Amy Dickinson: Sexual misconduct leads to questions, months later
Here's
my dilemma: My fiance and I are getting married this summer, and there
is no way we want this man to attend our wedding. I feel disrespected,
and I also don't trust that he won't do something else inappropriate --
to me or another guest.
I know I
missed the opportunity of letting my girlfriend know what happened in a
timely manner, but I was afraid to approach her, and I worried this
would disrupt their family's holiday. She and I have known each other
for close to 20 years but don't have a very close friendship. Still, her
absence from the guest list will be obvious and met with many
questions. Do you have any suggestions as to how to approach this, other
than turning back time? -- Worried Bride
Dear Worried:
Your account of this incident conveys why women don't come forward in
the moment: Even though you pushed this guy away, you took on
responsibility for not "making a scene."
As
your friend's husband, this man would normally be included in a wedding
invitation, but in this case, rather than omit inviting her altogether,
you should consider inviting her, but letting her know that
unfortunately, due to her husband's behavior toward you at this holiday
party, he is not welcome to accompany her. You can then expect her to
decline your invitation.
This
will not be easy. It requires that you do all of the things now that you
avoided previously: offering an honest account of your experience, and
explaining the consequence.
This
might be quite painful for your friend to hear. She might double down,
defend her guy's actions, downplay the impact on you and back away from
your kinship. However, she has a right to know how her husband behaved
and how it has affected you (and now, her). This might be a wakeup call
for both of them; if cocktails fueled this behavior, he should
reconsider his intake.
Dear Amy: I have a friend group of five women. Together, we have 10 married sons (our sons don't know each other).
We
were all very caring parents, enjoying close relationships with our
sons. We saw that all of them had stable homes, lots of love and good
educations.
Once they got
married ALL of us have endured various amounts of exclusion, rudeness
and isolation. We all feel like we have to walk on eggshells. One member
of the group has NEVER even been allowed to see one of her son's
children. How devastating.
We don't sit around and badmouth our
daughters-in-law when we are together, but we do support and offer
opinions to each other as issues come up. We would all LOVE to have
these smart, beautiful women closer to us, but instead, we seem to lose
our sons.
I'm very confused about why so many of that generation are so uncaring to their in-laws.
Most
of us MIL's are really nice people. We treated our own in-laws with
gratitude for raising the men we ended up marrying. What do you think?
-- MIL
Dear MIL:
This dynamic seems to crop up even before the wedding, when grooms
become marginalized. Then, in most families, women still assume the
great bulk of the work of household and parenting.
Naturally,
these women who run the household and control the family schedule are
more oriented toward their own parents than their partner's.
Some
of this dynamic will change when men step up and assume more of a role
at home. This is definitely happening, but until it does, parents of
sons should ask them to be more proactive about evening out family time.
Dear Amy: You made a wise statement in a recent column: "Anxiety doesn't make people mean."
Years
ago, my psychiatrist wouldn't allow the excuse that having anxiety and
depression gave me the freedom to be rude. She said I had "poor social
skills" and had to learn to get along better and act like an adult -- to
take responsibility for my own behavior.
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