tired...very tired

I’m starting to get horribly fatigued with all this marriage crap…and that’s what it is…crap. Yep, I’m fairly cheesed off and my warped worldview allows me to justify my cheesed off-ed-ness quite nicely thank you. Allow me to explain…

• No matter what the situation, no matter the time, female family members are not allowed to tell the groom, “shut up and live with the secrets—they’ll be over after the wedding.” Uh, no…I lived with secrets and lies and untold mountains of **it in the first marriage (hell, I still don’t know the real reason the ex decided to toss me down those stairs) and I’m not living it now. So, yes, Aunties and Mom…I’ll ask what’s going on all I want and demand answers when everyone stops talking when I walk into a room…and Kathleen will, too. Remember, she shares the same worldview I do. And don’t tell her to stop living in my shadow. That’s just crap and you all know it.
  

• Under no circumstances will the women of my family summon me to a spot in order to get me to do the heavy lifting. My mother in law decided it would be prudent to call me today to tell me she will call me to report to the country club tonight after my fiancee’s wedding shower (yeah, that shower she didn’t want---we wanted the Jack & Jill Party, but the family went bonkers and we got beaten down—I’m still not proud of that one). She said she’d call me “when my services were needed.” Oh, really? How are you fixed for a no? You made the mess, you clean it up. And yes, I understand I turned down the opportunity to have my own party (translation: I DON’T DO STAG PARTIES). We’ll get into that one next.

• My mother in law also thought it prudent to belittle my choice to refuse a stag party, telling me I have no right to "whine" about not having any sort of party where I'm involved. Oh really? Gee whiz, Mom, would you like your future son in law to participate in a night of debauchery complete with strippers and sordid and degrading acts? That’s not in my nature, and you shouldn’t be condoning it. Hell, two members of my high school class tested HIV+ after a stag party…not nice. And when I suggested a dinner at a good steak house, I couldn’t get anyone to give me the time of day.

I guess I’m just sick and tired of all this wedding stuff. I feel as though I’m just an insignificant part of the entire thing, when in fact…just like Dad always said, “without the groom, there is no wedding.” Granted that notion is a little different nowadays, but the point is there.

Somedays I wonder…do I really matter at all? Do I?