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• Monday, August 18, 2008 04:22 PM

  alternate theory

  I'm finding it hard to believe that the LW is extracting payments from her parents, too. There's got to be a reasonable explanation for this. Maybe her parents wanted the wedding, insisted on it, but couldn't pay for it. Could she come from a cultural background where a large wedding, a big show of hospitality on the part of the bride's parents, is really important? Did she lend them the money so they wouldn't lose face? Is it a point of pride for them to be able to say they at least partly paid for their daughter's wedding? Since she says she doesn't think parents should be responsible for paying for an entire wedding and that she was happy to contribute, I suspect she's not quite as ungrateful as a lot of posters seem to think she is.

  If that's the case, maybe she could set aside that money and save it so that someday, when they need it, she'll have it in reserve for them.

  Her husband sounds like a jerk with a serious dose of class anxiety. Come on! Medical school is expensive. Most doctors start out with a huge amount of debt. If he has none, they should be able to pay hers off all the more quickly. Unless, of course, he won't share his money with her. If that's the case, it doesn't bode well for the marriage--but then, neither did the comment he made to his mother about it having been a mistake to marry someone with so much debt.

  —Marianna Trench Read Marianna Trench's other letters
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