Our family is being poisoned by a toxic row over a wedding
DEAR BEL, MY PARTNER and I met 12 years ago. He’s a wonderful, caring man who was married twice with four children from his first marriage and one from his second. I’m 12 years younger and never married and do not have children.
When his first marriage ended (no infidelity by either party) their children stayed with their mother. The boys were teenagers, the daughter 11 years old.
He saw them regularly and made substantial financial contributions, including signing over the family home. Their mum has been in a relationship for the past 14 years.
When his second wife ended their marriage, their son stayed with his mother, but she threw him out when he was 12 and he has lived with us for the past five years.
His daughter has been with her partner since she was a teenager and they have a son and a daughter. Like her brothers, she adored her dad and she and I had a good relationship. Her partner asked her dad for permission to marry, which he was thrilled about. So far so good — until October last year.
My partner, 70, was recovering from an operation when his daughter called with a get-well card, a box of sweets and our wedding invitation. After she left, my partner said: ‘How wonderful, I can walk her down the aisle.’
But the envelope included a note saying she loved her mum’s partner very much, felt she has two dads and, because of this, knew he wouldn’t mind if they both walked her down the aisle on either side.
My partner cried like a baby. He said that, had she talked to him about her feelings before delivering the card, he’d have understood and (reluctantly) agreed.
We’ve since found out from No.2 son that she asked her mum’s partner some time ago if he’d do it, but he declined because he thought it was solely her dad’s role.
Afterwards there were several heated phone calls between father and daughter and one between father and mother.
I went to visit the daughter before Christmas and had a very long chat to try to explain how he feels, but she appears unable or unwilling to understand. She referred back to her parents’ break-up — how her mum’s partner had ‘picked up the pieces’ etc.
I took Christmas gifts for the children and Easter Eggs were sent, but they were returned.
Father and daughter haven’t spoken since December.
Needless to say we won’t be attending the wedding and now family gatherings are fraught, with visits timed so that various people don’t meet. How can I help my partner through what will be an almost unbearable day for him? ESME
Oh, HOW I wish you had written to me in January, because then I would have used all the words at my command to urge you and your partner to end this sad and silly quarrel.
Believe me, I know what weddings do to families, and how the symbolism of fathers walking daughters down the aisle matters. But to let it ruin a family like this? No — nothing is that important.
as a matter of fact, I think your partner’s daughter was extremely thoughtless and insensitive to deliver the bombshell in writing. But instead of those heated phone calls, why couldn’t your partner have taken the other man in the story out for a pint?
If you’re right about his feelings, they could have come to an agreement that the real dad would do the walk, and the step-dad make the speech, or something.
I once went to a blissful wedding where real dad did the aisle thing and then both ‘dads’ made a speech each at the reception. Yes, some people can be enlightened, civilised — and very sensible.
But it’s too late now, isn’t it — and you have to help your husband through this day that should have been so happy. I hope you have planned to go somewhere, because to stay at home being miserable is such a bad idea.
What matters now is the future. Can this dire family quarrel be mended? I was once at a wedding where the groom’s divorced parents didn’t exchange a word — but still bravely/grimly posed for the pictures. and then the next time they saw each other was at the heartbreaking funeral of their only daughter, still in her 30s. I truly believe that if we all thought about death every single day we might learn to live better lives. That’s the meaning of the
memento mori — the skull on old tombs which warns: ‘You’re gonna die, so do right while you still can.’
Your future role should not be to take the side of the man you love in this quarrel, but to tell him there must be no sides. To strain every sinew to involve the stepfather who wanted to do the decent thing, so you can work together to mend the family. To get all the other family members and his son-in-law on side, too. Enough!
THE wedding dress will be shoved into a corner in the wardrobe, and the confetti will melt into the ground soon enough — as we all will. I reckon your partner should imagine how he would feel carrying his daughter’s coffin into that church — maybe with her stepfather on the other side and her brothers taking the weight, too — and then waste no more time thinking about his hurt feelings and pointless anger.
Will you have the courage to tell him this? To encourage him to be as forgiving as he is brave — and tell his child he is sorry, no matter where the fault lies? Do it for all your sakes.