N`[fn dldËj Xk `k kff jffe
9i`[\Ëj Ê™('bË gi\qq`\ 8EK@:J D8B@E> D< J@:B Nfibj Z_ld `j jf Õ`ikp
I’VE never liked my 26-year-old granddaughter.
I’ve always found her spoilt, greedy and selfish.
Now I don’t know if I can hold my tongue. She’s asked me for £10,000 towards the cost of her September wedding.
This is on top of the £12,000 her mother is stumping up and the £7,000 from the groom’s parents.
How dare she? Her argument is that the “mere” £19,000 simply isn’t enough for the kind of wedding she’s always dreamed of.
My extra £10,000 will make all the difference, plus pay for the dream honeymoon that her husband-to-be can’t afford to organise.
I fear that all she really cares about is showing off. She wants to be the princess.
Yes, I have the money from the sale of my house, but how is that any of her business? How dare she embarrass me like this?
OUR mum is dating again, but it’s too soon.
I’m the first to admit my late father wasn’t an easy man to live with.
He was a cheat and a liar and a bully, but he only passed away in December.
His funeral was horrendous. Two of his ex-lovers turned up uninvited and caused a scene.
Our mother got drunk and threw a pint of beer over one of them, while the other got a chocolate cake in the face.
What should have been a celebration of my father’s life ended with the police being called and a £500 clean-up bill from the hall we’d hired.
Bragging
Now our mother is telling anyone who’ll listen that she’s single, free and up for anything.
She proudly tells me she’s already bedded two of his best friends and now has her sights on a rich male colleague.
In the meantime she’s also seeing a much younger guy purely for sex.
She’s all over social media bragging about her conquests and the amazing time she’s now having and I feel vaguely sick.
The other night I popped round to see her and her young lover was sprawled out on dad’s favourite chair. They were both drinking and talking rubbish.
I couldn’t get a word of sense out of either of them.
Eventually she barked at me to leave as they had “business to attend to upstairs”. With that he slapped her on the bottom and she groped him right in front of me. Believe me, I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
She might be my mother but she’s acting like a moron. I accept she probably deserves a little happiness now but I just wish she would wait a little longer for a decent man.
How do I get her to calm down and stop behaving like a dog on heat without us falling out completely?
JANE SAYS: Any cash from your house is for your future comfort.
It’s not your job to dig deep and fund your granddaughter’s dream wedding, because impressing her pals is not your priority.
It’s completely up to her parents if they decide to splash out, but you mustn’t feel guilt-tripped into doing the same.
I’m sure that she and her husband-to-be do fancy a luxury honeymoon, but if they don’t have the funds, then they’ll have to plan accordingly – just like everyone else. JANE SAYS: You may not approve of the way your mother is conducting herself, but you have got to step back and let her get on with it.
She’s a grown woman and if this is her way of reclaiming her life and letting her hair down, then who are you to censor her?
Don’t forget people mourn in different ways and if your father was a particularly difficult man who hurt and humiliated her many times over, then she has a lot of steam still to let off.
I doubt if she’s deliberately going out of her way to upset anyone, but life does go on.
I suspect recent events have made her realise we all have to grab every fresh new day with both hands.
You may not like her behaviour or her lovers, but she doesn’t actually need your say-so.
Three months may seem too soon to you, but there are no rules. I predict she’ll start to calm down once her energy wanes and her normal routine clicks back in.
Please don’t fall out over this. You’ve lost your father; don’t lose your mother too.
Tell her you love her very much, but you need to give her a bit of space. I suspect she’ll thank you for it.