever born, and tell the screaming voice, “Okay, fine.’Not this, not here.’Got it.What, then?Where?”Figure out where you’d like to live, and how to find work there so you can live there.Figure out what you want to do, and if you don’t know yet, do a few different things; understand that, whatever you end up doing for a living, a lot of it is drudgery and busywork and not fun, but you learn to tolerate that stuff because some of the job is rewarding and challenging.
You don’t have family commitments that will force you to stay put.So, don’t.Nobody is telling you you “have to” be happy with where you are and what you have except you.So, stop pretending you are and go somewhere else.Make lists; formulate a plan.Get psyched.
And don’t expect me to tell you how to conform with what “everyone else” “should” love and be grateful for, because God bless “everyone else” and I wish them the best, but those people told me a peanut-butter-and-tomato sandwich would be disgusting, and they were wrong, so if they think your job’s so awesome, let them do it while you make bracelets or whatever.It’s scary and hard to jump the tracks, but your current set-up sounds kind of scary and hard, too, so…fuck it.Be your own everyone else.Life’s too short.
Tags: etiquette the fam workplace
@Sars- AWESOME response to “LFU”.
LFU – Sars is right, all around. Also, get yourself a copy of the book “what to say when you talk to yourself” and work on stopping the really negative voices in your head that are stopping you from being yourself and doing what you want to do! :)
In my wedding (the second, recent one, not the first one many years ago), my (adult) son was my Man of Honor, my husband’s brother was his Best Man and our dog was Best Dog (his function was that of ring bearer).
It’s nothing to have two Best Men, or a Best Woman, or whatever. Even Miss Manners thinks so.
Aw, “Best Dog.”
@Sars; here are two pictures of the Best Dog in action:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mightyisis/2062562295/in/set-72157603294661343/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mightyisis/2062577627/in/set-72157603294661343/
Dude, YES. Peanut butter-pickle is still my favorite, but I also love peanut butter-tomato.
I randomly filled in the end of that sentence as “…his function was that of cake eater.” Had to go for a re-read.
@ Guilt Angry Daughter: Sars is (as usual) totally right. I would add that, while you cannot control her behavior, you can control how much of it you have to endure. If she starts in on you with the rude and the whatever, a polite but firm “I will not be spoken to in such-and-such manner, regardless of [malady].” and then leaving the room if she continues can be a small step toward saving your sanity.
It sounds like – and I could be totally off-base here, I’m aware – she is used to being allowed to walk all over people and treat them however she wants, because people let her. Decline to allow it, as much as it pertains to you.
If it were me, I’d also have a word with Dad about the whole thing – compassionate, short and sweet, just a “hey, I see what is going on here” kind of thing, and let him know you’re here to support him in whatever way he needs…something like that. Just an honest acknowledgement of Stepmom’s behavior might at least help him cope with his wife.
My brother had co-best men, his two best friends since kindergarten. It worked out fine, each made a toast, etc. Knowing the three of them, it was the perfect solution.
I’m getting married next fall and am in the process of picking the wedding party. I feel like the traditions of Best Man, Maid of Honor, and having exactly the same number of bridesmaids/groomsmen are falling ever so slightly by the wayside. I’ve got a super-butch lesbian in my bridal party, who will definitely NOT be wearing a dress, plus her girlfriend; one of my fiancee’s “groomsmen” is the wife of his Best Man. Plus my mother, son, and daughter will all walk me down the aisle, together. I think that people will be honored to be a part of your wedding regardless of title. As my friend’s girlfriend told me, “I’ll be happy to serve cake at the wedding- I just want to be there for you!” And I think that’s what it’s all about. Congratulations!
@GAD: A family member’s debilitating disease is an ongoing nightmare you can’t pull yourself out of, and I’m sorry you’re going through it. My dad is in the late-middle stage of Alzheimer’s; while our family dynamic isn’t the same, there are some similarities, the main one being that he’s increasingly difficult to be with due to the fact that he’s reverted to being a 3-year-old, with many of the unpleasant, manipulative, whiny & mean traits that can encompass, and not understanding that he’s changed. The easy way to deal with it is to avoid it; however, he’s my father, and while I don’t particularly like him right now, I love him, so I deal.
I also deal because I am not the primary caregiver, so my annoyance is nowhere near the level of my mother’s, and she needs the support. She’s losing her husband of 45 years by the Death of a Thousand Cuts, going through an extended grieving process with no end in sight, and at the same time having to take his crap & live with a personality she didn’t marry. There’s only so much a person can take, even with the help of a live-in caregiver.
You may not like your stepmother, but your dad does, and he’s losing someone he loves enough to have married. It isn’t necessary that you sit at her bedside and hold her hand, so I completely support Sars’ suggestion of doing stuff that takes the load off your dad. My siblings and I tend to do stuff like take mum to the spa for the day, take dad for walks so mum gets an hour to read a book without interruption, take him on errands to “help” (he particularly likes grocery shopping) so that he’s not pestering mum non-stop, etc. Most of all, be there for your dad to unload; if you don’t feel qualified or unbiased enough to be giving advice, find a family support group for this condition and go with him.
Just because your stepmother is sick, it isn’t wrong to say “I don’t like her” – you didn’t before, that hasn’t changed, and it’s best to accept that it won’t and not feel guilty about it. But you can be there for your dad (and it sounds like you are – good on you!) and not let her attitude destroy the relationship you have with him, because you and he will both need it after she’s gone.
On the wedding – don’t worry about it. Co-best men is a wonderful idea. I knew there was no way that I could not have my sister as the Matron of honor, it would have crushed her. So I had a Gentleman of Honor as well. The important thing is to make the ceremony your own. Your joy will come through and provide that special happy wedding glow. That’s what people remember not how many stood up.
On the sick stepmom – therapy for the family, for you, for your dad, for your dad and his stepkids together, in a group, alone, or any combination thereof can only help. My husband’s mother was sick for years and his father was the primary caregiver. If the father and his brother had seen a therapist during those years things would be much better for them today.
Love your advice to Little. It was really, really nice to read today, very encouraging.
And I seriously think I need to try a peanut butter and tomato sandwich. Natural peanut butter or like, Skippy?
@GAD . . . Suggest to your father that having a chronically ill mother can be very hard on children and that it could be helpful to do some family therapy (without their mother if she’s not physically up to it) in order to give them some tools to deal with it more effectively. This has the advantage of being true, but also a competent family therapist works with the entire system and will provide better tools for everyone in the immediate family to deal with what is a family crisis.
Otherwise, follow Sars’ excellent advice and focus on your dad and the kids.
@LFU . . . Don’t know why you are so hard on the idea of therapy. Not that it would teach you to accept what you hate, but it would be a strong support in learning to do what Sars has suggested, which is to listen to your own authentic voice and learn to act on it.
I know I sound like an advocate of the therapy industry today, but good therapy is a tool that teaches people how to deal with the lives they have, up to and including how to find the courage to change the parts of those lives that can be improved while finessing the parts that have to be endured. If you can teach yourself those things without it, that’s fabulous. But there’s no shame in getting a little help over the hard spots (like chronic illnesses in the family, or jump-starting a new way of relating to yourself and the world).
Miss Manners on Wedding Parties (from: http://www.buffalonews.com/opinion/columns/missmanners/story/416678.html):
“Even Miss Manners has noticed that life has changed somewhat. She is all for retaining charming old traditions, provided the deeper meaning is not sacrificed to superficial considerations.”
and
“In real life, this is hardly worth sacrificing the real qualification for being in the wedding party, that of having the closest ties to the couple.”
@Krissa, I’m sure Best Dog would have eaten cake. However, we didn’t have a wedding cake, either!
@Judi: Either way. The tomato cuts the richness of the PB, which is what makes it awesome.
“best dog” is AWESOME. I wanted our cats in the wedding but it didn’t happen (for the best – they would not have cooperated in the least).
best advice ever to LFU. just because there is nothing actual “wrong” about a place, job or a person, that does not mean that you have to stay there, do it, or love/like him/her. if I learn only one more thing from advice columns (thank cards are always a good idea), I hope it is that lesson. It is your life, so you need to go forth and live it. You can (and will) recover from 90% of any mistakes you might make in listening to your inner voice and the payoff is that you are not miserable every day trying to fit in.
Squee–
My fiance has a similar situation – 2 brothers, one to whom he is much closer. The difference is that his “Brother B” got married many years ago and fiance was HIS best man. We went with co-best men — but as Sars suggests, fiance has granted “Brother A” some special duties (e.g. bachelor party planning).
As a ray of hope – working all together as co-best men + group has been really nice for the 3 of them! Although Fiance and Brother A are closer, this has helped them engage Brother B a bit in ways they haven’t recently. So, not only may this arrangement avoid hurt feelings, but it could end up improving relationships all around!
In one section of my family there’s three boys, and both of my male cousins who got married had his two brothers as co-best men. I imagine if the third ever gets married it’ll be the same deal. And at my brother’s wedding there was one more bridesmaid than groomsman, so one of the groomsmen escorted two bridesmaids back down the aisle (which he didn’t mind doing at all, in fact he was rather pleased with the arrangment.) I think anything goes with these things, so as long as you guys are happy with whatever you decide to do it’ll be great.
LFU…did anyone ever tell you you’re allowed to enjoy your life? It’s a serious question.
You’re allowed. You’re allowed to mess up, to read bad self help books, take a job that didn’t turn out like you thought, even marry the wrong person–and still get to learn from those mistakes and grasp for happiness. It doesn’t sound like your interests and needs are seriously diviant or criminal, so stop being so dang hard on yourself. As Sars said in an earlier Vine about dropping the handle on the Little Red Wagon Of ANGRY, this stuff is petty in the end, and the only way you’ll care about a lot of it when you’re 93 is if you allowed mistakes you made to run and ruin your life.
@Squee: I’m pretty much agreeing with everything everyone else said–my husband had his best friend as his Best Man, with another male friend and his sister as groomsmen. She wore a lovely black dress, to match the tuxes. I had my sister as the Maid of Honor and my two closest friends as bridesmaids. I had asked his sister to be on my side, but he couldn’t come up with another friend to ask, so we just had his sister on his side, and everyone was happy.
I definitely think co-best men is the best solution. I have a girlfriend who was devastated when her sister didn’t ask her to be the maid of honor in her wedding, and the sister didn’t bother to tell her, either. The sister asked my friend to be a bridesmaid, and my friend found out from their mother that the sister’s best friend was the MOH. Ouch.
GAD, my father become terminally ill when I was ten years old, and both family and friends came together to get me out of the house and away as much as they could, even if it meant just spending an afternoon in someone else’s backyard. My mom appreciated the time alone with my dad, whose illness made him difficult and tempermental; without me around she could concentrate entirely on him. And, twenty years later, I’m still in awe at the decency and generosity my family and my parents’ friends showed our family during such a difficult time.
My point is, if you’re struggling with your step-mother’s illness, taking the kids out for an afternoon is almost surely a great gift for her, your father, and for them. It means you have to spend less time around her, which is a plus, but beyond that it’s a really meaningful way to help all of them cope with a terrible situation.
Re: wedding party. I had two maids of honor (technically, one matron and one maid) – like the groom in question, it would have been a very difficult choice. So I didn’t make it. We also did not have equal numbers on each “side” in the wedding party. I really don’t think anyone noticed, let alone cared. Let’s face it, most people at the ceremony are thinking about the reception to come – not counting how many pink dresses they see and matching them up with how many pink bow ties.
Sars, the last paragraph of your response to LFU might be the best advice you have ever given to anyone, anywhere, for any problem. It should be posted right under the TN banner in big, bright, flashing font.
Seriously, I’m going to print it out and stick it to the wall of my cube.
Sars, your advice to LFU is champ. I seriously want to stand up and cheer.
Want to offer a word of warning to Squee: yes, your wedding is under your control, and your husband-to-be should choose co-best men if he so desires.
However, prepare yourself for the fact that there will be people every step of the way who want you to make a choice. My sister had co-bridesmaids when she got married, because she couldn’t choose between me and a cousin who grew up with us; at the rehearsal, the minister insisted that two of the attendants needed to step forward during the ceremony. If she’d been thinking, she probably would’ve just said, “Whatever, not doing that,” but she was flustered, chose me, and our cousin has never really forgiven her for that.
I guess my advice is, make the choices you want, but be prepared to defend them in the face of resistance. Some people hold onto tradition realllllllly tight.
There’s a local pizza shop here in CT that has a pizza called “Skippy’s Dare”. It’s a pretty normal pizza, plus bacon. And peanut butter.
It tastes pretty good.
Though one has to be careful of how much one eats because too much sits in the stomach like a ton of lead. :)
I can add that there aren’t any reasons you HAVE to have a best man/maid of honor at all. I was a bridesmaid in a wedding where we were all just bridesmaids and groomsmen and no one had the special titles. True, one person did get to stand the closest to the bride and groom, but no one was singled out and it worked out well that way. That said, we were wondering who was going to BE best man/maid of honor up until the rehearsal, because they didn’t tell us that they just weren’t going to assign those roles! So if you go that route, make it clear that everyone in the wedding party is special to you but equal in terms of title.
@Squee – its not overthinking, its considerate. Have two best men. With a wedding, someone, somewhere, no matter what you do is going to find something to get all That’s Not The Proper Way To Do It about, so you might as well just ignore them and do what makes you happy and spares feelings and drama.
@GAD – stop feeling guilty and start setting boundaries. A debilitating disease is a terrible thing for anyone, and a certain amount of irritability is understandable and forgiveable. Turning into a demanding, nasty, impossible to satisfy harpy is not. So, as someone else said, when she gets that way, decline to deal with it. Tell her you will not tolerate behavior X, and leave the room. If you can afford it, you might also suggest to your dad bringing in a nurse, or housekeeper part time who can relieve some of the burden (like baking the damn thank you cookies).
@LFU: Your “little voice” is screaming that I am not happy, FIX ME. Why aren’t you listening? I’m not sure which should come first-1) making major changes, starting with finding a place to live that you actually like or 2) finding a therapist and asking why you continually make self-destructive choices that are going to guarantee you will be unhappy, but you don’t need to do both. You say there’s family precedent here-get thee to a therapist, find out why you are reliving the cycle, and then find out how to break it. It will be worth it, trust me.
That makes tons of sense. I’m psyched to have a new vegetarian way to gross out my boyfriend :-D Thanks!
I think this is Sars’s best advice column (or just plain advice) ever. Just saying.
1. Yay for co-best men. Had a similar situation with my cousin, only in her case she was much closer to the 8-years-younger sib than the one closest to her in age (they are like clones) and I wondered how she was going to handle that because things would have been ugly if she’d put the 17-year-old in as the best and only. Co-best-sisters was done, and the oldest one was the one who signed the legal paperwork. Yay.
2. I hear ya. Illness seems to magnify all your bad qualities and erode whatever good ones some people had mighty quick. Do whatever you can to avoid her presence, if possible.
3. Oh, LF, I have a similar problem myself with this screaming voice thing. I recently (like within the last month) finally gave up on trying to talk myself OUT of wanting that stuff. I have spent however many years trying to talk myself out of them, I don’t want to deal with the consequences that come along with it, nor do I see a path as to how to do it either. I still don’t know HOW to do it, mind you (part of mine does involve moving and dear god, I don’t know how to not live in the same end of the state I’ve always lived in), but step 1 is to give up on telling the voice to shut up, ’cause it won’t. Logic doesn’t drown it out worth a damn, unfortunately.
On a related note, I JUST found this after reading the column: Scott Adams talking about how to handle this problem:
http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/visualizing_the_entire_path/
@GAD – I think trying to intervene on your dad’s behalf any further is a mistake. As others have noted, he chose this woman. Their relationship is their orb to manage – it’s not a child’s job to intervene into her parent’s marriage absent seriously compelling circumstances (which I don’t really see here). I think the less of that you take on, the less impossible this situation will seem. It’s really hard to sit by and watch while someone treats your dad poorly, but acting like the referee has the potential to put more stress on the whole situation, especially for your dad, who may end up feeling like he needs to defend his wife to you.
Is it possible that her hackles are just generally up when you’re there? I can’t imagine that it escapes her that you don’t like her. I don’t mean to put *any* blame on you or give her a pass, it just occurs to me that the tension between the two of you may affect her behavior when you’re there. I know it’s not just a simple cause and effect of you being there, but I wonder if the backstory kind of prevents you from being able to be present for their more tender times. Prior to her diagnosis, the tenor of your visits has been, if I’m reading you correctly, “I’m here to see everyone but you, lady.” I…can kind of see how she might see you as a generally hostile presence, and the combination of debilitating disease + young kids + denial + hostile stepdaughter might be the perfect storm of awful to dial her nasty buttons up to warp level when you visit. Does that make sense?
I’m so sorry the situation is so bad. It’s just heartbreaking to read. My heart goes out to you all – you, your dad, the kids, and your stepmom. Like I said, I don’t want to give her a pass on behaving so badly, but I can’t help feeling very sorry for someone who is facing a long, bad road and can’t care for her small children. That really sucks.
Hang in there.
Oh, forgot to say that there is a book called Callings by Gregg LeVoy on this topic of “stuff that won’t go away.” It’s religion-neutral and particularly preachy or syrupy or New Agey– just “I’ve got this call to do this thing that will upset my life, I don’t wanna upset my life, what do I do?” and talks about how it won’t go away and what happens if you don’t do it and what you have to go through in order to do it.
I know it seems I’m on a little bit of a “T-shirts for TN” kick lately (when I’m not accidentally making up names for bands, that is) but I think your advice for Little is spot-on, and I would wear “Be Your Own Everyone Else. Life’s Too Short” proudly.
My cousin had two best men at his wedding – both of his brothers. He could have just picked the brother who was his twin, and I think everyone would have understood if the younger brother was relegated to groomsman. Also, best Best Man toast ever (from the twin): both the groom and bride met as prison guards in the same facility – “Well Joe, I never thought you’d meet your bride in prison.”
My wedding was a casualish outdoor event at a winery, where we purposely didn’t even have chairs for anyone (10-minute ceremony). We didn’t have programs, so technically no one was listed as “Best” or “Maid of” anything. We each had two attendants – on my side I had my friend from childhood and my bridesgay–friend from college. The ring bearer delivered the rings at the appropriate time, so neither man on my husband’s side did any “official” type duties.
All this to say–do whatever you want that feels comfortable!
GAD, if you are in the U. S., get thee to United Way (http://www.liveunited.org/). Note the “highly recommended” documents here: http://www.unitedwayrichmond.org/forcaregivers.htm‘, particularly Family Caregiving 101.
Call 2-1-1, a national resources line currently operative in all but four states, tell then you are a care giver, ask for resources. 2-1-1 initiates a client relationship with callers, offering guidance and resources people who haven’t been in whatever-given-situation don’t even know how to ask for.
Share these sources of information with your family, your dad. Follow Sars’ and others’ advice here. Take care of yourself and of him, and find the strategies for coping with stepmom *while* y’all are taking care of her. You may be surprised how much there is out there.
All the best, to you and yours.
My apologies the right parenthesis above is mucking up that first link. Mea culpa!
LFU – I have to second the therapy option. This may be me projecting, but it sounds to me like you might be a little ADD. People with ADD, especially smart people, tend to struggle with things that SEEM easy to everyone else – where to go to school, finding the right job, etc. They tend to berate themselves for being lazy or dumb because you can’t seem to get a handle on doing those simple things that EVERYONE else seems to have no problem doing.
Sars is right, what you have accomplished isn’t easy. You aren’t lazy, it sounds like you have other things going on. It also sounds, to me, like you might be struggling with a little bit of depression – you say it’s not so bad, you just want to accept where you are, but you also sound desperately unhappy and terrified of things staying how they are.
I’ve been there. I can tell you that I thought I just needed to get my shit together, stop whining and do whatever it was I needed to do. You know, like every other damn person I knew. Except, to get my shit together, I needed medication. It sounds extreme, unneccessary, taking things too far. It did to me anyway. But, I got to a breaking point. Stuff just wasn’t working. I went to a therapist, got a prescription for ADD meds and… man. I mean, it is a totally different world. Like, just indescribably different. Those things that everyone else seems to do without thinking or worrying about? I can do. I can handle deadlines and applying myself to a project, or a goal, for more than five minutes. I get groceries before my cupboards are totally bare. I have time to clean the house AND watch TV. Things get done BEFORE it is a crisis.
You didn’t say that you feel stupid, but you did say you’re lazy.
I just want you to know that you are not dumb. You are not lazy. There is help out there for you and you won’t even believe how much better it can be.
If you aren’t ready to see a therapist, check out “Driven to Distraction” a FANTASTIC book about adults with ADD. There is a sequel “Delivered from Distraction” that is also great. Either one would probably offer you a lot of good ideas and some reassurance that you are not the only person in the world experiencing this.
@GAD – I have a book suggestion for setting boundaries.
Caveat: The book is written from a Christian point of view. I thought it was a pretty helpful book and quite a lot of the advice would be appropriate even for non-Christians, but I’m a Christian myself so keep that in mind.
@Squee. In the minority here, but I think “co-best men” is weird, especially if both picked by the groom. After you get married, I expect there will be tough choices you’ll get to make as a couple and awkward decisions to communicate to your family. Think of the wedding as practice. If your fiance is incapable of doing so for something as trivial as selecting a best man, I’d be a bit worried.
Often who does what is spread out among the groomsmen, but if you look at the duties of a best man as described by the frugal bride, you’ll notice that there are a few things that just don’t lend themselves to two best men. For instance, only one can sign the register. Only one can be seated at the left of the groom. Only one can bring the rings.
You didn’t say whether Brother B was already married. If so, who was his best man? In any case, it seems perfectly logical to me that your fiance might want to return the favour to Brother A by choosing him, especially if they have a closer relationship in the first place, and I have no idea why Brother B would even have a problem with that. It’s not like he’s being left out of the wedding party altogether…
Squee,
1. Brother B should be the best man because he lives near you, if you are having your shindig at a venue nearby. The best man, in addition to strong emotional reasons for his chosen status, is the best man because he should help things run smoothly, make sure no one gets lost from out of town, etc. I was at a wedding where the best man did not do his duty, and among other things that didn’t go swimmingly, the couple didn’t get to eat. The best man needs to be a traffic cop, but, failing that, needs to be able to arrange a doggie bag.
2. If you’re wedding elsewhere, then co-best men seems the way to go.
in any case, Mazel Tov!
Thanks for the kind words, all.
After you get married, I expect there will be tough choices you’ll get to make as a couple and awkward decisions to communicate to your family. Think of the wedding as practice.
How about thinking of the wedding as…the wedding? Why should this decision be the canary in the coal mine for other hard choices they’ll have to make, when they don’t even “have to” make this one? “Let’s see how we deal with adversity as a couple by creating drama where none need exist” is not going to be indicative of much except a joint inability to let the small shit go, in my opinion.
I got married this April. On my side were a good friend from college, my sister, and a male friend from a previous job. I had no official Maid/Matron of Honor – nobody wanted the title.
My husband had his three brothers as co-best men, as he is fairly close to all three, and didn’t want to choose one over the others – there may have been hurt feelings if he had.
As an aside, we considered having “Best Dogs” for about five minutes and realized that our babies are not well-behaved enough and probably would have ended up serving the function of cake-eaters.
~Angry~
I would also advocate respite type work. I work for a Home Health agency, and we have RNs, physical/occupational therapists, and CNAs (who do bathing/personal care type stuff) While Home Health is not respite, it does take a bit of the load off. Also, call around some of the local church type places (also things like the Moose, Masons, Eagles {those are all volunteer or social type places and they have helped our patients, in the past} as they may have a volunteer program set up (Especially any groups that your step mom or your father were a part of). We also have something called Community Connections which is actual paid respite work. They come in for X hours a week, and Dad and kids can both go off, together. or take a nap, or do whatever they want (but it’s advocated that they try to leave the house for it)
We have a medical social worker at our hospital who keeps track of helpful/volunteer programs. Try the hospital/Dr’s office for ideas.
Good luck, just be there for the rest of your family.
– BaschaW
Oh yeah, the toast. I am aware that the toast is usually made by the Best Man, but at our wedding, it was made by the aforementioned Man of Honor (my son). He’s better at that kind of thing that my brother-in-law, and it was kind of cool to hear myself referenced as “my mom.” It also led to singer, a tall woman, having to lower her mic after he’d raised it, with the comment, “You’re right, he is a tall one.”
We are lucky that our dog is a well-behaved gentledog. Our invitation said “Casual attire, dogs welcome,” and all the canine guests (far fewer than humans) were well-behaved.
Squee,
I think that it’s totally acceptable to have co-best men if that’s what your fiance wants. The great thing about weddings is that they can be whatever you want them to be; I had a very small wedding, and wasn’t planning on having attendants, but because I had been my sister’s maid-of-honor, I felt obliged to reciprocate. My husband didn’t really care to have a best man, so in the end, we elected my sister as The Best Woman Of Honor. She held our rings for us and gave a reading, and walked down the aisle ahead of us wearing a beautiful strapless dress that showed off her tattoos, along with a top hat and a fake mustache.
I also have issues about being “given away”, so my husband and I walked down the aisle together – in order to involve my parents, I had my stepdad play guitar while we walked down the aisle, and my dad got certified as a notary public so he could officiate.
I guess what I’m saying is, no family and no wedding are alike; it is definitely more than acceptable to ask your family to play different-than-traditional roles, whether it’s having co-best men, or calling one Best Man and naming the other Ambassador of Awesome.
I can’t pretend this was a deliberate strategy (namely, my husband and I were engaged and thought “shit, we said we are going to this year” and then organised the wedding in two months) but when I got married, I discovered the best thing to do for any decision is work out which wedding traditions you care about and which you don’t. Don’t let tradition dictate.
We had no thingy majigs bridesmaids etc, just witnesses who signed the certificate. No waltz. Both my mum and my dad walked me down the “aisle”, because she’s my friggin mum and she deserves to be part of the moment. A chocolate-y cake. My dress cost less than his suit, but that’s OK, because I really wanted to spend the money instead on a kick-arse restuarant on the water to have the ceremony.
Some eyebrows were raised on the way, but everyone seemed to enjoy themselves despite the lack of little bags of almonds or throwing the flowers and I still can’t think of any other day where I smiled so much.
@Sandman – maybe we could hit up Glark for a new TN shirt? I vote yes on that slogan. :)
Hell to the yeah on not making the wedding a template for anything. My wedding (which had a Man of Honor and 14 attendants because we just wanted EVERYONE in there) was so insanely stressful that I quit my job while planning it. We had family drama, made up trauma and 2 days before, a suicide. It was a madhouse. I can only imagine what our life would be like if I had used all the decisions I had made during that time as a guide!
That being said our wedding itself was lovely and I think everyone had a great time. :)
Also to LFU – I just accepted a position with a law firm that is great money and nice place to work with good hours. A job opportunity in my actual field doing what I love has just opened up. My rational side said well too bad you already have this job. My little voice screamed NO!! I put my resume today. Sars is exactly right. Life is too short. I wish you luck!
Heh. It’s been my observation that how a couple deals with wedding stress *is* often a good “canary in the mine” for how the marriage is going to go.
Anyway, I still think that if the only reason to pick B is to avoid hurt feelings, you should consider that A might feel miffed at not being the only best man since A asked fiance to be best man. (This actually happened to a friend of ours…)
Bottom line? I totally agree about not manufacturing drama. Instead of being all angsty about whether Brother B might feel left out, I’d advise fiance to man up and pick the best man he actually wants (!). Squee shouldn’t really have to be worrying about this one.
There are lots of reasons he could pick Brother B (in town, hasn’t been best man before?), and lots of reasons he could pick Brother A (closer relationship, he’s the older brother, returning favour, had planned to ask him for years). The bottom line is that fiance should be able to just ask the guy he wants. If he can’t because he feels that this is would become a huge awkward relationship changing thing? That would be a red flag for me personally, especially since it’s such a trivial thing in the grand scheme of things…
Now, on the other hand, if fiance really thinks it’s a toss up between the two guys – that’s different. (In that case, I’d ask him if there isn’t someone else who might be a candidate for best man instead. )
But the original letter didn’t seem to imply that was the case…
@Mary In the minority here, but I think “co-best men” is weird, especially if both picked by the groom.
Well, who else would be picking them? Of course the groom chooses them; that’s the idea.
And stuff like “signing the register” and “holding the rings” is ancillary, really; the whole point is to have people up there with you who are close to you and support you. Being asked to be a best man, or best woman, or maid of honor, or dude of honor, or best dog is an honor. If the person choosing feels multiple people deserve equal honor, then that’s what should happen.
@Squee. Congrats! Also, remember that your attendant choices don’t have to have anything to do with his. You choose six people now, he chooses four later, it’s all cool. So if your concern is that you’d like to get the whole bridal party chosen early, cool. But if you really just want to choose your side early, do it, and don’t worry about his.
‘Our invitation said “Casual attire, dogs welcome,” and all the canine guests (far fewer than humans) were well-behaved’
That is soooooo awesome!! OK, if I get married, that’s totally what I’m doing, too. If skin kids can come, why not fur kids…I mean, dogs? They can often be less trouble. :)
LFU- Good advice from Sars and other folks- I’m especially glad that Sars mentioned that 90% of the world is just as lazy as you are- at least 90%. I started out in a small town, then went to college far away and moved around to cool places. None of that was actually all that difficult but I get asked all the time ‘how you do it’. I really think people make it out in their mind to be a lot harder than it really is. Take a step towards it, write down goals if that helps, but do something. Stop treading water and start swimming. Sometimes this takes some sacrificing, like turning your cable off to be able to save up some money to move. Then, using vacation to travel to the city you want to live in and do some interviews. Mention in your cover letters that you are willing to drive/fly in to conduct interviews. I know someone who just saved up enough money to be able to move to a new city and live for a few months while she looked for a job. I’m not gutsy enough to do that, so I made other plans. And it’s not a ‘well, you have better self-esteem than me, more courage’ whatever nonsense. It’s just that you have to make that decision to eat the tomato and peanut butter sandwich. Take a chance, live your life the way *you want to* instead of the way everyone else thinks you should. You’ll probably find out that most of the ‘everyone else’ could give a rat’s butt about how/where you live your life. Some of them will even think you are awesome for doing what you want to do. I am a total wuss and have terrible self-esteem, but I finally got fed up with being unhappy, worked out what would make me happy (may take a few moves/job changes, etc to get there) and then did it. It does involve going against the grain a bit, taking the road less traveled, whatever, but frankly, after you’ve taken a couple side roads, you stop being scared about it and it gets a lot easier. You even come up with smart-ass comments to say to those people who give you a hard time about not doing what ‘everyone else’ does. But by then you may just be too happy to care about what they think. :)
Sars… I love you.
Your response to LFU was just what *I* needed to hear, too.