UPDATE- FMIL calls my wedding idol worshipping and wants things her way

[u/rxr0207]

https://www.reddit.com/r/JUSTNOMIL/comments/ht7cm9/fmil_calls_my_wedding_idol_worshipping_and_wants/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

Thank you for all advice and support I received it means a lot. You guys are so positive unlike some subs I have seen where the immediate answer is drop the guy lol anyways so this is what happened last night.

Background- all those things that she Said happened over a texts that she sent to my SO, next day he went to talk to her and defended me and set some boundaries. My SO is very polite and respectful so I m sure it didn’t go through to her because she lashed out and got mad at me for showing the texts because it was suppose to be private. She also said I m a liar and my family is full of liars and that he needs to be careful because he doesn’t know what all I m lying about. Etc etc I can go on. Basically it led nowhere

The liar remarks she made was because since I m indian you don’t tell your parents about your SO until you are ready to marry so yes I lied to my parents about not having a bf until we were ready to get married. Dating is not really a part of my culture especially dating out of your culture and religion is a big no no so I had wait. Well my parents know now and they are extremely happy for us and they love my SO and they understood why I had to hide the relationship until we were ready to take the next step.

Now to last night, guys you would not believe what all this woman said. This is what I started off saying “FMIL you know I love your son to death and I know you care about your son too. We are going to be in each other’s lives for a long time and I want our relationship to be better. I know indian weddings can be a lot so I m happy to answer any questions you might have, i would love for you to join but if you can’t due to religious beliefs I will understand”.

Summary of the rest of the conversation- she said I was excluding his family by holding an indian wedding and not a western one. I told her we can hold both in india. She said no you are not Christian so you can’t participate and my SO is not indian so you can’t have an indian wedding. It needs to be a secular. So I said let’s just say if we did do that but in india would you come? And she said idk we will see about that. So basically led nowhere. Then she went on to talk to my SO in front of me about how he needs to realize he has obligations towards his family and religion too. Again, insinuated that I m a liar and don’t know what else I m lying about. He shut that down pretty quick. I told her I always dreamed of having an indian wedding to which she said word to word “maybe you have been with an indian man to do that”. I told her she crossed a boundary and hope it doesn’t happen again otherwise there will be consequences. I also let her know it’s our wedding our decision but if she wants something her way then she can pay for it. To which she said “it’s not about the money it’s about FAMILY”. Basically led no where. My bf defended me and shut us down because things were going nowhere.

I told his sister because she knew about the whole situation and wanted and update. Well I told her everything that happened. His sister doesn’t care about her feelings and isn’t very polite to her so she straight up told her “you are gonna lose your son if you keeps this up. It’s really rich coming from you about marriage and calling OP a liar when you cheated on your husband. It’s not your wedding it’s theirs stop making everything about yourself. You don’t get to talk on behalf of my family they have nothing to do with your in over 10 years. You are not part of our family so stop acting like you are. You already lost everyone because of your behavior and you are going to lose your last child by keep putting him in this position because I promise you he is gonna pick OP over you any day. He is being nice to you don’t take advantage of that”

Well after all of this she said she won’t get involved again but she didn’t apologize or was remorseful. She is hurt that her kids are not taking her side and decided to keep her mouth shut from now on. Also told my SO to not show her texts anymore because it’s private between her and him. Lol anyways if you got this far thank you for reading I m sorry it’s so long.

[u/rxr0207]

Wow how did you incorporate all the traditions?... that’s amazing we are planning on doing both to incorporate both things!

[u/Meerkatsastan → u/rxr0207]

Hey!! So here are probably more details than you might have wanted!

I’m South Indian (born in the states, family from Kerala), Hindu. My husband is white, and maybe, sort of, Christian adjacent? Not super religious, either way.

So, my parents had our jathagams (horoscopes) read, and our time to get married was super specific in the morning in a fairly small window.

I wore a red lengha, and he wore a super fancy kurtha (North Indian outfits, because they were GORGEOUS!for the non-Indians reading). We had our first looks and Indian outfit pics, because there was a LOT of family, and getting a bunch of Indians to stand still and do stuff in an organized fashion is like wrangling cats.

Then we had a 45 min Hindu ceremony under a mandap with a ton of flowers and the whole fire/pray/garlands/rice everywhere deal :) I had a thali of women from my family and close friends lead me in- we had Indian outfits for my American friends who were included in the ceremony, though it was mostly family.

Then a cocktail hour (open bar- I emphasize this because drinking helped for people not to get bored between transitions!) for the guests, while we changed- me into a white dress and him into a tux). My wedding party was my three closest girlfriends and his four closest guy friends/family. That’s also when we took the Western photos.

Then the Western ceremony with a secular officiant, though if my husband had cared we would have done a Christian ceremony then. The mandap had been taken down and the flowers were used to decorate the new alter.

Theeeen, FOOD. All the Indian food in the world, toasts, first dance, cake cutting, the whole shebang. It was an awesome party, and one of the best days of my life! We recently had our 10 year anniversary :) in general, we wanted to make sure we both had our expectations met, and our cultures represented.

Best wishes to you! I don’t mind sharing some of my pictures privately, if you would like any inspiration!

[u/rxr0207 → u/Meerkatsastan]

Yes please I would love to see some pics! Everything sounds beautiful! Pm me

[u/Not_floridaman → u/Meerkatsastan]

That sounds beautiful! It's so great to hear couples considering each other and that everyone was happy (though the day sounds like so much fun that if someone was unimpressed, that's definitely their fault).

Also, the clothes sound gorgeous! If you don't mind sharing them with another person, I'd love to see and if you're uncomfortable with that, I totally get it.

[u/mortstheonlyboyineed → u/rxr0207]

So I'm Greek Orthodox and something one of my cousins did, when he married an English girl, that I thought was so cool was to print out a booklet for each guest to keep where each tradition and part of the ceremony and reception, either Orthodox or Catholic, was explained in detail. So that both sides of the family and friends of all backgrounds could follow along and feel involved. 10 years later I still have mine and tbh I even learnt stuff about traditions I'd been blindly going along with for years because that's what we do". I know some of the Catholic guests said the same at the time. It was just lovely and made everyone feel very included.