I want to run away. Should I give up my desire to spare my mother's feelings? | Leading questions

I am a 37-year-old woman, engaged to my boyfriend for six years. We are due to get married in September on an already pared down wedding day (we canceled our original plans when I realized how anxious and unhappy the idea of ​​the “big day” was making me). Now, even though we have a little "big day" planned, I still feel nervous.

I think I want to run away - an idea my fiancé is Totally agree . What stops me is the thought of my mother's pain and disappointment if she doesn't see her daughter get married. I have a complicated relationship with my mother that I went through in therapy and with whom I am now at peace. However, as one of three children who have all "disappointed" her in some way, I feel a responsibility to do this thing for her. Earlier this year, I told her that I was not going to have children - a difficult and difficult decision to tell her. His disappointment was palpable. I feel like by running away, maybe I'm being selfish. Should I let go of my desire to run away to spare Mom's feelings?

Eleanor says: I'm so struck by how you you feel responsible. One of the most powerful aspects of expectations from others is how they sneak into our minds. It's all very well to say "do what you want to do!", but sometimes you find that you can't enjoy the things you want when you know that someone anyone else would disapprove. When you look at your own choices, you see them partly through the eyes of others. That's why disappointment is such a powerful compulsion: eventually it stops being just an external imposition - we learn to impose it on ourselves.

I think that really worth treating your marriage as an opportunity to see your choices through your own eyes.

After all, marriage is the beginning, not the end. If all goes according to plan, your wedding day is the first day of an arrangement that will last the rest of your life. This emphasizes starting out the way you want to go: feeling present for your partner, presenting yourself in a way that makes you feel like yourself, setting a precedent for how you plan to treat each other each other and make decisions together.

You deserve to feel great on your wedding day. Marriages are no longer peace treaties or power alliances. As my grandfather, married for 50 years, once told me: marriage is for people who marry.

I wonder if there is a way to serve all of these purposes while making your mom feel included. It seems like you know pretty clearly what you'd do if she wasn't a factor: you'd run away. But since she's a factor, it's nice to take her into account, and there are all sorts of things that could complicate the decision to proceed as if she weren't in the background - for example, you could seeing that you've spent this precious day feeling anticipatory guilt.

So is there a way to make her feel included – and discharge the responsibility you bear - without losing the essence of what you want?

Could you say that you would like to run away, but that you would like to invite him to a special dinner ahead, something where she can toast and become mother of the bride? Could it be digitally present? I don't generally think implicit deception is a good solution, but could you first run away so that you are in fact already legally married, and then throw a "celebration of our union" party for your friends and family?

Also keep in mind that his disapproval might be worse in imagination than in real life. She may have been taken aback or disappointed at first, but eventually come back: it's important not to let our worst fears about people's reactions rule us until we've actually seen what those reactions are.

You're right to want to consider your mom's feelings – to some extent. But no one, not even her, could rationally ask you to do so at the expense of your loved ones.

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