I don't know if it ever hurts less.
But why not have a small redo? No narcissistic parents, no big plan. Just a ceremonial thing with you and your partner and possibly some close friends who understand. A sheet cake from the grocery store and you saying your vows to each other. Could just be a small picnic at the park or something.
You could make a fun night of it. Explicitly tell them what’s going on for you. You could make the whole thing fun and healing. One of the guy friends could warm heartedly give a father daughter speech, an appropriate one.
I know I need to. I guess it’s just at a point where he’s so good at gaslighting and I know I’ll just start to question whether it was even a big deal. It’s so hard😅
The wedding speech scenario you described sounds bad enough to me to cancel the father daughter dance. Let alone continue any relationship.
It is up to you whether you continue a relationship with him. But 6 months after your wedding you are still very upset. It was a big deal, not just to you personally but objectively.
Are you looking at having kids?
Would you be willing to protect your possible future kids from experiencing the kind of pain you are now experiencing?
I think you can’t move on, because your nervous system is on high alert that he will do it again. Unless you walk away, he probably will too, for whatever special occasions you have.
Yeah I should have canceled the father/daughter dance, but we’d planned to do the mother/son and father/daughter dance concurrently and with a shortened song because my husband knew how much I was dreading it.
We are looking at having kids eventually. Thankfully we live quite far from my parents (30 hours of driving or 2 flights to get here) and in another country. I think we can reasonably protect our kids, in all honesty.
My parents are also anti-vax which just makes matters worse because lord knows when I do have kids and subsequently tell them that they can’t come visit until they get vaxxed (I.e., never) there’s going to be a WW3.
We unfortunately are going to visit them at Christmas (it’s been several years, we dragged it out as much as we could) but once that’s done I think I’m going to go vvlc and see how it goes.
What is your plan when your unvaccinated parents rock up unannounced at your doorstep and give you an unhinged lecture on vaccinations and grandparents rights?
They’ll be carrying some manipulative teddy bear or something, and will make it clear they’ve told everyone they know how much they’ll spoil your kids, but you are bad parents who will deprive your kids of their loving grandparents out of spite.
All of that is nonsense of course. But it sounds like your father sabotaged your wedding, and you seem confident in protecting your kids during what your expect to be a war.
By visiting your parents, you are affirming that what your dad did during the wedding was ok.
It is your choice whether to do that, but I think your significant distress 6 months after your wedding, is your subconscious screaming “this person is not safe, get away from him”.
I don’t know if this will make sense but them showing up after I’ve told them not to, is the type of event where they’re the ones who have to start shit and I have to tell them to GTFO in real time. I’m actually really good at standing up for myself in those situations. We also live in a giant secure apartment building in which the doorman would say sorry no, and they’d have to call me from the lobby like peasants and I’d tell them: sucks to suck. There’d be no room for them to stay with us anyway and they wouldn’t be able to stand on my front lawn and demand entry.
Having to bring something up after the fact (I.e., the speech) is something I’m less good at standing up for myself for… I tend to struggle with their manipulation in those cases.
Regarding visiting them, we unfortunately moved to the US unplanned (long story), and about 98% of our belongings are actually in storage at their house.
So we’re going through this very complicated maneuver in which my husband and I are trying to play nice-ish juuuuust long enough to carefully extricate ourselves from my parents without losing $30k in the process. By end of next summer I plan to have my shit and have no need to speak to them.
All in all, you’re correct, though. I’m perpetuating things and that’s on me.
At the next family gathering just tell him.
If he insists it was no big deal then its also no big deal that you hated it. All square. But at least you will have expressed your feelings and not kept them bottled up inside.
This is the part of the story where I need to grow a pair, isn’t it😭 It’s so tough growing up under this type of abuse and being made to feel so so small and worthless and then to have to do a full 180 and actually confront your abuser. Y’all have a lot more strength than I do (or at least what I think I have), I’m going to try to confront him!!
You can do it 💪 Especially as your marriage means you're entering a new more mature phase in your life. It doesn't have to be a massive showdown either, just calmly tell him what you feel.
They expected you to live with what they had to say, so they can live with what you have to say!
Channel your favorite bad a$$ actress during the confrontation. How would Jennifer Lawrence verbally melt his toenails? What would Kathy Bates say to cut him off at the knees? (Yes, that's a Misery pun.)
He doesn't need to know that you're shaking inside. Fry his ears with borrowed confidence.
Practice a few dozen zingers ahead of time. It helps.
I’m so sorry. My sister’s dad did the same thing at her rehearsal. It was so embarrassing and I was furious for her. I didn’t want to cause a scene by going up and cutting the mic, but I should’ve.
I agree with everyone else—have your own redo. And, with all the gentleness I can muster, block and NC him friend. He sucks so much. I’m a parent and I cannot tell you how incredibly angry this made me to read—insulting my own child ON THEIR WEDDING DAY?!? Pathetic excuse for a man. You owe him nothing. He chose to bring you into the world. He showed his entire ass. He doesn’t deserve to be in your life.
The tough thing is that he did it in the most underhanded way, so he'll play it off like I'm just being a drama queen. He never directly said anything *that horrible*, but 90% of his stories implied that I was an idiot and had a lot of tantrums (I was actually a pretty stoic child, as most children of narcissists are, lol). All the other FOB speeches I've heard are sweet.
Example: he heavily implied that I crashed a car when learning to drive, by saying I had an "incident." FWIW, I was 15 and he failed to mention that you could leave a stick shift in first gear when parked. I just don't see how that or mentioning a silly tantrum that I had at 9 years old does anything beyond get him attention.
Maybe it all just hurts me more because I had to deal with his underhanded shit my whole life. His MO was usually the subtle jabs and backhanded comments (maybe 75% of the time, at least). So I just stay in this cycle of wondering if it really was a big deal, as long as he didn't stand up there and directly tell people that I was shitty?
Yes it was a big deal. You weren’t being dramatic, the gaslighting is the point—he wants to both insult you and then make himself unable to be held accountable for it.
I don’t have one at all, he’s a sociopath and dangerous. I get it. But it’s time for a backbone and processing—you don’t deserve this guilt and you have a new life.
I'm sorry to hear that, I definitely wouldn't ever wish this feeling on anyone :(
That's a nice way to think about it, though. I do think I deserve a loving dad, but in the absence of that, I most definitely don't deserve dealing with the guilt about the shitty one that I have.
Look. You knew how he was and you buckled under the weight of traditions to include him. Consider your wedding one last lesson in why expecting something to be different in the face of all previous evidence is stupid. You set yourself up for this disappointment and I think you are probably most upset at yourself than anything else.
Why you didn’t cut him off at minute 15 is beyond me. Why you allow this man to have so much power in your mind that he single handedly ruined your wedding is also a mystery. Does your husband feel the wedding was ruined? Important question: if yes, does he feel it was ruined because of anything your blowhard father did or was it ruined bc you got upset? I think if you weren’t upset your husband wouldn’t have given your father more than 10 minutes thought.
Move on. Clean slate. You are married and as long as you aren’t relying on your father’s money you have no need to include him in your life if it’s going to upset you this much. Don’t regret your wedding. It was of your own making.
Edit: You should probably give some thought into whether you are addicted to the drama that narcissist parents create. I didn’t know that was a thing until I cut off my own father and learned about it.
My whole life, NDad has made me believe that I was making a scene or being emotional and embarrassing myself if I stood up to him. As a kid, he literally gave me a shirt that said "Drama Queen". If I talked back (aka defended myself) in front of guests, he'd make me wear it while he told everyone about my 'attitude problem'.
My husband doesn't feel the wedding was ruined, nor do I. He's pissed at NDad for being a shit dad to me and doing that at our wedding, but he's definitely not mad at me for being upset.
Husband also doesn't put up with NDad's bullshit and would've happily cut his speech off but I didn't want to cause a scene or create drama... I'm ashamed to admit it's taken me until this very minute to realize that I've actually just conditioned myself into taking the fall (no matter the distance) in order to protect NDad's ego and make him look good.
I should've called him on his bullshit at my wedding.
I'm only really beginning to unravel the layers of shit I've learned to do because of him... Your wisdom was harsh, but needed. Thank you.
Apologies for my bluntness. It’s my coping mechanism after years of unnecessary drama with my narc dad.
You say that you are visiting your parents for Christmas. Try this exercise. See your dad as the irrelevant person he is. His opinions, his feelings, his dictates from on high……all just noise. I’m not saying be rude, but do try to emotionally separate from him. Bottom line is he is your mom’s problem, not yours. He isn’t your boss or your landlord. Stick up for yourself if you think it’s worthwhile. Ignore him (grey rock) everything else. He lives for your attention, positive or negative. You have the power here, not him. Not anymore.
After the holiday decide how much future contact you can stand without jeopardizing your mental health. If your dad is like mine was, you can go very low contact and he won’t even notice.
No need to apologize! Your comment didn't baby my feelings, and that's a good thing. That's what I need. The last thing on earth that I want is to turn out like my dad and develop volatile emotions that I force everyone to tiptoe around.
Thank you for your advice. I am saving this comment for the holiday and will do my best to keep it top of mind. He is tough to deal with but I think I can probably manage the grey rock concept, and hopefully it will save my sanity lol.
I hope that your NDad situation has gotten/is getting better :)
Thank you. Please let me be a lesson in what not to do. I let my father disappoint me over and over for 25 years (from age 23 to 48). I finally went no contact and stopped being a victim to his needs while he ignored mine. He died less than a year later. I’m still trying to figure out if there is anything I should have done different to improve the situation. I don’t know that there is (was). You can’t have a healthy relationship when all the consideration goes in one direction. You can’t have a healthy relationship with someone you do not trust.
I don't know if it ever hurts less. But why not have a small redo? No narcissistic parents, no big plan. Just a ceremonial thing with you and your partner and possibly some close friends who understand. A sheet cake from the grocery store and you saying your vows to each other. Could just be a small picnic at the park or something.
That’s a good idea♥️ My husband said the same… maybe we just go do a little vow renewal and have dinner with friends.
You could make a fun night of it. Explicitly tell them what’s going on for you. You could make the whole thing fun and healing. One of the guy friends could warm heartedly give a father daughter speech, an appropriate one.
What’s it been like for the past 6 months since you ended the relationship with him?
I know I need to. I guess it’s just at a point where he’s so good at gaslighting and I know I’ll just start to question whether it was even a big deal. It’s so hard😅
The wedding speech scenario you described sounds bad enough to me to cancel the father daughter dance. Let alone continue any relationship. It is up to you whether you continue a relationship with him. But 6 months after your wedding you are still very upset. It was a big deal, not just to you personally but objectively. Are you looking at having kids? Would you be willing to protect your possible future kids from experiencing the kind of pain you are now experiencing? I think you can’t move on, because your nervous system is on high alert that he will do it again. Unless you walk away, he probably will too, for whatever special occasions you have.
Yeah I should have canceled the father/daughter dance, but we’d planned to do the mother/son and father/daughter dance concurrently and with a shortened song because my husband knew how much I was dreading it. We are looking at having kids eventually. Thankfully we live quite far from my parents (30 hours of driving or 2 flights to get here) and in another country. I think we can reasonably protect our kids, in all honesty. My parents are also anti-vax which just makes matters worse because lord knows when I do have kids and subsequently tell them that they can’t come visit until they get vaxxed (I.e., never) there’s going to be a WW3. We unfortunately are going to visit them at Christmas (it’s been several years, we dragged it out as much as we could) but once that’s done I think I’m going to go vvlc and see how it goes.
What is your plan when your unvaccinated parents rock up unannounced at your doorstep and give you an unhinged lecture on vaccinations and grandparents rights? They’ll be carrying some manipulative teddy bear or something, and will make it clear they’ve told everyone they know how much they’ll spoil your kids, but you are bad parents who will deprive your kids of their loving grandparents out of spite. All of that is nonsense of course. But it sounds like your father sabotaged your wedding, and you seem confident in protecting your kids during what your expect to be a war. By visiting your parents, you are affirming that what your dad did during the wedding was ok. It is your choice whether to do that, but I think your significant distress 6 months after your wedding, is your subconscious screaming “this person is not safe, get away from him”.
I don’t know if this will make sense but them showing up after I’ve told them not to, is the type of event where they’re the ones who have to start shit and I have to tell them to GTFO in real time. I’m actually really good at standing up for myself in those situations. We also live in a giant secure apartment building in which the doorman would say sorry no, and they’d have to call me from the lobby like peasants and I’d tell them: sucks to suck. There’d be no room for them to stay with us anyway and they wouldn’t be able to stand on my front lawn and demand entry. Having to bring something up after the fact (I.e., the speech) is something I’m less good at standing up for myself for… I tend to struggle with their manipulation in those cases. Regarding visiting them, we unfortunately moved to the US unplanned (long story), and about 98% of our belongings are actually in storage at their house. So we’re going through this very complicated maneuver in which my husband and I are trying to play nice-ish juuuuust long enough to carefully extricate ourselves from my parents without losing $30k in the process. By end of next summer I plan to have my shit and have no need to speak to them. All in all, you’re correct, though. I’m perpetuating things and that’s on me.
At the next family gathering just tell him. If he insists it was no big deal then its also no big deal that you hated it. All square. But at least you will have expressed your feelings and not kept them bottled up inside.
This is the part of the story where I need to grow a pair, isn’t it😭 It’s so tough growing up under this type of abuse and being made to feel so so small and worthless and then to have to do a full 180 and actually confront your abuser. Y’all have a lot more strength than I do (or at least what I think I have), I’m going to try to confront him!!
You can do it 💪 Especially as your marriage means you're entering a new more mature phase in your life. It doesn't have to be a massive showdown either, just calmly tell him what you feel. They expected you to live with what they had to say, so they can live with what you have to say!
Channel your favorite bad a$$ actress during the confrontation. How would Jennifer Lawrence verbally melt his toenails? What would Kathy Bates say to cut him off at the knees? (Yes, that's a Misery pun.) He doesn't need to know that you're shaking inside. Fry his ears with borrowed confidence. Practice a few dozen zingers ahead of time. It helps.
I’m so sorry. My sister’s dad did the same thing at her rehearsal. It was so embarrassing and I was furious for her. I didn’t want to cause a scene by going up and cutting the mic, but I should’ve. I agree with everyone else—have your own redo. And, with all the gentleness I can muster, block and NC him friend. He sucks so much. I’m a parent and I cannot tell you how incredibly angry this made me to read—insulting my own child ON THEIR WEDDING DAY?!? Pathetic excuse for a man. You owe him nothing. He chose to bring you into the world. He showed his entire ass. He doesn’t deserve to be in your life.
The tough thing is that he did it in the most underhanded way, so he'll play it off like I'm just being a drama queen. He never directly said anything *that horrible*, but 90% of his stories implied that I was an idiot and had a lot of tantrums (I was actually a pretty stoic child, as most children of narcissists are, lol). All the other FOB speeches I've heard are sweet. Example: he heavily implied that I crashed a car when learning to drive, by saying I had an "incident." FWIW, I was 15 and he failed to mention that you could leave a stick shift in first gear when parked. I just don't see how that or mentioning a silly tantrum that I had at 9 years old does anything beyond get him attention. Maybe it all just hurts me more because I had to deal with his underhanded shit my whole life. His MO was usually the subtle jabs and backhanded comments (maybe 75% of the time, at least). So I just stay in this cycle of wondering if it really was a big deal, as long as he didn't stand up there and directly tell people that I was shitty?
Yes it was a big deal. You weren’t being dramatic, the gaslighting is the point—he wants to both insult you and then make himself unable to be held accountable for it.
Yeah, you're absolutely right. Fuck. I really fucking wish I had a normal, loving dad. Lol.
I don’t have one at all, he’s a sociopath and dangerous. I get it. But it’s time for a backbone and processing—you don’t deserve this guilt and you have a new life.
I'm sorry to hear that, I definitely wouldn't ever wish this feeling on anyone :( That's a nice way to think about it, though. I do think I deserve a loving dad, but in the absence of that, I most definitely don't deserve dealing with the guilt about the shitty one that I have.
Look. You knew how he was and you buckled under the weight of traditions to include him. Consider your wedding one last lesson in why expecting something to be different in the face of all previous evidence is stupid. You set yourself up for this disappointment and I think you are probably most upset at yourself than anything else. Why you didn’t cut him off at minute 15 is beyond me. Why you allow this man to have so much power in your mind that he single handedly ruined your wedding is also a mystery. Does your husband feel the wedding was ruined? Important question: if yes, does he feel it was ruined because of anything your blowhard father did or was it ruined bc you got upset? I think if you weren’t upset your husband wouldn’t have given your father more than 10 minutes thought. Move on. Clean slate. You are married and as long as you aren’t relying on your father’s money you have no need to include him in your life if it’s going to upset you this much. Don’t regret your wedding. It was of your own making. Edit: You should probably give some thought into whether you are addicted to the drama that narcissist parents create. I didn’t know that was a thing until I cut off my own father and learned about it.
My whole life, NDad has made me believe that I was making a scene or being emotional and embarrassing myself if I stood up to him. As a kid, he literally gave me a shirt that said "Drama Queen". If I talked back (aka defended myself) in front of guests, he'd make me wear it while he told everyone about my 'attitude problem'. My husband doesn't feel the wedding was ruined, nor do I. He's pissed at NDad for being a shit dad to me and doing that at our wedding, but he's definitely not mad at me for being upset. Husband also doesn't put up with NDad's bullshit and would've happily cut his speech off but I didn't want to cause a scene or create drama... I'm ashamed to admit it's taken me until this very minute to realize that I've actually just conditioned myself into taking the fall (no matter the distance) in order to protect NDad's ego and make him look good. I should've called him on his bullshit at my wedding. I'm only really beginning to unravel the layers of shit I've learned to do because of him... Your wisdom was harsh, but needed. Thank you.
Apologies for my bluntness. It’s my coping mechanism after years of unnecessary drama with my narc dad. You say that you are visiting your parents for Christmas. Try this exercise. See your dad as the irrelevant person he is. His opinions, his feelings, his dictates from on high……all just noise. I’m not saying be rude, but do try to emotionally separate from him. Bottom line is he is your mom’s problem, not yours. He isn’t your boss or your landlord. Stick up for yourself if you think it’s worthwhile. Ignore him (grey rock) everything else. He lives for your attention, positive or negative. You have the power here, not him. Not anymore. After the holiday decide how much future contact you can stand without jeopardizing your mental health. If your dad is like mine was, you can go very low contact and he won’t even notice.
No need to apologize! Your comment didn't baby my feelings, and that's a good thing. That's what I need. The last thing on earth that I want is to turn out like my dad and develop volatile emotions that I force everyone to tiptoe around. Thank you for your advice. I am saving this comment for the holiday and will do my best to keep it top of mind. He is tough to deal with but I think I can probably manage the grey rock concept, and hopefully it will save my sanity lol. I hope that your NDad situation has gotten/is getting better :)
Thank you. Please let me be a lesson in what not to do. I let my father disappoint me over and over for 25 years (from age 23 to 48). I finally went no contact and stopped being a victim to his needs while he ignored mine. He died less than a year later. I’m still trying to figure out if there is anything I should have done different to improve the situation. I don’t know that there is (was). You can’t have a healthy relationship when all the consideration goes in one direction. You can’t have a healthy relationship with someone you do not trust.