He got engaged and excludes his father from all wedding festivities. My brother has offered to do whatever his son wants to do about it, like family therapy, to no avail. Earlier, my nephew asked his dad to do some things to show he was serious, but when his dad complied with the request, my nephew raised the bar again.
My problem is that I love them both dearly, and I keep pretending (along with my nephew) that I can do this crazy dance. Previously we discussed it with my nephew, but now if we do, we are cut off.
On the one hand, I’m tired of pretending, and on the other, I’m devastated that one misstep will alienate my nephew and his new family. My brother encourages us all to continue our relationship with his son. I feel torn. Is there a solution here?
Anonymous: I’ll start with a small thing, because it can be huge: the reasons are not wrong by “all things considered”. Presumably your nephew thinks they are valid, and that counts as one account.
You probably also believe that he believes in its own reasons, even if you don’t. If he didn’t, then he would be doing it capriciously to inflict pain on his father – which would be indefensible, wouldn’t it?
As I said, it could be a small thing – a mental typo on your part – or the biggest possible thing, that one of them knowingly hurt the other but, to stay in good standing with the “tight” family, is not I don’t get used to it. So decisions to “side” with one, neither, or both of these parents are worth as honest a calculation as you can give them using the information you have. Sometimes we have no choice but to give up and say, “I don’t know who’s to blame”, and sometimes it’s a massive loophole, even ripe for malfeasance – and that’s always up to us to be honest with ourselves, which is true.
When you’re really caught between two honest souls at odds, then it’s tough and exhausting, yes.
But the solution is actually quite basic.
1. Continue to openly invite the nephew and brother, and let each of them decide if they want to come.
2. Don’t talk about your brother with your nephew. There are ways to facilitate this: Center the discussions on his life, for example. (Nothing like a wedding for that.) Or talking about non-family things. Or follow its common thread.
3. When you slip up, apologize and move on. If your nephew doesn’t want to move on, so be it. If he has zero tolerance for frailty in well-meaning uninvolved humans who go out of his way to respect his boundaries, then plug in that information and revisit your solution.
Just because those boundaries are emotionally difficult for the family doesn’t mean they’re technically difficult to maintain.
The best way to respect boundaries, in fact, is to have them yourself – and refusing to do a “crazy dance” for anyone, for any reason, is one of the best you can. define.
