My oldest son, age 39, hasn't spoken to me for two years. His father and I are divorced and it started when my son got married. His father and his girlfriend took my seats at my son's wedding and as I was being walked down the aisle I realized I didn't have a place to sit. I found a seat rows back but this upset me. The seating had all been arranged at the rehearsal which my ex had attended. I didn't broach the subject until the following week when I sent my ex an email asking him why he had done that and he then forwarded my email to all four of my children asking them what the problem was. My ex never responded to me. My son was furious. His new bride's mom was ill and couldn't attend the wedding so he wondered what the big deal was. Perhaps he was right but the issue was between his father and me which I tried to explain to him. My son has cut all contact with me over this. He still speaks to his father. I miss him terribly and don't understand this at all. Why am I the bad guy and why won't he talk to me?

Is your son your only child that won't speak to you? What do your other children say about this? There has to be some other reason for him acting this way. I wonder what his father has told him?

Please repsond :)

There seems to be something more to this story than what you're telling. How was your relationship with our son prior to his wedding?
How did you behave at the wedding? - you say you were 'upset'.
Have you tried to contact and speak with him since?

Perhaps if you spoke to one of your other children about this they may have an insight into what is going on. Could one of your other children act as a 'mediator' and bring your estranged son and yourself together?

Otherwise you could write him a letter (not an email) explaining that you miss him and that you'd really like to resolve the estrangement, or alternatively, turn up on his doorstep with a bunch of flowers and a bottle of wine (this might be too confronting for you both).

If you reach out to him, honestly and with sincerity and he rejects your approach then you may have to accept that it's about him (and his inability to forgive whatever it is that you've done), rather than about you, and anything you have actually done.

My other children and I get along just fine. My relationship with my son was exceptional before this happened. I spent the two days before the wedding with him and his fiancé getting things ready for the wedding. Just the 3 of us. We were very close. My other children do not understand it either. That's why this is such a mystery. I have emailed him, written him, sent him his birthday and Christmas gifts as though nothing has happened, telling him how much I miss him. He won't respond. I ask my other children how he is. They keep in touch. I haven't asked them to intervene. I know nothing about his relationship with his father except that they are in touch. His father was just at their house for the holidays. I thought it was perhaps because her mother was so ill and then passed away and perhaps since his wife lost her mother, he doesn't need one either. I know that's extreme. Also, perhaps his wife has replaced me. I don't know.

I would just like to figure out how to approach this and just be able to speak to him for a minute or two. Not to rehash - just to reconnect.

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Originally Posted by cfsIIII

I would just like to figure out how to approach this and just be able to speak to him for a minute or two. Not to rehash - just to reconnect.

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His behavior sounds irrational and astonishing - if, as you say, things between you were OK before the wedding. I suspect that his wife and her mother's death may have something to do with it - what I don't know.

If I were you I would ask one of your other children to find out what is going on - not to intervene - just to find out what is going on.

My sense of this is, that you can't know what your approach is going to be until you understand the reason for his silence.

What I don't understand is that the seating was set in concrete after the rehearsal dinner, to which your ex attended. Everybody knew where they were to sit when the bridal procession went down the aisle.

Perhaps he thought that because the brides mom was ill and couldnt' attend, that his g/f could take her spot? But, that would not have been 'your' spot anyway, as it was intended for her mother.

Is it possible that when you saw your ex, with his g/f, that you decided not to sit where you were supposed to, you may have been so upset that you didn't realize that wasn't your seat to begin with?

I think this most likely would have caused a scene. You son and his bride see you walking down the aisle, then they see you turn around and go several seats back. Perhaps this was seen as being disrespectful to your husbands girlfriend.

Maybe nobody knows why you did that. I'm thinking that if the arrangements were for you to sit beside your ex, with the bride's mother, in the original plan, there must have been a spot next to her, for you. The mother of the bride not being there would have meant that you were now sitting next to your ex's girlfriend, instead of the bride's mother.

I'm just trying to look at this as maybe they would have.

Is it possible that you may have just been shocked to see his girlfriend sitting there, know that you had to sit beside her, and didn't want any part of this?

As far as the seating was concerned, the wedding was outside. There were two rows at the top of the left side, each row containing two seats. The first two seats were ribboned off for her parents with flowers because we knew they couldn't come. The next two directly behind the first two were for my ex and me. The rows then consisted of five seats each on each side of the aisle. There was no confusion as to where we were supposed to be seated. I did not walk up and then turn back. I walked up as close to the two seats as I could where there was a seat. It was behind my ex and his GF on the left side where there was an open seat, actually next to my former brother in law. He had to move all of his camera equipment so I could sit down. It took a minute or two. I haven't involved my other children. Don't want to put them in the middle of this.

That must have been heartbreaking for you then. Just imagining if that had happened to me.

If it had been my son getting married, and that same thing happened with me, I would have been extremely hurt to say the least. Plus confused, angry and disappointed.

Other than your family, have you talked to anybody else that attended the wedding? Do you have any idea what the impressions are from other people?

If there was a wedding planner, I'd be calling her/him to ask what went wrong too.

I do hope you also speak to your other children when you have the opportunity. I do believe that you deserve an answer. Usually I would say, things never go 100% at a wedding, there are always glitches, but this seems too big a 'glitch' to just let it go.

I hope you post again with what you find out.

The reactions of those there that had also attended the rehearsal and knew how things were supposed to go were shocked, angry and saddened. At the end of the ceremony, my ex was also supposed to walk me out. Everyone was waiting for me to exit after the wedding party so I walked up to the pastor at the front who is a very close friend and walked out with him. All spur of the moment. My friends thought I handled it with class. But the biggest issue again is getting my son to speak to me. I've thought about just going to his house and knocking on the door even though he lives 4 hours away. Or do I just let this run its course and wait. I can't tell you how much I have missed him.

His actions are very baffling. It really does seem that there was an agenda of sorts, that even the wedding rehearsal was was only a front for what was to really happen. Do you think that this could have been planned before the wedding itself? It seems some thought must have gone into making it, to say the least, uncomfortable for you to be there, if not impossible to up and leave.

Could there have been something said, or something done, innocently, during the preparations for the wedding? Something that was taken out of context, or that somebody may have taken the wrong way?

But even at that, and you've probably already though of that, does not excuse their behaviour toward you.

I agree with your friends that you handled it it a very classy way. I know I would not have been so composed.

But what to do about it is equally confusing. Have you tried talking via email or by phone to your new daughter in law?

I would think that because their actions were so deliberate, that they would have a reason for them. I do not buy the glitch theory anymore than you do.

All I can tell you is what I would do under the circumstances. That would be to confront both of them, pending one more option for a reply to your email. Try again with an email, saying you are not going to let this go until you have an answer one way or the other, and they can expect to see you if they do not offer an explanation, in person, in the very near future.

Some may say that sounds a little threatening, but, considering the circumstances, I'd give it a shot, but that's just my opinion.

I have never attended a wedding where the mother of the groom was treated so badly, even if she deserved it!

Baffling.