Dear Amy: My partner and I recently got engaged. (We are both women.)
My parents will not attend our wedding due to religious reasons.
If it was just us paying for the wedding, we’d go to City Hall and a bar with friends afterward. (I’m a full-time graduate student.)
My partner’s parents are willing to foot the bill. He has been supportive of our relationship and my career, treats me like family and is financially sound.
I’m wondering who I can invite?
I have a large out-of-town family who are supportive, unlike my parents.
I’m self-conscious about putting people on my in-laws’ tab while my parents aren’t attending.
I want to express my gratitude for their generosity, but it seems cruel to express any preference in planning.
I know I’m running the risk of sounding disinterested or ungrateful.
I would like to avoid all this, but do not want my partner or his family to suffer because of my parents’ absence and refusal to contribute.
Can you give some direction?
– Eager Bride
Dear Bewildered: I advocate for couples to finance their weddings. In this both the parties participate solely to raise funds for their wedding and reception.
Couples sometimes do this by going to family members.
In “traditional” weddings, the bride’s parents are expected to pay for the wedding reception, and so you may see this proposal as a traditional practice.
They understand that this is the marriage of both of you.
What is not your participation in this process. Your shame about your parents’ disapproval seems to be overriding your own obligation, which is to attend the planning.
Communicating about it will be good practice for the rest of your marriage. You should express all your concerns to your partner, and both of you should have a completely transparent meeting with his parents. (Would a member of your extended family perhaps be able and willing to host the rehearsal dinner? That’s something to discuss.)
It’s important to understand that even if her parents are solely funding the wedding, you and your partner have an equal right to review your guest lists and work together to add to your lists — or add to them. remove it.
Depending on budget, the two of you may be able to invite everyone you want to invite, and I hope you can.
Dear Amy: My ex-fiancee, “Alice,” left me because I have female friends. There was nothing but friendship. My interactions with him never affected my time with Ellis, and I was always transparent.
Nevertheless, Elyse gave an ultimatum that I give up my female friends, which I refused, and after a while, she ended the relationship.
Part of the problem was Elise seeing a therapist who told her that “I have female friends to feed my ego,” that I “prey on insecure women” and that I had “an asexual love affair” with a friend. relationship”.
Her therapist discouraged Alice from even going to couples counseling with me when I proposed it.
Other than that issue, our relationship has been wonderful.
We don’t talk anymore, which is partly my fault, because sadly I got angry when he ended things.
However, I miss him like crazy and wonder if I should have given in to his demands, and if there’s any way to reconnect.
Do you have any suggestion?
– missing her
Dear Missing: It’s hard to imagine a therapist advising against joint counseling, unless the abuser is there. “Alice” may have misrepresented her therapist’s views.
You say that your interactions with female friends never affected your time with Alice, and yet they did, because these relationships create so much insecurity.
Regardless, he determined his non-negotiables and then followed through. That’s the whole point of the ultimatum.
I suspect that if you had, other underlying and serious issues would have come to the fore. I suggest you go ahead.
Dear Amy: In response to a reader regarding tipping you said the following, it is difficult to understand:
“I agree that the whole experience is counterproductive: restaurant workers are underpaid, and consumers are expected to foot the bill.”
Of course the consumer will pay the bill! “Paying the bill” would be either directly through tips to those who served us or higher restaurant prices if owners needed to pay employees more.
It might be time for a refresher econ class.
– Reader
Dear Reader: Great point! I should have noted that handing over server income to consumers rather than employers may be one reason for staff shortages at restaurants.
(You can email Amy Dickinson at [email protected] Or send a letter to Ask Amy, PO Box 194, Freeville, NY 13068. You can also follow him on twitter @askingamy either Facebook,
© 2023 Amy Dickinson. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
