Why is My Mom Turning Into Moira Rose during my Wedding Planning?
Have you heard the tale of the mystical MOMzilla? She is a fiesty creature who only reveals herself during her child’s wedding planning and then reverts to her former mortal human body once the wedding is over, the flowers have been arranged perfectly, and the guests have gone home, happy and full and a little tipsy.
My friend Katie’s mom, unbeknownst to us, was a momzilla in hiding. Katie’s usually laid-back mama suddenly became very vocal, oddly vocal, about what color candles to procure for the reception tables and which particular donut hole flavors should be offered on their dessert bar. Although Katie thought this sort of strange, she also rationalized that her mom was simply trying to be helpful, and that since she was contributing financially to the wedding, it also made some amount of sense. I feel like you can tell where this is going. Katie’s mom’s opinions gradually turned into demands, via frantic texts that arrived in a barrage of all caps and numerous exclamation points. Katie looked at her phone after being on a work call for an hour and there were ONE HUNDRED AND FIVE new iMessages from Mom. !!!!!!!!!!
How do we understand what the hell has transformed Katie’s lovely mother into some version of Moira Rose Schitt? For the record, all family members, not only mothers, are susceptible to crumbling under the emotional strain of a family wedding, leading to uncharacteristic or exaggerated behavior and relational conflicts. This includes not only parents and siblings, but extended family members as well.
Weddings mean vastly different things to different people. For a mother, a wedding of a child might symbolically mean the loss of that child and the breakdown of the family she has been building for decades. For a father, a wedding of a daughter might mean a loss in his stature as the most important man in her life. Because engagements and marriages are expected to be a time of pure joy, with only happy feelings allowed, these various meanings and the bad feelings that accompany them go deeply underground. (We at Kinship Collective affectionately refer to these as “forbidden feels.”) I want to be clear that even if there is true joy, a belief that the marriage is wonderful, and an adored fiancee, forbidden feels can and do co-exist with these good ones. Emotions are never mutually exclusive.
So many people are appalled to find that the marriage of a beloved family member brings not only excitement, but also resentment, anxiety or profound grief. To cope, they might push these feelings away, denying the important information stored in them and preventing the natural emotional process to unfold. And, whenever emotion is suppressed rather than felt, you can bet that they will come out sideways, often unconsciously through strange (read: controlling, or passive aggressive, or straight-up aggro) behavior. You may be able to pick up on these forbidden feels when you’re interacting with this person, simply by noticing how you feel when you’re around them, since emotions are contagious. If you’re unusually sad or irritated when with them, there’s a good chance that is how they are feeling, or trying not to feel, as they may not even be aware of the emotion they’re trying to suppress.
Now that you may have a clue that dealing with a difficult/uncomfortable/bad/forbidden emotion could be the cause of a family member’s weird, uncharacteristic behavior, it may be possible to protect yourself from taking on those feelings and being provoked into reactivity. You already have so much to think about and feel about - the reactions of your family does not have to cause significant stress. And, the reasons for doing some work to insulate yourself from taking on these feelings are good ones: not only could this dynamic totally disrupt your own sense of wellbeing and joy, but it could produce a state of tension with your loved one that permeates the ongoing planning and causes serious rupture to the relationship. Here are a couple tips:
Reflect on what might be going on for them emotionally. Consider checking in with them about it, noting your observations and narrating what you imagine they might be feeling. Something like, “Hey Mom, I notice you seem really stressed and have a lot of advice on these things. How are you feeling about everything?” If they are able to verbalize their experience, just validate them, don’t try to convince them out of their thoughts and feelings. The more a person is able to talk about their feelings and experiences, the less likely they are to act out.
Do you need to take responsibility for their feelings? YOU get to choose how much you feel and are impacted by someone else’s stuff. Yes, it’s natural to get swept up in someone else’s emotional s%&%storm and so hard to let unreasonable behavior not get to you, especially if it is part of an old power struggle and pattern. However, it’s likely unconsciously designed to do just that - impact you. How about taking a step back every time you notice a twinge of your own reactivity, take a deep breath, and say to yourself, “that’s not my stuff to worry about.”
Can you set a gentle or not-so-gentle boundary? How about saying something like: “Mom, I appreciate your help and investment in this wedding, and there are aspects that feel important that I (with my fiance) want to plan on my own. Can I let you know when I need advice?” or “Dad, I notice you are making comments about (insert fiance here) that seem designed to hurt. I wonder if this is coming from feelings you might be having about all of this, and I am going to request that you curtail this sort of thing moving forward, because it’s hurtful.”
Caveat about this one: How well this will work is totally dependent on the type of relationship and type of person you’re dealing with. Some people just can’t play ball, and some can, even if you’d never expect it. If you think that this will end up in an explosive reaction, work towards implementing suggestions 1 & 2 above.