'My parents ghosted me 5 years ago after my wedding and now reached out. What do I do?' AITA? + UPDATE
"My parents ghosted me 5 years ago after my wedding and now reached out. What do I do?"
My husband (30m) used to be my boss. About 9 years ago I started working as his assistant. We spent about 2.5 years ignoring our mutual attraction until we gave in. We then went to HR, who reassigned me, and the whole thing was strictly above board from the time we began dating.
I got pregnant about a year later, and my husband and I decided to just get married. While we'd only really been dating for about 1.5 years, we knew each other completely, loved each other, lived together, and there was a baby on the way.
We knew how it would look, but I had to leave the company anyway due to problems with my new boss, so we didn't anticipate this causing any issues, except with my parents.
They (62m/57f) have always been overprotective, so I knew they wouldn't like me dating my boss, and hadn't told them, but I had to tell them if I wanted them at my wedding.
We decided to be mostly honest with them, about how it was strictly professional until it wasn't, how the second it got unprofessional we went to HR, how he had never taken advantage of me, but now we wanted to get married and we wanted them there.
We did not mention the baby, because I felt that giving them that information in addition to the rest all at once would just break them. I was only about 4 months along when the wedding happened, so the bump was easily hidden by a flowy dress.
The wedding itself went off without a hitch, and apart from my mother pulling me into the bathroom shortly before the ceremony to ask if I was sure about this, which I said I was, my parents seemed to take it well.
The ceremony and reception were at 2 different venues, and we had to travel from one to the other, and my parents never arrived at the reception. I called them and got ignored, and then my brother called them and they told him that they were going home.
I don't remember the exact reason they gave but it amounted to them being tired and uncomfortable. I tried contacting them after the wedding, but found that I was blocked on everything except email, which I used to send them a long letter essentially saying that I'm an adult who made an adult choice and I hope they can respect that.
5 years later, I have not heard from my parents since my wedding. My husband and I are not big on social media in general but I recently posted something for our 5th anniversary in which I mentioned our 2 kids and third on the way.
Within a month of making this post, my parents left a voicemail saying they saw the post, and, having had no idea that they had grandchildren previously, now want to meet them.
I haven't responded and there have been a few follow ups since then asking why I haven't. I don't know what to do, but my gut instinct is that 5 years is too long, and it's about the kids, not about them respecting my choices or relationship.
However, I can't help but feel that I'm being unfair, and my brother agrees, because I told them in my email that if they could learn to respect my choice and my marriage eventually, then we could talk, and now I'm retroactively applying a time limit. Should I reach out to them? If I did, how would we go about rebuilding the relationship?
Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP’s post:
How could you ever trust them not to just abandon your kids if they did something ‘unauthorized’? They’ve shown that they aren’t willing to be loving. You can’t trust people who don’t know how to love.
It's not even that they're not loving, but that their love is warped and conditional. It's based on whether OPs actions aligned with their worldview, something I'm sure OP was aware of as she lived with them for a number of years.
OP knew on some level that her parents wouldn't be happy or approve of her relationship. There was a lot of pretense built around that. It's like a rug that can be pulled out from under you if they don't agree with what you're doing. That's not real love. That's control.
Youve buried the lede in your comments here. The piece of the missing puzzle is - being named for your older sister who died before you were born. It sounds like you were a replacement child and they dumped you because you were no longer doing what they wanted. Especially with the added info of them talking a lot about your wedding day.
Two days later, the OP returned with an update.
I asked to talk yesterday. We were on zoom within an hour. It was my parents and me and my husband. They asked to see the kids, and I said they could see them eventually, dependant on them earning our trust and convincing us they were going to be positive additions to the kids' lives.
They asked to start by reading me a letter that they claimed to have written on my wedding day. It said that they were uncomfortable with me marrying my former boss as they thought he took advantage of me, so they left between the wedding and reception to avoid a scene, but they wanted me to know they were here for me despite their issues with him.
They added that they would have sent this to me the morning after my wedding, but then I sent my email about them needing to respect my choices, and they were so ashamed they couldn't bring themselves to send theirs. Seeing my anniversary post made them realise how much they've missed in 5 years and they really don't want to miss any more.
I had some questions, like what the big deal was with me marrying my former boss, and they said that it just wasn't what they had in mind for my wedding day and my future spouse.
I asked why they even came to the wedding at all if they didn't support the marriage, and my dad responded that he wanted to walk his daughter down the aisle as it was the only chance he'd get.
The way it was phrased implied that they had intentionally only come to the wedding so he could give me away, and always planned to leave halfway, and because he said "my daughter", and didn't talk to me directly, it was pretty clear he was thinking about my older sister, who passed away.
My husband caught that, too, and said that if they were talking about me, they should address me directly, then added that if they had planned to leave they should have told us as we wouldn't have invited them.
The fact they waited 5 years to reach out was going to take more reasons than shame as, as a father, he didn't understand how they could ignore their daughter for years, or only get back in touch when we had kids.
My dad snapped that he wasn't going to take this from "someone like [my] husband. My mother immediately tried to run damage control but I ended the call. They have since messaged me several times trying to explain that calling my husband a slur wasn't indicative of a hateful attitude, and he wouldn't have said that in front of the kids, so they should still get to meet them.
I've spent 5 years wondering how they were so offended by me marrying my boss that it earned no contact for half a decade. Turns out they're just hateful and close-minded. It's almost nice to find out.
If it was just the boss thing I would have sympathy for them and we might even be able to reconcile, but with this, it's now just a question of if I'm going to knowingly expose my mixed race children to a couple of intolerant monsters, which I am obviously not going to do.
Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP’s post:
Calling someone using a racial slur out of sudden anger most definitely means they have racist attitude. Sometimes we need to cut out people from our lives to protect who we are. This time you are doing that and protecting YOUR family.
They have shown who they are and cutting them out can mean cutting out the toxicity. Yes, forgiveness is something we should all strive for, but sometimes we just don't need that negativity around us. Wish you the best.
throwramotherwdid (OP)
They are insisting they aren't racist but even in our worst fights, my husband and I have never called each other slurs, and the only people who have ever called my husband slurs have been racist. What my husband was saying wasn't wrong, either, or unfair.
Half of it was things I had told him that I wanted to say to them but I'd gotten too emotional to actually say it. I think I'm quite a forgiving person, but there is no forgiveness to be had here.
If your parents said that they wouldn’t say that slur in front of your kids then they know it is wrong and shouldn’t have said it at all. You have done the right thing.
These are people who knew the pain of losing a child, and still chose to throw away another child.
I bet in their minds they lost both children through no fault of their own. If they blame themselves for anything it's for not raising OP "right".