Hi to anyone reading this. I would really appreciate some feedback:
I had my hen do last night. It was really good. Some silly hats, good food, dancing, and a pole class activity before hand. 10 women came to that which is an ideal number for me and I really appreciated the effort from people who were Mums and without much money. In the day 5 of us went to a spa and a massage was arranged for me. People paid for me all night and three people made the long journey to London which I really appreciated.
Only thing is I was so looking forward to this being over because the whole ordeal was emotional agony where friends wouldn't initially get it together to plan it for me and my OH had to intervene and kick them up the arse. In the end friends delivered the goods. Close friends who couldn't attend because of living far away with children and being ill with ME, which initially caused my much upset sent presents on the day (flowers, bath oils, t-shirt). I felt really thought about and along the way got the whole pressure to have a great hen out of my system (because that makes a bride socially acceptable right? being sarcastic). I think my hen was a really good one for people who don't want to ask friends to spend hundreds of pounds and take childcare duties into consideration when choosing activities.
There was a little drama where my sister who came to stay from outside London went again after a few hours, not making dinner, because her son had an asthma attack. My friend dealt with that smoothly and we got her back to the car and she went home.
I think I feel resentful though. Not towards my friends efforts and contribution last night. But the whole process. It hasn't felt worth the stress. Basically, when OH and I got engaged his best man initially suggested the stag go to Africa. I was gobsmacked and upset because my friends have little money and his have enough to do this kind of stag, and then their own family holidays. This kind of stag would have outshone our honeymoon destination which is Greece (we are all in our 30-40s). We agreed a limit-there would be no hen/stag abroad. OH said he preferred this as has a few friends without much money. Then I encountered the stress of having quite a fragmented friendship group compared to his cohesive one where people have already done many stags together. I won't go into it here but believe me I had to do some good tempered assertiveness with friends to realise this was very important to me because over the years I have neglected celebrating my birthdays and so people aren't used to me getting them together. For the wedding though I really felt it important to get people to meet before hand. Also, whilst my friends and sister were initially being unsupportive and not rallying around with ideas or enthusiasm, were saying they couldn't come, my sister insisted I keep it low key, not quite getting the amount of invisibe peer pressure I felt from my OH's friends who have different expectations and as I said are very unified as a group (this all changed dramatically in the month before and because my OH intervened) I had to endure the shame of this whilst my OH's two best men constantly liaised and came up with ideas and planned his stag. Also, some of my friends can be quite cosmic and I felt a little embarassed about this in front of my OH's sister who is a successful career woman, had a thousand pound hen in Venice etc (although one of her hen invitees recently confided in me that was felt weird about going at the time because she didn't know OH sister very well at all). Consequently, the hen had such a stressful build up that I was really anxious that I wouldn't even have one so when in the end it came together as 10-12 people came across the day altogether that felt like a massive difference from where I was at the start.
Now however, instead of feeling relieved that I had a 'hen' I have woken up worrying, but not about having one and feeling worthy of people coming out for me, but of feeling self conscious about what my OH's sister thinks of me (cosmic friends, my sister leaving the hen and driving back home, it not being alpha female types). I am also worrying that I in the end wasn't loud or raucous enough as a bride to be (I am quite contained but adventurous and that is fine in most areas of my life). Again, this pressure to fit that norm came from comments by my OH's friendship group, intended or not. I'd had such a stressful time building up to it so I know I should be less hard on myself.
I think my issue is this. It has felt for me like a big performance to get right just because I'm getting married and I have felt that this has been driven by my OH's friends unintentionally exerting a peer pressure to be alpha, popular, flashy, cool etc. Also, what hasn't helped is OH's comments that my friends are 'kooky' and that my family are generally un-cool and perhaps would have a problem with the gypsy punk band he has organised for the wedding. We have had some pre-marriage couple therapy because he has a tendency to want and need social approval from his friends and sister and do things that are right ie. cool, in their eyes. Unintentionally he has made me feel inadequate and triggered lots of conflicts as I feel I am being judged or put down. Anyway, he is starting to recognise that so that's good as far as I'm concerned. Also, whilst he himself was feeling embarassed that my hen was not coming together and this was part of his motivation to sort it out, he also loves me and wanted me to have a hen. So he's good to me but he's not perfect and we work on things together. As you can tell, I have my own stuff-namely I'm a bit socially anxious.
So now even though I feel i had a hen that had people involved, having fun, wearing glittery hats etc., and don't need to worry about that anymore. Now I am worrying about what my OH's sister thinks of me and my friends. It was a bit awkward with her at the spa (she only came to the spa and pole which were day and early evening activities) as her social world is so different to mine. She is nice but again I felt this inferiority arise. My friend spoke to me afterwards jokingly saying she felt she couldn't 'nick' a spa pen in the cafe in front of OHs sister because she seems this high flying career woman. And there's me with my kooky friends who don't all know each other, and me not being miss extrovert.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
