'AITA for going ahead with my wedding even though my mom HATES my fiancé?' + UPDATE 1 YEAR LATER

"WIBTA for going ahead with a wedding that my mom is aggressively opposed to?"

I (25F) have been engaged to my fiance (27M) for just over two years, and we dated for nearly three years before he proposed. We set a wedding date back when we got engaged, but postponed it because my family was going through a rough patch and it didn't feel right at the time. We are now aiming for April 2025- venue is booked and everything.

However...my mom despises my fiance. She says that he has warning signs of an emotional abuser, he is selfish and wants to keep my to himself, and that he is going to turn me into a helpless housewife to just pop out babies for his Southern, racist family.

For clarification, I am a kindergarten teacher, currently pursuing my master's degree, and have exactly zero plans to have kids in the next five years (which he agrees with!). He is an electrical engineer, also pursuing a master's degree, and does not agree with his family's conservative beliefs.

She lives across the country and recently came to visit for a month. It ended BADLY. I mean screaming fights, storming out of the house, and crying until 2am, all of which culminated in me driving her to the airport two weeks early. She swears she will never step foot back in the state for any reason, and she refuses to be in a room with my fiance or his family ever.

Well, while she was here, I didn't get a chance to tell her that we are planning to go through with the wedding, things are booked, etc. I fully intended to, but with all the fighting and turmoil, I didn't have a chance. Now, my fiance and his family are asking questions about where we're at in the wedding planning process, and I'm really torn about how to answer.

On the one hand, we could reschedule the entire thing and I could work with my mom to get her to agree to come. On the other hand, we could go through with the wedding, but I would have exactly zero family members present. I desperately want my mom to be there, but I don't know if she'll ever come to terms with my fiance's existence and importance in my life.

And I'm not sure I want to keep postponing the wedding because she's not ready for me to get married yet. So, would I be the @$$hole if I do go through with it?

MORE INFO: My mom does have a traumatic brain injury (TBI) which affects her emotional regulation. She has had it since before I started dating my fiance, so he never met her beforehand. Despite the TBI, she swears that she is being perfectly reasonable and that as an older woman who has dated a lot more than I have (just the one) and has known abusive men, that I should trust her implicitly and leave him.

Everyone has been asking, so here are some of the warning signs that she says are emotionally abusive:

1.) He wouldn't leave me alone with her while she was here visiting. (She is referring to the fact that while we would talk in the evenings, he was always in the room. Because we talked in the living room. Of the small house where we live. Never mind that he literally stayed out of the house for two days, so we could hang out together, just my mom and I.)

2.) He does not encourage a strong bond between my mom and I. (She means that he has not pushed me to go visit my mom and brother across the country, even when they needed help. My reasoning is that I don't actually want to go across the country very often, so even when he asks me if I want to, the answer is usually no.)

3.) He is gay and using me as a beard. (She is referring to the fact that years ago, before we even started dating, I made an offhand comment about how people thought that the new server might be gay. We worked in a restaurant with lots of liberal college kids, and straight people were the minority, so we kind of assumed everyone was LGBTQ+ unless told otherwise.

I was obviously wrong, as we have been together for five years with no issues in the bedroom and many conversations about the facets of sexuality.)

4.) He encourages me to lie to her. (I lied about going on a trip to Puerto Rico, entirely by my own choice, and despite multiple warnings by him and my beat friend that it would end poorly. It did end poorly, and she does not trust me anymore, which is a separate issue. But again- my choice to lie. He actively told me it was a bad idea, and I didn't listen.)

What do you think? AITA? This is what commenters had to say:

StripedBadger said:

You know there is no solution here. Your mom has made it very clear; she does not and will never consider your fiance family. She will never be okay, never agree, never settle down.

Maybe she's right about why. Maybe she's not. We're never going to be able to judge that for you. I would hope you've given it due consideration, consulted with out third parties who have no stake in the matter, and made your own judgement. After all, you're still with him even for how long she's been saying that.

What you do know is your mother is never going to treat him with the respect he deserves as your partner, and she is the one who is choosing to be removed from your life because of who you love. That is her decision. Not yours. You cannot change her mind or make it anything than it is.

NTA You can have wedding, and your married life, for better or worse. But its going to be without your mom. I'm sorry that dreams don't come true sometimes.

MissNikiL said;

I hate this for you. NTA. If you need people to come to be on your side at the wedding there's a Facebook group called Sisterhood of the Traveling wedding guest, bridesmaid or surrogate mom where you can put your date and location and if anyone is nearby they will come be there for you however you need.

I helped a couple of women do their dress shopping because their moms didn't like that they were marrying each other. Big hugs.

T_G_A_H said:

NTA. Have your wedding. It’s your mother’s choice whether to come or not (if you decide to invite her—don’t do it if you think she’ll cause a scene). And you have no other family members at all to invite? What about friends? As long as there will be people there to support you, have your wedding and enjoy it.

If you can encourage your mother to see a neurologist, do so, and try to speak to them before the appointment to tell them how she has been behaving.

OP responded:

My family broke apart almost ten years ago when my grandma died, and all I have left are my mom and younger brother. My side of the aisle would just be my best friend, a few close friends, and some friends from work.

Unfortunately, she lives in a city with subpar medical care, especially when she has state disability insurance (which covers virtually nothing!).

Wild-Way-1306 asked:

What do others in your life say about your fiance?

OP responded:

Literally, no one else has any concerns about him. My best friend actually lived with us for three years while we were dating and then engaged, and she only ever has good things to say about him. I've known her since middle school, I know her family well, and I fully trust her to tell me if I'm being an idiot or need to dump his a$$.

Plus, her parents are very rational and haven't raised any red flags, even going so far as to invite me and my fiance to their beach house for week and a half. None of my coworkers (who have all met him repeatedly) have any concerns. It's just my mom and brother- who have actually only been in his presence for less than two months total.

ONE YEAR LATER, OP shared this update:

I am so grateful to the people who took time to comment. I read them all, and I received a lot of messages from people with advice and kind words.

So, an update: we got married!! A lot of y'all told me to go through with it, and after a lot of thought, we did! When my mom left, we were in a bad place, and we were having a lot of really awful phone calls and screaming fights. I was desperate to do something, and I finally found a therapist who helped me process some of the things that happened between my mom and I and my role in things.

In the months leading up to the wedding, my mom continued to scream at me over the phone and make threats about choosing "him or her" and how she hoped I wasn't the kind of girl who got rid of her family to please a man who would end up leaving her anyway.

She was downright hateful, and I spent a lot of time crying over our relationship, because I couldn't believe we had gotten to this point. Even with knowing that some of her disregulation was because of the brain injury, I just couldn't believe my own mom would threaten me, call me a cunt, and tell me that I wasn't allowed to be upset with her because she had been traumatized her whole life.

We got married in April, and my mom and brother did not attend. I was able to reconnect with my mom's cousin, who I used to be close with as a child, and she and her family came to the wedding. I had my best friend, her family, and my work family there to support me.

A close friend performed the ceremony. Plus, of course, my husband's family was very supportive. There were times I missed my mom, and I wanted to see her smile in the audience, but I was ultimately glad that she wasn't there. I would have felt like I had to perform and cater to her every whim, and I am so glad I was able to just have a lovely day with all the people who came to celebrate with us.

Just to reaffirm my feelings about her not being there, my mom did not contact me at all on the day-of and only called me a week later to ask whether I would be sharing any pictures with her. I did send her a few, because I thought a small part of her might care, but all she did was comment on how it looked like a cheap Amazon wedding.

She hoped I was happy with my sh!tty choices and that they were worth the loss of my family. I miss her constantly, despite all our issues, but I haven't cut her off completely.

We've been having a hard time communicating at all right now, and I don't know if it will ever get better. But I am happily married and I don't regret it. Thanks for reading this far, and I appreciate all the kindness and honesty I got from my original post!