It's two weeks before the wedding, and I'm having second thoughts.
My mom and I have been through a lot together, where it's been us vs. "them" during her divorce, my dad dying, etc. starting from when I was in high school. We are very close, to the point where even she says that I am too close to her sometimes. She has been nothing but supportive my entire life, and I consider her my best friend.
DH and I have been dating for four years and were friends before that. We got engaged late last year and already got married in a civil ceremony in January (we wanted to have my name change and some paperwork done quickly for various reasons -- like going on an overseas honeymoon). We have a big ceremony and reception coming up very soon with 200+ guests.
DH's family is very money-oriented. They don't really have very positive relationships with each other. My mom has always looked down on people who care a lot about pursuing money (over other things).
My mom gave her blessing when DH asked before proposing to me. She expressed some reservations to me about his family, but ultimately she said that she trusted that I would pick someone right and good, and that she supported me. This has been pretty typical of her with other relationships/boyfriends that I've had in the past -- no passing judgments, just supporting me if I say they make me happy.
Soon after our engagement, DH and I had a conversation during which he expressed strong concern/criticism that my mom isn't currently working and is living off of her savings. He said that he doesn't like the way she spends her money -- she saves money on some things but makes a lot of impulse buys as well. He was very judgmental, and it hurt me to hear what he was saying. I ended up talking to my mom about it, and she was furious. DH ended up apologizing to her in person for judging her, but deep down I think he still harbors the same thoughts.
Since then, my mom and DH have had consistent problems. DH is emotionally disengaged and doesn't seem to have any interest in developing a relationship with my mom. My mom seems to be really trying to engage him and develop a relationship with DH, but deep down she just doesn't like him or his family.
Complicating the matter is that DH is in real estate, and my mom is currently looking to purchase a new property. She was trying to use him as her agent since he's her new son-in-law, even though she has other friends who are also agents and would love to help her. DH has been very flaky in meeting with her and doing the work for her, and that offends my mom to no end; she feels that he doesn't like her, doesn't want to work with her, is blowing her off on purpose.
And to be honest, DH doesn't like my mom. He's never come straight out and said it like that, but he's said that he thinks that she's irresponsible for not working and that he doesn't like that she breaks promises and doesn't finish projects that she starts (which is true, but kind of none of his business).
About a month ago, my mom found a property about an hour away that she said she wanted to move to, leaving our current home as a rental. She went through all the motions of purchasing it through him, etc etc. And then she and I had a big fight about DH and some other things, and she cancelled the purchase at the last minute, saying that she had been motivated to move out of the area to "escape" being treated poorly by myself and DH in the future, and that she didn't want to run away. DH had to find a way to back out of the contract without incurring penalties.
My mom decided to purchase a rental property locally instead (and remain living in our current home), and this past week, she met with DH to arrange to look at a few properties yesterday. My mom forgot what time they were supposed to meet, and when she called him to find out, he said that he hadn't had time to look up the properties and that he didn't have time that day to go and physically look at properties. He later told me that he thought the meeting was to go over a couple dozen properties on paper. She thought the meeting was to physically go.
Anyway, that was the last straw for my mom, and she says that the way he treats her is a good indication of how he'll treat me in the future. She opposes the marriage, took back her blessing, and says we should just dissolve the marriage. She is insistent that he will NOT be a good husband. She says that if I'm confident that DH's behavior were just mistakes and not malicious/intentional, then I should dissolve the marriage, and then wait a year to see if his behavior changes at all.
I'm at a total loss. I trust my mom to have my best interests at heart. I love DH, and I think we are very compatible. We disagree on some values that we've inherited from our parents, but we have so far tried to work things out by talking about them. We lived together for about 6 months while my mom was overseas, and we were very happy together. But, it's a big problem to me that the two of them don't get along. I feel like if this were someone else's story, I would tell them to cut their losses and move on, but I don't want to. I want to be loyal to my newly-formed family with DH, but it breaks my heart to hurt my mom or see her hurt by him.
Please give me your thoughts.
zitiqueen:
Love to scrapbook! 
AJ is 2 going on 3 and Joshua is 6 months.. I am exhausted! 
Re: Now there's a surprise
If the OPs mother has enough money to live off of her savings for the rest of her life, that's great. But if not, I think the OPs H was correct to question it--he is probably concerned that down the road he will be expected to support her.
Also, the MIL backing out of the real estate deal at the last second is something that really could have hurt him professionally.