'My mother's speech completely embarrassed me at my wedding...'
"My mother's speech completely embarrassed me at my wedding..."
I (39f) recently got married to my amazing husband and had the most incredible day ever... but our parents somehow misunderstood the assignment when it came to speeches at the reception.
My mother only talked about key points in my life where I disappointed her or embarrassed her throughout my childhood and teen years and one of the memories was particularly really embarrassing, so embarrassing that I made sure she didn't bring it up at my 21st speech when I had it 18 years ago.
At our wedding she never mentioned anything about my new husband or our relationship, she didn't even welcome him into the family. She only talked about how much of an embarrassment I was as a child and even compared me to my older brother and sister who "never played up until after they left home." It was definitely more of a 21st speech and nothing like a mother-of-the-bride speech at all.
I cried for a whole day after the wedding over this. I'm extremely disappointed with her and when I let her know, her response was that she made a mistake and didn't know what she was saying or knew how to write a speech, yet at my sibling's weddings her speeches were very heartfelt and warm and loving and how they should be done.
She apologized a lot but I don't know if I can get past this because I feel so let down and hurt. She had only one chance to get it right, and she totally blew it. She also had this speech written down and prepared, it wasn't off the cuff at all.
Everyone I love and respected was in that room at the reception including bosses and business associates, past work colleagues, college friends, neighbors, family friends, extended family, all my besties etc.
I feel like she was just out to get laughs from people and didn't focus on what a wedding was actually about. I understand you can make a little bit of fun of the bride and groom but not for the whole speech to be taking the piss!
I know she is feeling really awful about how she let me down, she helped out so much with the preparations for months leading up to the wedding. I love her so much but I don't know if I can get past this.
I feel like she doesn't respect me at all, being the youngest too she still treats me like I'm 16 years old. I feel like I've lost all respect for her and I don't even want to see her as I know she'll just give me a hug and tell me to get over it and move on.
I don't know if I can move on from this. I want to punish her by going low contact but at the same time I don't hate her, I just hate what she did. I only get one mum in this world but I also don't want to let her off the hook too easily, it was my only once in a lifetime wedding day.
My husband's father's speech was very similar but he's choosing to not let it get him down as it wasn't quite as degrading as my mother's speech was.
Here's what people had to say to OP:
Original_Rent7677 said:
I bet more than a few people at the wedding were appalled by her speech. They probably have sympathy for you because they think your mother is not very nice for saying what she said. If she mentions her speech again, I would tell her she made a fool of herself in front of your guests.
Viva_Veracity1906 said:
Low Contact is not punishment, it’s a protective boundary. A fence to limit someone’s ability to hurt you. No contact is a wall with barbed wire to make sure they don’t get a chance to hurt you. Your mother knew what to do, she’s done it correctly before and received explicit instructions not to share that particular story directly from you.
A low contact fence is the only way to show her that her choice and actions hurt you and your feelings are important. Sometimes only having one mother is a gift, sometimes it’s a curse, it all depends not on your tolerance of bad behavior but on the mother and how she behaves. Your mother behaved appallingly. She needs sanctions.
OkConsideration8964 said:
She didn't make a mistake, she made a choice. She even took the time to write it down. She knew what she was doing.
MistressLiliana said:
Of course it was written down, she wrote it for your 21st birthday then you told her she couldn't talk about that incident so she saved it this entire time to read at your wedding.
Hcmp1980 said:
She knew. Your firm response has taken her by surprise and she's scrambling.
Lopsided-Arm-198 said:
I 1000% believe that blood is not not thicker than water. I’ve seen it 1 million times it doesn’t matter if you’re related to somebody makes no difference.