Do you really think that Michelle is going to let a reunion happen between Jane and Jay. No Michelle has the plan to be shed of Jane forever. This may or may not be Jay's plan but who can really tell because we were blocked from seeing his face or facial expressions and all we saw was the sadness of Jane and the hatred of Michelle.
You say that you decided to be shed of your MIL, because you felt that this was the best course. In a few years you may be able to go forward and have a relationship with her or you may find that your children desire a relationship with granny that has absolutely nothing to do with you. They will hear your side and her side and they will have to choose. That is what adults do, they look at all the available information and then make choices that are in their best interest.
We got a snapshot of this situation. We know that her side of the family (they were presumably close to Jay when he was growing up because he asked his cousin to be his best man) are saying that Jay was always very close to his mother. They are saying that all of this changed when Michelle and he became engaged and now he has banned his mother from his wedding and his life. They made a choice based on the information available to them and decided to not support this union.
We have Michelle's mother saying that Michelle is the innocent party in this and that she was provoked to write numerous emails (even after the other party had withdrawn from the field) and that she supported her daughters behaviour toward Jane. We then have the two parties on the stage. In the first show the ladies each were trying to draw blood and Jay sat there impassively letting the ladies fight over him like a bone. Jane was in full fury and swiping at the unfairness of the situation and wringing her hands in a pathetic rendition of Lady Macbeth.
We were left with the impression of a desperate woman trying to win back the affection of a defected lover. Dr. Phil suggested that she needed to let go and that a hero was needed. So Mom agrees to go for counselling. The first few minutes of todays episode is her greiving reaction to the last show and all the stages that her grief took. We plot her anger, joys, acceptance and then we are looking to see how the other side has dealt with this in the last 2 months.
We see them smiling away at the wedding, while mom and her posse cry at home. We see Michelle say that this has really been the best of her life save for the fact that she recieved roses from a deranged woman and now she is contemplating a restraining order. Then to top off wacky she gets a nice poem in the mail. Can you spell stalker. And then Michelle says I hate her more today then I ever have. Has the woman been sending threatening letters, going by her work, leaving dead birds on the seat of her car. No! Much worse, she continues to breath. And while Jane tries to again apologize, she is slapped again and again. When she tries to get a reaction from her son, she gets the We want you to a acknowledge everything you have said or done and to agree to a laundry list of 15 things before we can agree to even try to mend the relationship.
Jane's counsellor must have been shocked by what happened on the stage. For the last few weeks she and her client had worked towards a future. They had agreed that you couldn't live in the past and concentrating on Dr. Phils book, they were building toward a future and asking for what you need. Jane had obviously started on some sort of antidepressent, and was really positive when she came on this time they would see that she had worked hard and was just looking for a small opening in which to start again. Instead as we watched she deflated before our eyes. There was to be no forgiveness and they just wanted her to go home and they would maybe think about starting a diologue with her in a few months.
Where does Jane go from here. Dr. Phil needs to keep paying for her to stay in counselling. She needs to work toward her mental health and healing herself and forgiving herself for all that has happened. She needs to stop responding to their emails, and phone calls and she needs to put herself first. Jay is a grown man and he made his choice. When he is ready to ask his mother for forgiveness then he can put himself out there like she did. She should spend the money that she would normally spend on him on herself. On his birthday she should treat herself to a day at the spa and a night on the town. Forgo drinking away the pain and indulge in a journal. Write every hateful and vindictive thing you feel in the book and then burn it. Turn to the family she has left and let them spoil her for a while. But above all else, do not contact them unless their is a family emergency and then let someone else do it. You can't make war when one of the parties surrenders, but that doesn't mean you should spend your life eating crow.
Good Luck Jane. You were very gutsy to try this. Whatever happens in the future you will always know you tried to heal this wound.
(Original Air Date: 11/27/07) Dr. Phil follows up with a family torn apart when the mother was banned from her only son’s wedding. The bride-to-be, Michelle, said she’d rather burn in hell than let her future mother-in-law, Jane, attend the ceremony, and her fiancé, Jay, stood behind her decision. This sent the entire family into a tailspin, with the best man resigning, the aunt disowning the groom and the wedding planner on alert to call 911 if Jane showed up. The big day has come and gone, and everyone returns to update Dr. Phil with the latest. Were they able to bury the hatchet before the wedding? Jane has gone through a rollercoaster of emotions, and Dr. Phil finds out what has her so mad at him, she even wrote him a scathing letter one week after her appearance. Has Jane done a 180-degree turn since? Has Michelle stopped her “campaign of hate mail” as Jane called it and opened up her arms to her husband’s mother? Share your thoughts, join the discussion.
