This year, I’m a bridesmaid in three separate weddings, and while I’m happy for my friends, I often find the process painful. My friends haven’t been through serious breakups, so most of them don’t seem to understand (or don’t want to understand) how I might be feeling. I try to look good for engagement photos, wedding plans, etc., but it leaves me so exhausted and sad.
I find it difficult to maintain the enthusiasm. Am I just bitter, immature and resentful for feeling this pain?
— Always the bridesmaid
Always the bridesmaid: Aw, no, you look perfectly normal to me.
Actually… bitterness, immaturity, and resentment are kind of an unfortunate “normal” too, given how common they are, so I’ll try again.
You seem to be at a perfectly precise point on a major recovery timeline that spans 1,800 marriages.
Courage too. So there is no reason to blame yourself for having had trouble with all these marriages.
Don’t mentally beat your friends either. If they spontaneously discover your legitimate need for compassion, they might be ready to hear and understand you. But other than that, find other people to confide in outside of that marriage circle.
You wouldn’t be the first to put together some sort of grief team – maybe with a therapist, certainly with people already in your life who understand. Listen to them; they’re the ones who say or do the right thing when you’re not even sure what it is until they say it or do it.
Sometimes your closest friends can’t understand or serve a specific purpose for you, at least right now, and that’s okay. You will also drop them sometimes. And that’s when other people from a more distant friendship often ring in – even oddly enough – step in with what you need.
Again, listen to them. And mentally forgive friends who just don’t have what you need.
Hello Carolyn: Our family makes donations throughout the year to various organizations. However, I don’t like it when my friends, neighbors and family send general emails asking for money for their trip/swim team/baseball team/etc.
I understand they need donations, but kids sending emails asking for money just aren’t for me. I’d rather they did a little work for their application, like selling Girl Scout cookies or swimming a lap for every dollar donated.
How do I approach parents/children who I prefer not to donate to for these “easy money” catches.
E. : Not donating will do, thank you; there is no need to ‘approach’, scold or correct.
Consider: Not everyone agrees with you to sell something. For some it means adding more bric-a-brac to the world and taking (often most) profits away from the cause, because the maker of the cookies/wrapping paper/whatever needs use resources and must be paid.
When it comes to swimming laps, etc., kids often don’t organize fundraisers; adults do – adults who may agree with you but were voted out at a drawn-out fundraising meeting in September.
And, in general, the activities represent normality for children after many have been through limited coronavirus hell.
Thus, mercy would not be wasted.
If you don’t have one, go back to the top: Just don’t give money.
