I feel like I need to write this to explain partly why in the previous blog I seemed surprised that my mother should say such normal mother-ly things.
The hardest thing that I have ever endured was planning my wedding.
My mother and I fought THE ENTIRE TIME. Pretty much from the day after we got engaged until right before we got married. I didn't know if she was even going to come until 3 days before the wedding.
But let me start from the beginning.
Remember when I said that my mother, on some level, wants to be me. Imagine planning a wedding with that person. She wanted everything that she never got to have during her two weddings! and it didn't matter whether or not I wanted them.
A.) She wanted to walk me down the aisle. Even though I have a father who didn't get to walk his other daughter down the aisle at her wedding. I said no.
B.) She wanted alcohol served at our wedding. Jacob's dad is a deacon at his church (of whom we all invited) and it would look TERRIBLE to have people getting scwasty-faced at that wedding. I said no.
C.) She just LOVED this particular dress. I kinda wanted to keep looking. I said yes to her dress to maybe appease her. This was a huge mistake as we ended up differing hugely on the choice of bustle I decided on, so it didn't matter anyway. I ruined the dress.
D.) She wanted me to use this specific photographer. I said yes. Again, another mistake as she overcharged us and didn't provide all of the service that she promised.
My mother and I went to therapy. Once a week for months (that I had to pay for even though it was her idea and her therapist) to help us "figure out the root of our problems". AKA, make Tiffany sit in a room for an hour while her mother says horrible things about her and makes her cry. Then, when the therapist would side with me, my mother would just spit out, "Oh you just don't understand me. You don't want to be on my side."
I didn't ask my mother for anything with this wedding. She paid for my dress because she commanded that she be allowed to do so, then when I moved out 3 months before the wedding, got mad and demanded that I pay her back. I wrote her a check for the full amount which she promptly tore up and returned to me in a blank envelope. Emotional mind games at its finest.
She practically made me beg her to come. Which I only did because I knew how much worse it would be for me if I didn't. This was the first time I'd ever told my mother 'No' on something and stuck to my guns. I kept saying no throughout all the crying fits, the hysterical anger, the emotional manipulation, her telling her friends how horrible I am to her and how I never loved her since I wouldn't give her just this one little thing......with her never having any regard for my feelings. None.
I had several of my aunts on my Dad's side offer to step forward and play my Mom on my wedding. All of them were in the room with me as I was getting dressed. All of them were shooting daggers at my Mom as she paraded around pretending like nothing was wrong and acting like the social prima donna that she's always wanted to be. Her daughter was getting married that day, you see. Nothing else mattered. Look how pretty her daughter is...like I'm some sort of china doll you can stick in a cabinet.
Eventually, I stopped telling her things. Like, Oh...hey mom.....I went and had a cake tasting with Steph, without you. And we picked this. And it looks like this. Oh...hey mom....I'm not walking down the aisle to the traditional wedding march. My Dad found this out as we were about to go. :)
This is the closest to breaking I feel like I've been (except for this whole job thing). I sat in my apartment, alone, for months crying and gluing rhinestones to things just to take my mind off everything. My mother and I haven't had a good relationship for a while. I doubt we'll have one in the future. She cannot understand why, and that's precisely the problem.
Here's the song I walked down the aisle to my husband to. This and my dress bustle are two of the biggest rebellions I did during this period. And I'm proud of both of them.
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