A wedding dress is at the center of a heated mother/daughter battle. Jamillah thought her mother Muriel bought her wedding dress as a gift until they had an argument. Jamillah says Muriel stopped taking her calls and refused to give her the dress! Mu
riel made her intentions clear in a letter: Send the money and I’ll send the dress. Otherwise, off to eBay it goes!
“I bought the dress because I felt that I had to buy the dress,” says Muriel. “Because I’m a mother and I should. I had boundaries for how much the dress should cost. The dress was way over the budget. The reason I want her to pay for the dress is because the dress was purchased out of a deep and abiding love that I no longer feel.”
It’s been nearly a year since Jamillah and her mother Muriel have spoken. With the wedding date quickly approaching, Jamillah wonders, can she have her dream dress and her mother at her wedding?
Expert Advice
Syndicated advice columnist and author Harriette Cole says that Muriel, 54, and Jamillah, 30, have reached a crossroads in their relationship that is normal for many mothers and daughters at these ages. The main challenge is to meet each other where they are now, in the moment. Muriel is a woman who has come into her own. Jamillah is a woman who is growing into her own. What happened in the past has to stay in the past.
