Divorced parents = wedding tension?

I see people telling you to uninvite your dad, and I can understand their point of view, but at the beginning of you question you clearly state you want him there, and I'm not going to ignore that because you seem to place that as a high priority.

You also seem adament that the reception will be casual, "I'm not having assigned seating ..." so forcing them to steer clear of each other is impossible.

There are 2 options as I see it:

1) If you trust your mum, and if she respects your judgement, instruct her to avoid him as much as he avoids her. This may not prevent conflict, but it will reduce the probability and severity of a conflict.

2) Isolate you father and his new family from the crowd. Tell him to wait in the car till everyone is inside, then come in last, sit in the far back corner, and leave first. This would be a better option if you can't trust your mum to steer clear of him/them. If your leaning toward going this way, book a reception hall with a capacity 2-3 times your attendance RSVP list, so that there actually is a dark corner for them to recede into.

Personally, I'd apply both 1 and 2 to this situation, but that's just me.

"I asked him if being at the wedding together would cause a problem, and he said "As long as your mother doesn't speak to me."" - Ugh. I've been there. Sounds like my dad :). My parents are divorced and a mess as well. The hoops we have to jump through are just awful. (I'm walking myself down the aisle)

The best advice I can give you is to treat him like any other guest. Hand him an invitation and express your excitement & desire to have him there. Let him know it will be a small affair. That's all you can do. Don't lose sleep over whether or not he shows or how he will act. You don't have any control over that.

You have found the person you want to spend the rest of your life with and you & he should celebrate it :). Let yourself smile and let them deal with the rest. If it weren't for my groom I would've called the whole thing off months ago - just to spare myself the drama divorce has caused between my parents. But there's something magical about a wedding that no dead beat dad or divorce can take away. Not to sound sappy, but its a new chapter in your life. Your first day as man and wife. The man you love more than anything is going to be your husband!!! :)!!! <3!!! Be happy! Even if your dad gets in a yelling match with your mom, socks the waiter, rips up his favor and storms out screaming... you'll still have that. You still had your man waiting for you on the other side of the aisle, and you still said "I do." That's all that matters.

So hold your head high and your fiancée’s hand tight. You two will make it through this.

I personally wouldn't invite your father. Well I personally didn't invite mine! Though, I have an awesome stepfather that easily took his place.

However, my sister chose to invite both our mother (with stepfather) and biological father and his other person (stepmother divorced finally too). There actually weren't any problems for my sister in that aspect (but a whole other list dealing with other people). I do believe my bio father was depressed at the time, only by visual, not knowing the truth as I didn't speak with him.

My advice, is if you really want him there, then invite him, let him know he won't be walking you down the aisle (this should be done immediately), and don't force reconciling or even interaction of any sort on him. Just let him know you want him there, but not any confrontation, attitude, or drama. If he can accept this, then he's more than welcomed. Then, let your mother know that she is not to say more to him than a simple hello. And that if any fighting occurs, the culprit will be asked to leave (even if this is your mother). This is about you and your soon to be husband, not the issues of your parent's marriage that did not work out! Sorry, and hope everything works out for your big day!!!

Heidi, wishful thinking makes a very poor substitute for reality. Your dad sounds like a piece of work. More of a sperm donor than a real father.

Anyway, he is who he is: by your own description, he is "...a narcissistic, pessimistic man who had never gotten over his divorces..."

That is who your father is. You cannot make him be something else.

So: given that he's a narcissistic, pessimistic man who may be, from your description, actually mentally ill, you want him at your wedding because....?

I think you want to "heal" the situation and make everything okay, even if it's just for one day. Fairy-tale wedding with everyone making nice just for you.

But that doesn't sound realistic.

FWIW, when I got married, I made the decision to elope with my husband specifically to avoid family issues. My dad was bipolar (he's dead now) and had personality disorder issues, and he was a jerk at the best of times and a four-wheel-drive son of a (rhymes with "witch") who abused me and abused my mom when he was manic and psychotic. My mom stayed married to him, and I know that the hurt she felt when I eloped and got married without her there was one of the great hurts of her life. But having my father there would have made the happiest day of my life an occasion for hurtfulness and bad feeling, so I decided to do the only thing I felt was realistically possible.

You know the people involved. Your dad is who he is, warts and awful behavior and all. If you are grounded in reality, you know that you either accept him for who he is and accept whatever he does if you ask him to be at your wedding, or you decide that realistically there is no up-side to having him there and tell him to stay away. But pinning your hopes and yearnings on making someone over, trying to make them change, that's just beating your head against a wall. (Been there, done that, have the years of therapy to prove it.)

He is who he is. If you allow him to come and causes problems, can you accept that as the memory of your wedding and live with it? If the answer is an unqualified yes, then invite him and deal with it. Otherwise, stop hoping for a fairy-tale ending and accept that sometimes life deals you situations where you don't get the happy ending you wanted.

I think you have left center field on this inviting him to the wedding is one thing that would make him think he is walking you down the aisle you need to address this now! As for mom and dad reconciling isn't that asking too much for a one day event that won't last but a few hrs if that? If there is a problem it might be because you are not asking them to be civil at the wedding you are trying to get them to become pals or something but stop that let them deal with it because it has nothing at all to do with them attending your wedding just make sure to ask mom not to speak to him if that is his only wish and ask him that he not talk to her and leave it alone make sure both of them know that you love them want them there and that you hope they will remember it is your special day and try to avoid each other but not to be rude or mean to each other - I don't see what they can't attend like other people who might be there that don't really know each other and go on with it.

First off they are the only ones who can reconcile. you can't do anything about that. Accept express your uncomfortably. I don't think you'll have a problem with seating obviously your dad will avoid your mom at all costs. If your dad continues to act like a two year old ask him to not attend. Even though it might sting a little not having him there, it could be the best thing for you on YOUR day, when YOU are to be at YOUR happiest! Oh tell your mom kudos for trying, it takes a big person to set aside differences for the sake of someone else.

OMG. If my half sister wasn't already married I'd swear this was her posting about her wedding.

I'll tell you like I told her about our father: He's a narcissistic ego maniac. Everything is about him BUT you can trust him to come and behave himself as long as your mother doesn't talk to him. She's not spoken to him in all this time, she can not speak to him for a bit longer.

if he throws a fit and makes a scene anyway then you can just cut him off from your life and you don't have to associate with him ever again.

If you fear that he's going to misbehave anyway then just don't invite him. He hasn't been part of your life in all this time, he's missed all of the important and big events in your life up to now...this really won't be any different.

(in case you're wondering. she invited him, he came, he behaved himself, and he even spoke first to her mother and he was civil.)

don't put so much pressure on him to talk to your mom before hand. He will turn it into a battle of wills with you and you will lose and unnecessarily upset yourself. You would have to be as big or a bigger narcissist than him to beat him at this "I need you to talk to mom before you come" deal.

If you want him at your wedding, then just invite him and expect him to behave like an adult. If he disappoints you then you can go back to no contact again.

Congrats on the wedding and good luck with the difficult dad.

my situation is very similar, but to make it more interesting i have three sets of parents, because my mom remarried when I was still a baby and he adopted me, and then they divorced when I was 11. All of my parents have remarried and none of them get a long. My biological father was MIA until this past year (I'm 22). My adopted father, very abusive, but we're trying to change things and make it better. My mom is my rock. I love her to pieces, but she's never forgiven my dads for what they did to her and me and my sisters. And then on top of that, both of my dad's remarried women that have been just AWFUL to my mother.

My biggest concern at my wedding is that one of my step moms will do or say something in reference to my mother. and she'll hear it or see it, and then a fight will break out. That's never happened before but the six of them have never been in the same space before, and every time they've spoken in the past few years, they've fought, so the tension ahs just been building and building.

Since I am very close to my mother, I told her she absolutely had to keep her act together. I told her "I don't care if one of them calls you the b word under their breath and you happen to hear it...you suck it up for one day, and then you can punch them in the face the day after. I want everyone on their best behaviour at my wedding"

I actually wasn't even going to have a wedding at all because I was so worried about it, and I told them that. I told them I was so worried about their behaviour at the wedding, that I was just going to go to the court house and call it a day. And they got all upset, because I'm their first child and they all were looking forward to being part of the wedding. So, I'm making sure that they are sitting on opposite sides of the room at all times. I'm walking myself down the aisle so no one's ego gets in the way of a peaceful ceremony, and I've got my mother sitting a table with my aunt, her two best friends, and their spouses, and my fathers are sitting at a table with my fiance's parents (i'll have dad #1 on one side of my fiance's parents and dad #2 on the other side, so they don't have to deal directly with one another that much, and they've never met my fiance's family so that should distract them from hating one another long enough to eat their food)

I'm so sorry you have to go through that. Hopefully you'll get a variety of other suggestions to help you sort out what you think would work best for you. Good luck and I hope your day is drama free!

It sounds like he doesn't deserve you. Is it really going to make you happy if he is there? Think only about yourself, not about his feelings. You deserve it!

And I agree with the first answerer too. Perhaps you may want to try that first. (If not, totally understandable.)

People will thumb me down but I wouldn't invite him. Who care's that he is your biological father. He is no dad. If he cared about you and your relationship he would've sought you out earlier. Don't let him and his hang-ups ruin your nuptials. He needs to work for you, not against you.

Good Luck!