An advice columnist didn’t hold back when a hapless mother wrote in asking what to do about her brother’s refusal to offer her daughter a $1,000 money gift for her wedding — after his niece banned him from the nuptials over his conservative views.
The mother, who signed herself “Indignant in Philadelphia,” wrote to popular advice columnist Amy Dickinson’s “Ask Amy” column telling how her “very politically progressive” daughter asked that her conservative-minded uncle Dave not be invited to her wedding.
“Although she and Dave have all the time had a great relationship (I believed), he’s a conservative voter and has supported candidates all of us abhor,” the mother wrote.
“I wrote Dave a really nice note, telling him that we’d not be comfortable with him at the marriage and that he wouldn’t be invited.”
“Dave didn’t respond and didn’t attend,” she added.
The mother wrote that after the marriage, she sent Dave photos from it “to make him feel like he was not being totally omitted,” but he never responded and hasn’t responded to anything since. She added that her other siblings were indignant at her over the entire affair.
However the mother was just getting began.
“One other problem is that Dave has not sent my daughter and son-in-law a marriage gift,” she wrote, explaining that her brother has all the time given relations over $1,000 in money as wedding gifts, and her daughter was upset she’d not received anything from him.
“Dave’s behavior is upsetting and embarrassing to me,” she wrote. “How can I get my brother to acknowledge and alter his petty behavior?”
“Please don’t tell me that I’m the one who began this by not inviting my brother to the marriage. In any case, he’s a grown man, while my daughter is young and just starting out.”
“Brides who’re too afraid of relations to ask them to a family wedding don’t then get the pleasure of receiving their money.”
“Ask Amy”
Starting with a summation of the events, Amy didn’t hold back together with her advice.
“Let’s recap: Your delicate daughter is simply too frightened to be near a conservative voter to permit her uncle ‘Dave’ to attend her wedding,” she wrote.
“She then asks you to do her dirty work for her, and (in fact) you do!” Amy wrote, then explained that sending Dave the photos from the marriage was only rubbing his nose in his banishment.
“But it surely’s your second ‘problem’ which I feel will enter the Bridezilla Hall of Infamy,” Amy said.
“In brief: Brides who’re too afraid of relations to ask them to a family wedding don’t then get the pleasure of receiving their money.”
“You seem almost as afraid of your daughter as she is of your brother, but I hope you’ll discover a method to courageously tell her that the Bank of Uncle Dave is closed, no less than to your branch of the family.”
Dickinson closed by advising that Dave was the one person within the situation behaving appropriately and that the mother should do as he was doing: “steering clear, which is precisely what you might have asked him to do.”
