Betrayed and abandoned, she faced a lifetime of silent pain as the man who promised to be there vanished without a trace, leaving her to raise their daughter alone. Despite the turmoil and the relentless challenges of bipolar disorder, she stood resilient—an unyielding pillar of strength who never once faltered, never once let her family fall apart.
Decades later, the shadows of surveillance and betrayal unraveled, revealing a haunting truth of mistrust and control. Yet, through it all, her unwavering love endures as she now embraces the next generation, fiercely protecting her grandson from the neglect she once knew, embodying the true meaning of family and resilience.
WIBTA if I don’t attend my daughter’s wedding because her father will be there?
Per Dr. Harriet Lerner, a clinical psychologist known for her work on boundaries and family systems, ‘If you want to change the way people treat you, you first have to change the way you treat yourself.’ In this case, the OP is dealing with a lifetime of emotional labor and parental abandonment, compounded by the continued toxic influence of the daughter’s father.
The OP’s life narrative is characterized by resilience—raising seven children, achieving multiple degrees, and maintaining stability despite abandonment—while the daughter exhibits patterns of dependence, instability, and relational immaturity, heavily subsidized by the father who spied on the OP for years. The daughter’s current choices (marrying an older man who does not want children, having limited involvement with her son) reflect a pattern of seeking validation through external, often unhealthy, relationships, mirroring her father’s abandonment behavior. The OP’s desire to skip the wedding is a critical, albeit overdue, act of establishing a firm boundary against further emotional injury and witnessing a celebration that validates the very people who caused her suffering.
The OP is entirely appropriate in choosing not to attend. Attending only serves to reinforce the narrative that she must sacrifice her well-being for validation from those who have never supported her. A constructive recommendation is to communicate her decision clearly, perhaps citing the need to focus on her grandson’s stability rather than issuing an ultimatum about the father’s presence. She should maintain contact focused solely on co-parenting matters for the grandson, treating the daughter’s marriage as an event outside her supportive sphere.
THE COMMENTS SECTION WENT WILD – REDDIT HAD *A LOT* TO SAY ABOUT THIS ONE.
The original poster (OP) expresses deep exhaustion and hurt stemming from decades of abandonment and poor choices made by her daughter and the daughter’s father. Her central conflict lies in balancing her responsibility to support her daughter for the sake of her grandson against her own emotional need to protect herself from further pain inflicted by the daughter’s toxic family dynamic.
Is the OP justified in prioritizing her own mental and emotional well-being by refusing to attend her daughter’s wedding, or does the obligation to appear supportive for the sake of her grandchild and to counter false narratives about her parenting compel her attendance?
