This is kind of a long story, but try to bear with me. I met my husband 2 1/2 years ago. My mom absolutely loved him and raved about him for the first year we were together. They were close and we all enjoyed being together. My husband (boyfriend at the time) then started talking to my mom about engagement and they corrisponded about my ring. My mom all of a sudden started acting funny, and (what a coincidence!) the day he bought my ring, which I didn't find out until later, is the day my mom came out and said she didn't support us. This was a shock to us, as nothing had happened to make her disapprove of our relationship. She said she feared we would have a devastating marriage and all this stuff and started crying. Well, I figured she was maybe scared because she and my dad never had a good marriage and they divorced when I was 16. But she said it had nothing to do with that. She said that God told her we would have a bad marriage, but He also told her she couldn't tell us the reasons for saying that. We were baffled and confused. When I talked to her later, she started saying that my boyfriend had all these character flaws that frankly, were ridiculous. It was very strange because 1 1/2 weeks earlier, she had sent an e-mail to him saying how excited she was for us and she loved seeing how happy we are together. Confusing huh!? Anyway, nothing ever changed, no matter how much we tried to talk to her about it. She said we were blind because we were in love. She then went on to express her concerns to all my relatives, therefore giving everyone a bad impression of us a couple. Anyway, we prayed and prayed about it and asked God to reveal to us if we were missing something and really did need to break up. But He never did and we happily went on with eachother and ended up getting engaged and eventually married. I know I married the man I was supposed to, and we've always had a very good relationship. However, my husband has been so incredibly hurt from the rejection he feels from my side of the family, that it had really affected our marriage. We are not close to my mom and haven't been since that incident, and our letters to her and trying to talk to her have all seemed to be in vain. She wants to just sweep it all under the rug like it never happened, but we were really hurt and would like some apologies. My huband even wrote her a letter expressing his deep hurt and his desire to be close to her and followed it up by apologizing for anything he ever did wrong. She NEVER responded to him and refused to offer any kind of apology. So I'm just wanting some advice on how to confront my mom about her misjudgments of my husband, her dishonesty in spreading lies about our relationship to family members, and her refusal to relay to us the specifics of the so called warning she got from God about us. Please help me! We can not live with this weight on our shoulders for much longer. It's tearing my poor husband apart.

BTB,

I'm a little confused. She wants to sweep what all under the rug? Are you saying she now supports your marriage?

I understand the distancing which occurs when you do not know the whys of someone's opinions. Prevents closeness, understanding and acceptance.

However, healing from rejection and from what transpired is on your marriage's shoulders now. Seems like you enforced a boundary by distancing. You have suffered a loss and so has your H. You through the distance with your mother, and your H through failed expectations.

If you could clarify what she says now that you are married...if she communicates and how, maybe I could go further with this.

I can say, I relate.

LA

My mom has never said that she supports us, even now that we're married. However, she doesn't say she DOESN'T support us. She really doesn't say anything at all and our relationship with her is therefore very shallow. She acts like everything is peachy, and that's kinda what I mean when I say she's sweeping it under the rug. She acts like nothing ever happened, and I feel like if we tried to talk to her yet again, she would just say we need to forget about it and move on. That's how my mom's side of the family deals with conflict. No one ever apologizes because they are too prideful, so they just silently hold grudges and then eventually pretend it never happened. Which works for them, but it's a shallow way to handle situations, and it doesn't build the kind of humility we all need, to admit when we're wrong and have hurt someone close. Anyway, we have no idea what she really feels now, all she acts is fake around us, which leaves us acting the same way, sadly. We want to know what she really feels NOW, but we don't know how to confront it again in a Godly manner that she'll have an open heart with.

How sad, as it effects taking the sacraments with a pure heart when you have bitterness towards someone else.

Is it possible your mother is behaving this way because SHE was in essence having an emotional affair with your future husband at the time?

Based on what you've shared about how they talked and e-mailed all the time, it sounds like that is what was happening..and then when he bought you the ring the reality set in..that he wasn't HER fiance' but your's...and jealousy set in?

And not knowing how to deal with her own feelings she reacted to speading lies, hoping to break the two of you up so that SHE didn't lose that closeness with him? Hoping he would still NEED her to confide in?

not that he felt the same way, but it's possible SHE felt that way...