Seven Years

(back row from L-R:  Eric's grandmother Faye, his mother Debi, his sister Amanda, me, Eric, his father Larry, and his sister-in-law Christi)

(front row from L-R:  his nephew Chad, niece Hayley, and nephew Gabriel)

June 18, 2005

Yesterday was mine and Eric's 7 year anniversary.  I'm not exaggerating when I say that it is a miracle that we've lasted this long.  We have struggled with one issue or another pretty much since day one. 

Anyway, "in honor"of our anniversary I thought I would take this opportunity to tell you all who don't know me (or do know me IRL and just don't know the story) about our wedding day (and the days leading up to it). 

Eric's family made it clear from the start that they weren't going to help pay for anything for the wedding.  My parents were struggling financially and were not able to help, so Eric and I ended up having to pay for it ourselves.  I went to a used dress store and bought my wedding dress and veil.  I went to Wal-Mart and bought light blue and white (the colors I wanted) wedding decorations and a fake flower bouquet for myself and my maid-of-honor.  I went out and bought a new pair of shoes that would go with my dress.  That was the extent of my wedding shopping.  Why?  Because I was between jobs and Eric was low-level management at McDonald's, so that's all we could afford. 

Almost every decision about the wedding was made by Eric's family, or more specifically, his mother.  She ruled over *everything*.  The few decisions Eric and I made were still influenced by her.  Looking back, I really wish things had been different.  Mine and Eric's relationship was still fairly new when we decided to get married.  I was very young and honestly a little intimidated by his family.  I had witnessed some of the "temper tantrums" that they threw when they didn't get their way with things so I let them boss me around just to avoid confrontation.  That should have been my first warning sign to just run away and never look back.  I held on though because I loved Eric so much.

It was decided that Eric's brother would be his best man.  No big deal.  That was fine with me.  But then it was decided that his sister would be my maid-of-honor.  Not my best friend.  Not any of my friends.  But my soon-to-be sister in law who had never really been all that nice to me.  Great. 

We had to get married at the church Eric's family was members of at the time.  We went through the required marriage counseling.  Then we chose a date and time for the wedding. 

Fast forward.

At the rehersal dinner the night before our wedding, Eric's mother was acting particularly "crazy".  She was seriously freaking out because the tables in the fellowship hall were not lined up the way that she thought they should be along with a bunch of other things.  She completely ruined the entire evening.  I never did get an apology. 

We invited a lot of people but not very many actually showed up.  It was Eric's family, his grandmother and cousin from Alabama, a couple people from the church, my parents, my uncle, my aunt, and two of my friends. 

After the wedding was over, we had to stay behind and clean up the fellowship hall because the church was having a Father's Day breakfast the next morning.  I don't mean "we" as in everybody, I mean "we" as in me and Eric.  Yeah.  No help from his family at all.  Thankfully my parents and friends stayed to help. 

You would think after that we'd get to leave for our honeymoon, right?  Wrong.  We had to stay because our honeymoon was going to be driving his grandmother and cousin back down to Alabama the next day.  Yep, you read it right.  It didn't matter that we barely had the money to pay for the few small things we had at our wedding.  We had to pay for gas to drive down to Alabama and back AGAIN.  Again, you ask?  Yes.  His grandmother and cousin didn't drive up here (we live in NC for those that don't know) for our wedding.  We drove down there to get them and bring them up here.  So once AGAIN we were paying for gas to go to Alabama and back.  Because a low-level manager at McDonald's with a wife that has no job has a ton of money, right?  Yeah. 

I'd like to say that things have gotten better over the years, but they haven't.  At least not by much.  We did finally end up cutting all ties with Eric's family.  The relationship with them was toxic at best and it was just time for it to end.  I had hoped things would get better after that.  I don't know if it's because so much damage had already been done by his family or what, but we're still fighting to put the pieces together.  We've been hit with stress from job situations, a separation (we separated for 2 months in 2009), trust issues and many, many other things. 

We're still trying though.  We haven't given up yet.