My mean ‘in-laws’ think my 12-year relationship is a joke

DEAR BEL, I HAVE been with my partner for more than 12 years and we are due to go to Las Vegas in January for a friend’s birthday.

Since I lost my mum, I have no real interest in getting married. I hate being the centre of attention, as my brother and sister are verbally aggressive and have left me with no confidence.

I make a huge effort with my partner’s mum, but have always been made to feel like an outsider.

When I try to talk about it with him, he says I am imagining it and that she thinks I’m ‘nice’ — her word, and one I have always hated, as it means nothing. It’s a safe way to comment on someone and doesn’t really describe how you feel.

The main reason I am writing is that my de facto sister-in-law said she had discussed the Las Vegas trip with my partner’s mum, who said she wouldn’t mind us getting married over there without her.

This has really devastated me — the idea that she is happy to miss her eldest son getting married (his first marriage) without her, when she is the type of mum to email every day and loves to get involved in her children’s lives.

He would be upset if he found out. His sister found it funny when she told me. How she felt that I wouldn’t be upset by it I don’t know. But now I know that they are talking about our relationship as a joke and have no respect for our feelings.

The sister is very exacting in her life — everything has to go her way. In the past, she has told me she wouldn’t put up with my partner. He is caring and understanding but can be extremely selfish and will never apologise, but we very rarely argue and we do have fun together.

I really want to discuss it with both the sister and mother, but I don’t think I can ever forgive them. I cannot discuss this with my partner, as he will ignore it and say I am reading too much into it. But all this comes from their flippant conversation about a marriage that isn’t even on the table.

Please advise me what to do — as I no longer feel worthy of even being with him. PATRICIA

This is one of those problems which seem to be about one thing, then unfolds into layers of complexity hard to fathom. At first, it seems to be about your relationship with your partner’s family, but ends with the revelation that the real issue is your relationship with yourself. i also detect something sadly unresolved here to do with the loss of your mother (although you omit to say when this happened).

Let’s move through these problems step by step, in the knowledge that your final sentence colours everything that precedes it.

Can you understand that a large part of me wonders whether your partner may be right when he suggests you are ‘imagining’ coolness on his mother’s part.

You object to the word ‘nice’, but that’s surely unfair. Many people use it to imply uncomplicated approval.

Pernickety writers and teachers might call it a lazy word, but for most people it means what it says on the tin. If your ‘mother-in-law’ thinks you ‘nice’, then I suggest you breathe a sigh of relief and just get on with it.

So now we have his rather difficult sister pointlessly repeating something their mother is alleged to have said — a passing jest about you marrying (or not) in vegas.

SHe might have quipped: ‘Wonder if those two will make it to the elvis chapel – ’bout time!’ or something like that. Why are you treating this so seriously? I see no reason for you to get so worked up about such an irrelevance.

You are doing your ‘mother-in-law’ a grave disservice to seize on this sister’s casual comment and treat it as an insult — turning yourself into prosecutor, judge and jury when you have no idea what the woman actually said, or what the sister’s motives are in repeating passing comments.

She has already shown herself alltoo-ready to be critical of the brother who has shared your life for 12 years. So why are you giving her words even a second’s head-room?

With respect, I want to point out that having admitted you have no interest in getting married, it is somewhat odd to then work yourself into a frenzy of hurt feelings about your mother-in-law’s imaginary indifference to attending a non-existing wedding you have no interest in!

Honestly, if your partner were to propose and his mother were then to say she’s not bothered about attending the wedding . . . well then (and only then) might you have reason to be ‘upset’. But this? A storm in a tea cup is the cliche that springs to mind.

Therefore I ask why you are overreacting — to the extent of telling me you can ‘never forgive them.’

ALL horrible family rifts start this way — with people working themselves up, taking offence, then being unable to row back from the misunderstanding. I beg you to stop now. Surely your relationship with your own family must be at the heart of the issue. You say your siblings ‘have destroyed your confidence’ — and that damage is almost certainly carried over into all your other relationships. Your last sentence is confirmation.

Are you still grieving for your mother — and wishing she were alive to see you married? Has marriage ever been discussed or are you both contented as you are? Why do you feel unworthy of him?

You do need to get help to unpick these issues — and so I really feel a few sessions of counselling could do you much good.

The only way to be free is to cut out your heart. You cannot live free. You can only live by love. Very well. She would love. From The Heroes’ Welcome by Louisa Young (2014)