 Dr. Dale Atkins understands your wedding woes and has the perfect sanity-saving solutions for emotional issues, family questions, and fears about the engagement, wedding planning, and future.
 | My parents absolutely love my fiancé. He has been attending church with us ever since the beginning of our relationship, over a year ago. In truth, he is the son they've never had. There is a problem, however: I don't know if his parents love or even like me. We don't really spend much time with them, since my fiancé lives on his own, but I take every opportunity to get to know them. Each meeting causes me to feel like I have butterflies in my stomach. I always feel that if I screw up anything, they'll hate me for life. For a time I was thinking of asking his mother to help me with my bridesmaids dresses, because I feel that his parents need to be involved in planning our wedding somehow. How can I go about asking them to get involved, and how can I begin to feel comfortable around my in-laws? |  |  | For starters, you need to change your attitude about the fear that your fiancé's parents will hate you if you make a mistake. Take it from me, we ALL screw things up from time to time. You are not on trial, and his parents cannot be the judge and the jury, waiting to sentence you for any infraction. You are the person their son loves and wishes to marry, and it is natural that you should want them to be involved in the planning of your wedding. While you mention that you had hoped to ask your future mother-in-law for help in choosing bridesmaids dresses, you might want to offer some options, and even see if she has her own ideas about helping you out. It would be beneficial and appropriate to explain to your future in-laws that you look forward to being with them, getting to know them, and allowing them to know you better. Try to understand why you are so petrified of these people, and then deal with it in a way that helps you and them. You did not indicate that your fiancé's parents have given you reason to be so frightened of them, so perhaps the problem is one of perception.
| |  Dr. Dale Atkins is a professional psychologist and frequent media expert specializing in couple and family relationships. Dr. Dale is also an author with five books to her credit: Sisters; Families and Their Hearing Impaired Children; From the Heart (co-author); I'm OK, You're My Parents; and the most recently published, Wedding Sanity Savers (co-author). Currently living in Connecticut with her husband and dog, Dr. Dale has two grown sons and a private practice in New York City. | |
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