"I appreciate how much you care about me, and I know my parents have been on their best behavior around you, but believe me-I have known them for my entire life, and I have good reason to believe they'd ruin the wedding for me. Even just worrying about it would stress me out. It must be hard to understand because you two would never do anything like that, but please believe me and know my mind is made up."
"I love my parents, but they're ... dysfunctional. My mom left my dad for his brother (spare me the jokes, I've heard all of them) and my dad is still very, very angry at everyone. My mom is avoiding her guilt by telling everyone who will listen about how much happier she is now and about how she made the right choice because how could she stay with someone so angry."
Fiancé's parents are kind and unfamiliar with significant family dysfunction. The mother left the father for his brother, and the father remains very angry. Both parents have shown themselves incapable of attending the same event without ruining it, including making a funeral about themselves. The couple plans to exclude these parents from the wedding and instead hold separate celebratory meals afterward. The fiancé's parents keep pushing for inclusion, believing exclusion is cutting the family out and imagining the parents will set aside differences for the big day. A firm, empathetic statement that the decision is final and that inviting them would cause undue stress is advised.
Read at Slate Magazine
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