Restructured families--divorced parents and step-parents--aren't easy for our grown kids to navigate, especially when their weddings roll around. Traditions and protocols that involve multiple parents and their participation in the ceremony can be a minefield of hurt feelings.
As young couples revise their approach to traditional wedding ceremonies, one ritual that has been inflicting pain is that of walking the bride down the aisle. Who's gonna do it? Should it be done at all? A few posts ago, we looked into the case of how a father felt when his daughter told him that neither he nor anyone else would be escorting her down the aisle. No man-to-man handoff of the bride. That was the bride's point: She was not chattel to be given away.
Now we have an instance where the dad is hurt because his daughter has asked her stepdad to walk her down the aisle. Like the dad in the previous post, he is threatening not to attend the wedding. He writes to the NYTimes Ask the Therapist that he and the bride's mother have been divorced for 36 years but during that time he has been "an active and present dad, and we have a good relationship." Nonetheless, the father writes, in addition to giving the bride away "I’m assuming he will also be the one to have a father-daughter dance. This has crushed me. I didn’t say anything to her other than, “Oh, OK.” But I was devastated."
Psychotherapist Lori Gottleib acknowledges the depth of his wound:
These traditional fatherly roles — walking the bride down the aisle, sharing a dance — can carry enormous emotional significance for some people. Perhaps for you, having your daughter’s stepfather perform these rituals feels like an erasure of your parental identity and all the years you’ve invested in being present for your daughter, as well as a referendum on your daughter’s love for you compared with her love for her stepfather.
Gottleib reminds the dad that there’s another way to look at this.
Given that your daughter wants her stepfather’s involvement in her wedding, it sounds like he has been a warm and meaningful presence in her life. Could you step back, and appreciate him not as a rival or replacement in your daughter’s life, but as a positive addition for her? Can you see both your fatherly roles as a collaborative investment in her life rather than as a competition?
Her main piece of advice is no surprise: The dad should not go AWOL for the wedding.
Skipping your daughter’s wedding would transform your hurt feelings into a story that only you are telling, one of not being wanted, or important to her, and rewrite the narrative of your relationship in ways you don’t intend.
One final piece of Gottleib wisdom to the dad and by extension to any of us who've faced situations where our grown children have inflicted pain on us, however unintentional:
The truest measure of your parenting is in the consistent presence you’ve maintained throughout her life. Don’t let one reactive decision erase that legacy. The wedding day will pass, but your decision to attend despite your hurt feelings will speak volumes about your character and your willingness to be the father your daughter needs. And that, I guarantee, is what she’ll remember long after the cake has been cut and the last dance danced.
Painting: Wedding March, Theodore Robinson