Hey everyone! I'm back with another sticky situation. My husband's brother is supposed to be getting married to his fiance in May 2021, and we've recently decided we don't support their marriage.
He is 25 and she is not even 23 yet. They started dating in late high school/early college and have been together for about 5 years. This past year, she moved in with him after she graduated college and they became engaged. We've always thought she was very sweet and that they seemed really in love. I'll refer to him as Jay and her as Missy.
My husband and I are in our 30's and we also just got married last year (August 2020). Since we thought Missy was a good person, we supported the marriage - I even volunteered to take photos of them getting engaged on the beach. Over the past year, we've asked them how wedding planning has been going and we've always gotten a short response of "Oh, it's fine! Basically everything is done and it was super easy." My husband and I thought it was weird that they're so young and didn't seem to need any of our help, any of our leftover wedding supplies/decor, any advice... nothing.
About a month ago, (Feb 2021 - three months from their wedding), I suddenly started getting messages from both Jay and my mother-in-law, asking about what kind of decor I still had leftover from my wedding. I offered what I still had left and asked my mother-in-law what was going on. Apparently, Missy got relocated to a temporary job several states away and suddenly it's become clear that they don't have everything they need for the wedding. They have hardly any decor, no wedding cake (Missy "forgot" to call the baker), the silk flowers Missy was making with a friend were not nearly done, etc. In light of this, my in-laws (the parents of the groom) started asking questions because they realized that we really don't know much about the wedding, the shower, or anything about the wedding other than the venue, date and time.
To try and fix this situation, my in-laws invited Jay, Missy, and Missy's mother over to talk details and figure out where they can step in to help. According to my in-laws, Missy's mother sat on her phone the whole time and whenever my MIL would ask questions about the bridal shower or wedding, Missy's mother would snip back "It's done. Don't worry about it." After such an unproductive meeting and feeling disrespected by the bride/bride's mother, my in-laws called Jay and asked him whether he thought that was respectful or the beginning of a healthy long-term family dynamic. Jay said no and said he'd take care of it by talking to Missy.
Holy cats, everyone... This entire past week, we were on the phone with Jay for several hours almost every day. It seemed that each day, Missy and Jay would argue about whose parents were out-of-line. Missy seems to think there's nothing wrong with her and her mother planning the whole wedding and keeping the groom's family (and sometimes even the groom) in the dark. She also stated that Jay's parents are "stupid" for wanting to have a meeting, that they "attacked her mother" by asking her questions, and that my husband's and my wedding was "over-the-top, gaudy, and they're not doing ANYTHING like our wedding". (Seriously, what the hell did we even do to deserve to be dragged at this point?! She even said my bridal shower was dumb because my mom made a bridal trivia game about my husband and me.)
He'd call us after Missy would go to work. I mean this, each day was something different: they were arguing and decided to cancel the wedding, then they'd reinstate the wedding, then they'd postpone the wedding, he'd blame Missy's parents, she'd blame Jay's parents, etc. We heard something different every. single. day. Sometimes it seemed that Jay would stick up for his parents, and other times it seemed as though he'd be on Missy's side. Sometimes he'd call us and be livid at Missy, saying he wanted her out of his apartment that evening. Sometimes he'd call us crying and tell us that he loves her so much and that his parents were ruining everything.
My husband and I would always calm him down and our message was both repetitive and clear: We're not telling you to end things with her, but we don't think these issues are small. And we don't think they'll go away or be fully resolved in the next two months. We think you need to postpone the wedding and work these things out before you walk down the aisle because we care about you and we want you guys to have a strong, healthy marriage.
At the end of the week, Jay called both us and my in-laws to tell them that "everything was fine and the wedding was back on" with no further explanation. We were not convinced. My in-laws demanded that Jay and Missy come to their house this weekend to have a talk...
It was not a pretty talk. My in-laws called us and told us what happened: Jay sat there, essentially silent the whole time. Missy wagged her finger at my in-laws, told them that they disrespected her and her family, that she will NEVER be their child and will not tolerate them treating her like one, that they knew "the time, the date, and the location of the wedding so what ELSE could they POSSIBLY want to know about the wedding", etc. She acted like a complete entitled brat to my in-laws, the parents of her future husband. She also said that she didn't appreciate the in-laws, or me and my husband talking to Jay because apparently we "told him to call off the wedding against his will". (We absolutely did not say that, mind you.) She also said they they "worked everything out". And when my in-laws asked how they worked out their issues about her mother controlling the wedding and possibly much more about both of their lives, she yelled "that's NONE of your business!". So we get dragged into this drama and then we don't get to hear exactly how all this was resolved, apparently.
My husband called up Jay, yelled at him for allowing his future wife to talk to their parents that way, and told him to get a new best man.
Here's some questions I'd like to pose to the group because we need help:
- I know it's tradition for the bride's family to provide the bulk of the financing of the wedding, and it's usually the bride who does most of the planning. Was I a strange bride because I shared all the wedding details with both my family and my in-laws? Do you other brides/grooms share details of the wedding with both sets of parents (if they're interested)? Are my in-laws right to feel shut out in the cold, not knowing anything about the shower or the wedding? Especially considering that they've given the bride and groom checks for the venue and the food to contribute to the wedding? (I think they are right to be upset, but this bridezilla's whole family is making us out to be the villains because we want to know details about the wedding events.)
- Are we right to not support this marriage? Jay's demeanor fluctuated so much and she did all of the talking at that last meeting with our in-laws. We absolutely would not have thought she'd behave this way in this situation. We're so afraid she's manipulating him and that he's stuck in a toxic relationship.
What's your take on the situation?
