Mothers, Daughters & Weddings

The Question

I posted this Survey Question on my website:

Since your engagement, what has been the most difficult and/or most challenging relationship?

The Answer

100% of brides who responded said "my mother."  

They are not alone.  Nearly every bride who attends Emotionally Engaged workshops says their relationships with their mothers have changed since they got engaged.  Lucky ones relate stories of getting much closer, emotionally, in the engagement/wedding planning process. Mother and daughter become more bonded.  Not far in the distance, however, looms a wrenching separation when the daughter leaves to form her own family with her new husband.

Allison Moir-Smith

Bridal Counselor and

Author of Emotionally Engaged (Feb. 2006: Hudson St. Press)

Mothers' behaviors

Most brides, however, report turbulence in their relationships with their mothers.     Mothers demanding center stage. Mothers harping on minor details. Mothers treating adult daughters like incompetent adolescents.  Mothers angry and jealous.  Mothers disinterested and distant.  Mothers depressed. Mothers daily on the phone, "Have you done this?" "You need to do this!"  Mothers disapproving, unforgiving, critical.  Mothers too weepy.  Mothers too generous.

Brides whose mothers have died also find their mothers taking center stage during their engagements. These brides often find themselves revisiting their grief -- deeply and painfully connected to the loss of their mothers -- as well as feeling angry she is not present for this pivotal event in their lives.  And then they often feel guilty for being angry. 

Why, during what's supposed to be the happiest time of your life, do mothers cause daughters such pain?

Fantasy Vs. Reality of Being Engaged

How Brides

Really Feel

Mothers' grief

Because on a deep level, your mother is grieving.  She is in pain over the loss of you. 

Years ago, you came out of her body.  For the first few months of life, you 2 were so entwined you didn't know where she began and you ended.  Your entire life, therefore, has been a process of separating from her.  Your marriage marks the end of that process.  By getting married, you finally separate from her so that you can begin life with another:  your husband.

As a result, your mother is grieving.  She is grieving the loss of you and grieving the inevitable changes in her life that come with your getting married.

Most mothers (and most daughters, for that matter) are not aware that they are feeling any grief during their engagements.  Why?  They think that weddings are supposed to be HAPPY!  But in fact, weddings stir up deep feelings of grief between mother and daughter.  A wedding is both the beginning of your life with your husband AND the end of your life as your mother's daughter. 

HELP!  I Have

Cold Feet!

Dress shopping

Did you take your mother shopping for wedding dresses?  Did she cry when she saw you in your first gown? Do you think those were 100% happy tears?  No.  Your mother is both happy for you and sad for herself.  During your engagement, the sadness usually wins out.

Or, did you NOT take your mother shopping for wedding dresses?  If this is the case, you and your mother may be connecting to the grief because your relationship is not as emotionally connected as you would like it to be.  This pivotal time of life often highlights the lacks and failures in relationships. These, too, must be grieved.

Grief misplaced onto the wedding

The problem is, since most people are not aware that grief plays a part in getting married, the grief gets misplaced onto weird behavior about the wedding.  (The wedding is, after all, the ultimate symbol of your separation.)  Mothers become obsessed with wedding details.  Or they are disinterested in wedding details.  Either way, it's the same thing:  avoiding grief.  Grief gets wrongly channeled into jealousy or anger, stinginess or too much generosity.  We humans have developed many ways to prevent us from feeling our feelings.

Steps you can take

What can you, the bride, do to ease relations with your mother? 

First, be compassionate.  It's likely that your  mother is hurting and in pain around the upcoming changes in her relationship with you.  She may not, however, know that she feels any sadness at all. 

Second, remember that her crazy-making behavior around your wedding is NOT about your wedding.  It is her attempt to NOT feel the grief that comes naturally with this time of life.

Third, talk with her.  Share that you are feeling sadness and grief around the upcoming changes in your life -- exciting as they are, it's only human to have some sadness about the endings that are happening now  -- and ask her if she has any feelings of sadness, too.  Getting things onto the table always clears the way for more closeness.   And less craziness.

Fourth, realize that people will do what they will do.  Your mother is doing the best she can during a difficult time for her: remember, she's losing you to your fiancé.  She loves you -- you did, after all, come out of her body -- and she may be so wrapped up in her own feelings that she can't see the effect of her behavior on you.

Here, brides, is your challenge:  "Your challenge will be to take pleasure in the process of bonding with your mother," writes Rita Bigel-Casher in Bride's Guide to Emotional Survival (1996),  "work out your separation issues as they come up, and maintain your standing as a loving daughter who is leaving the nest."   In addition to planning a wedding and planning for a new life, this is the important work regarding your relationship with your mother.

Want to know more?

This is the type of work we do in Emotionally Engaged workshops and individual bridal counseling.  We explore in-depth your emotional process as a bride and the family dynamics that have been ignited by your engagement.

Call for a FREE 15-Minute Consultation TODAY! 617-739-5353.

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workshops & counseling for brides

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