CAROLYN HAX

Dear Carolyn: My significant other and I are recently engaged and starting our wedding plans. Eloping is an option, but we would love an excuse to bring together everyone we love and haven’t seen for so long once this is all over — spring or summer 2022, fingers crossed.

But, I’m a recovering people-pleaser, and all the opinions and requests about our wedding from people who are not us is already wearing on me. My future inlaws in particular have a history of seemingly expecting everyone to fall into what they want, and not really understanding how others might have different, valid, values and desires.

My fiance is comfortable standing up for himself and us and doesn’t really care what his parents want, though he’d be happier if they were happy. But he and I are pretty go-with-the-flow so we don’t have a lot of experience drawing those boundaries, and just hearing all their opinions that I take as judgment makes me unhappy and anxious.

Any advice? Is this just a me problem? — Wedding Stakeholders

Decidedly not. Others are responsible for “all of the opinions and requests about our wedding,” which sure look excessive from here. But as the sole — to borrow your word — “stakeholder” in your own feelings, it’s up to you to find a sustainable way to deal internally with external pressure. Because even if you skip the wedding, the pushy in-law or the boundary-challenged whoever stands ready to have many, many thoughts about whatever you do next. (Have kids? Batten down those hatches.)

The dynamics are neatly contained, actually, in your own phrasing: “hearing all their opinions that I take as judgment.” What they say is on them; how you hear it is on you.

You can certainly advocate for yourself to influence their part, and say you’re overwhelmed with well-meaning suggestions. Honesty is a gift.

But they can also ignore you and keep piling on. That’s why the kindest thing you can do for yourself is work on your ability to retain your own shape under pressure.

The first part is the hard part: accepting that you’re still lovable and worthy even when you do X with full awareness his parents want you to do Y. That you’re still lovable and worthy even when you disappoint people. That you’re still lovable and worthy even when you’re the only one who believes in what you’re doing. That you’re still lovable and worthy even when it turns out everyone was right all along, and you messed up.

Give yourself grace where before you gave yourself rules to follow, expectations to meet, approval to seek.

Displeasing will likely always stir up some vestigial guilt. OK then. You can see that coming and remind yourself it’s just there and you don’t have to obey it.

You can even co-opt it as your reminder to give others the same grace. They’re flummoxed by boundaries, too, just from the other side. So make it easy for them. “This is what works for us. I hope you can join us, but if not, I understand.” Then don’t discuss it further. Because it’s your wedding/marriage/ home/child/life, not theirs. Knowing yourself helps others, too. It shows where you stand.

That brings us to the second part: preparing answers to pushy people so you don’t lose your nerve in the wording.

Then watch your world not crumble when you stand up for yourself. Some relationships might, yes — but only the ones based on pretending you’re not yourself.