His Family Won’t Accept Me!
We have been engaged for 20 years but we finally made it to the altar! Honey, thanks for being patient!
Hi Alison and Tony. I live with my fiance. We’ve been engaged for 8 years. However, his family won’t have anything to do with me because my fiance’s wife was close to them, and they don’t feel he should marry anyone else. But she passed 11 years ago! I’m not invited to holidays or celebrations and I wasn’t even invited to his daughter’s wedding last December. When we first got together I stayed quiet about not being included. I understood that my fiance didn’t want to upset the family or frankly, himself. But now his daughter and her husband are trying to make amends and reach out to me, but I’m so angry at my fiance and so resentful about the entire family shunning and disrespecting me for so long, I don’t know what to do.
Alison’s Take:
I feel your pain, but my first instinct was to question why you have been engaged for 8years without the benefit of a wedding ring? There’s being patient, and there’s being a doormat.
Your fiance proposed, but was he serious? If so, once you agreed to be silent and invisible (and he didn’t feel that he had to stand up for you and protect you), he probably assumes you will continue to be ok with this disrespectful treatment by his family and by him.
But you aren’t ok with it anymore, are you? Otherwise, you wouldn’t have written to Leather and Lace Advice.
I’m assuming that since your fiance’s family doesn’t want him to marry it is mostly because they are worried about who will get his inheritance.
However, any man who obligates you to be with him and who lives with you for more than half a decade isn’t being sincere, and he’s not being respectful of your status in his life.
If you were married you would have been invited to family gatherings even if the family didn’t like you and/or disapproved of his marriage to you. As his fiance but not a wife, the family doesn’t even feel you are a necessary evil. they just ignore you and your fiance lets it happen.
I know this has to really hurt, and I can’t imagine any man letting his fiance suffer like this. Regardless, you need to take control of the situation and tell him to get some “cojones.”
How much longer and you willing to wait for your own wedding? The two of you should go to Vegas or if necessary, to the City Hall and just get married. Do not invite any of them to your wedding. Afterwards, send a photo and wedding announcement to every family member.
Now, as to the son and his new wife trying to reach out, if someone opens the door to you, it’s best to suck it up and walk through it for the sake of your fiance (soon to be husband) and family harmony.
If his daughter and her husband accept you and see what a great person you are, they are bound to start putting some pressure on the other family members to accept you as well.
Hate them all you like, but keeping the tension down and letting that door stay open, is good for all.
Tony’s Take:
One: You are being abused. There is no justification for your fiance having a grown married daugther and letting you devote 8 years of your life to a relationship which hasn’t resulted in your own marriage.
As the song says: You’d better darn well put a ring on it!
Two: Since your fiancee is obviously older and probably not going to have any more children, his family is concerned about the inheritance and not having you live off of it before it ends up in their grandson’s hands.
Trust me, it’s his parents or his siblings who are leading this particular campaign.
Consider that as his fiance you are not next of kin….yet (note: you are not even legally allowed to be in a hospital room with him without their permission).
On the other hand, you are being unreasonable. Take olive branches when they are offered.
You want everything to be copacetic because as long as it isn’t you are giving your misguided fiance excuses for not getting married (Oh I don’t want to cause more dissension in the family).
Basically, your fiance has a spine-stiffening problem. He is unwilling to tell the family that it is his decision and his decision alone who he loves and who he marries.
If they haven’t learned to understand this in 8 years than he is willing to do things to protect their feelings, but not yours.
Think about it!
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