when my husband gets on the phone, my mother-in-law is yelling so loudly that

people can hear her without speakerphone.

She refuses to return the keys.

At this point, we're wasting our honeymoon morning.

So we text her, leave the keys at the front desk.

They know it's our car.

If not, we'll file a police report.

As we head toward the lot, I suddenly hear my husband say, Kat, get in the car now.

I run to the car.

And just in time to see her sprinting towards him, and she

throws the keys at his face.

this is wild.

I'm

the words that I wanna use right now are not suitable for podcasts, but Oh wow.

Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of Here Comes the Drama.

I'm your host, Krista Ennis, and instead of a brand new episode today, what we're

gonna do is compile some clips from some of our popular episodes featuring Jubilee,

Sarah, Beth, Kendra, and Cliff Notes Gal. These are some wild stories, some

great conversations, and so much more.

But don't you worry, at the very end I'm going to update you on a popular dilemma

that we featured a couple weeks back.

So stick around for the very end and I'm going to share that story update

So without further ado, please enjoy this little recap, and I'll see

you at the end for a little update

this is my best friend in theory and this is my wedding day.

I can't imagine that she would do this.

And that is when he decided to let me in on the fact that this was not

the first time that something like this had happened with Crystal.

Oh.

And it had gotten buried.

But basically Crystal had been living with this family member with dementia.

And she had been taking care of her along with her husband, and

they were living in the house.

But my, family members, they were very wealthy, you know, so it's not like

they were suffering, know, they're living in this giant mansion, rent

free and taking care of them, which really just meant, I don't know,

bringing them take out sometimes.

You know, it wasn't that hard of a job.

And apparently during a span of three, maybe three to four years,

they had spent, around 300 to $400,000 of my family members' money.

I know.

And it, it's absolute insanity.

And okay.

To this day, when I confronted Crystal about all of this, she says,

well, they wanted me to spend it.

they wanted me to spend this money.

They told me to go buy whatever I wanted, and absolutely not.

There's no way.

On top of that, she had drained every single one of their bank accounts.

So my family member had had a good amount of money and I mean, crystal

absolutely knew what she was doing because she would take every account

to zero and then we have record that the checks were bouncing and then

she would switch to the next account.

What?

And to the next account.

And during this time she was going on extravagant trips.

they were, yeah, going on cruises.

They were going to DC doing whale watching.

He was getting new tires on his car.

They even used my family member's card to pay around $7,000 in taxes to the IRS.

Oh my gosh.

I know.

And the thing that I'm like, this is nail in the coffin.

The same day that they put those taxes on the card, they also got

A check for almost the exact same amount from the family member.

so they got paid for it twice and mm-hmm.

I guarantee what happened was Crystal went to this person and

said, oh, we owe this money.

I'm so stressed, would you please pay it?

And so not only did she kind of like manipulate somebody who has dementia,

she ended up actually putting it on the card and then taking the

check and making money off of that.

wild.

Yeah, it was horrible.

So the reason I didn't find out about this was there was a huge blowup where caused

a lot of drift in the family at the time.

And when I was in Atlanta, I received this call from Crystal and she was crying

and I mean, this is my best friend, you know, and you feel like you always want to

have your best friend's back, so mm-hmm.

She called me crying saying, I'm being accused of stealing.

And I didn't do this.

And they just see that a lot of money has been spent, but they don't realize that

the reason that the credit card is so high is because I'm paying all of the bills.

I'm paying the energy bill, I'm paying the mortgage, I'm doing all of this.

This is why the bill seems so high, but nobody wants to listen to me.

Mm-hmm.

and they just are want to misunderstand me.

And she also said, and I did spend a little too much at Dillard's one day.

She said, but you know how this family member is, they'll tell you to

go get anything you want sometimes.

And I just spent too much one day at the mall.

but she had told me that I could.

And honestly, that kind of tracked my family member was like that.

She was very giving.

There would be times where before school would start, she would give me

her card and say, I want you to go get at least $500 worth of school clothes.

You know, and she was just a very giving person.

But that is very different than three to $400,000.

yeah.

I can't even comprehend that.

No, I'm like, that's an outrageous amount of money.

And I mean, it was honestly just crazy spending.

It was daily Starbucks, they had so many subscription, like chewy boxes.

They had clothing subscriptions, getting mailed to them.

Yeah.

They were also getting a maid service get sent to their personal house.

They eventually moved out and a maid was coming and cleaning their

house on my family member's card.

and they eventually moved to Baltimore for her husband's work.

And while they were even living in a different state, they were still

using her card and living off of her.

She also pulled another con on my bachelorette, so it's so ridiculous.

Like it's just a pattern of behavior.

So there was another situation where we went to Hell, the Moon, which is this

really fun piano bar with Bachelorette and it's always super packed and it's

hard to get a table on the weekends.

So we wanted to reserve two tables and I think it was around $260.

Mm-hmm.

And it was gonna be split between five girls.

So my maid of honor Crystal had sent out a text saying, here is.

How much it's gonna cost if everybody can Venmo me.

I think it was around $56.

Everybody Venmo me $56, for your portion of this.

And then once I found the wedding alcohol scam, I started going back to all these

other statements and I saw that that was also on the card and that she had

never paid for the hell at the moon.

So she's

trying to make money off of it.

Yeah.

she didn't pay herself and she

did, she, she made money off of all of my friends and family because, we sent

her money for that and she pocketed it.

So, it was just a pattern of behavior.

So then we started looking into it even more and found out that not only

had she done that all those years before, but she was still doing it now,

She said the hotel staff was just standing there wide-eyed.

We go to the front desk.

The woman working had seen everything and was incredibly kind.

We asked her to call my mother-in-law's room since she was ignoring our

calls, so she literally ran away with their keys to her room.

Wow.

She does.

And when my husband gets on the phone, my mother-in-law is yelling so loudly that

people can hear her without speakerphone.

She refuses to return the keys.

At this point, we're wasting our honeymoon morning.

So we text her, leave the keys at the front desk.

They know it's our car.

If not, we'll file a police report.

We pack up and decide to take my car instead.

At least they both have a car there.

As we head toward the lot, I suddenly hear my husband say, Kat, get in the car now.

I run to the car.

And just in time to see her sprinting towards him, and she

throws the keys at his face.

this is wild.

I'm like picturing this in like a parking

lot.

Wow.

the words that I wanna use right now are not suitable for podcasts, but Oh wow.

Oh my gosh.

that is insane.

It's because she didn't get what she wanted.

She thought by them saying like she thought.

By her withholding the keys.

They'd be like, okay, you know what, we'll

take you.

They'd have to do what she wanted and good for them, honestly, as

a team for setting a boundary.

Because issues with in-laws come up all the time, all day, every day.

Right.

And like when it comes to a marriage, a marriage is different than just

being boyfriend girlfriend or dating someone because you really, really

have to have each other's back first before anyone else in your life.

That's what makes marriage work.

And, avoid talking about tough stuff that you're going through with them, with

your family, even a lot of your friends, because it's gonna set up this sort of

like, me versus him, kind of a dynamic.

Yeah.

When you're really, I love what this couple did.

They stuck together.

they called the bluff.

They were like, look, we're not gonna let your tantrum throw off our day.

leave our keys or, you know, we'll act accordingly and.

It worked like good for them.

That was like honestly some of the best like training for marriage right there.

and they passed the test.

They leaped over that hurdle.

Literally they did it, they really did handle it very well of just

being like, you know what, like almost treating it like, a toddler.

Okay.

Yeah.

If you're gonna act that way, we're gonna just figure out, we're gonna keep going

this way because you're just not Sorry.

You know what

I wanna do?

I don't know if you can do this, but like I would really love to send them a

little gift and like congratulate them on getting through that in a graceful way.

I'll have to see.

Yeah.

When they like sent it.

I do have their, this person's information, so I'll have to

see like when they sent it.

But we have these really sweet Honey Ben Stanley's

that we could send them.

Oh, cute.

Oh, I love that.

That's so cute.

She then storms off again.

I check on him.

We get in the car and finally we drive off.

Still married, still heading to our honeymoon, but absolutely stunned.

And sadly, this wasn't the last of it over the past 10 years.

Okay.

So this was 10 years ago.

Wow.

Oh my God.

Noticed.

This was 10 years ago.

We've dealt with stunt after stunt, emotional manipulation, dramatic

scenes, chaos at every family gathering.

But this was the first of many wild moments.

She's thrown our way.

And finally, this year, for the sake of our children, we've made the decision

to significantly limit contact.

Wow.

So it took 10 years of manipulation and dramatic scenes, all that stuff to

finally be like, okay, you're limited.

I don't even know if I'd want someone like that around my children knowing

they're gonna throw something or

It's hard.

Yeah.

It's hard

having

problematic grandparents.

The kids figure it out though, you know, they make their own decisions.

Like, eh, we don't like hanging out with that person.

Yeah.

I feel like kids are so in tune to people.

Mm-hmm.

That they're just like, they go with their gut for sure.

They're not like adults where we can kind of like smile and be okay.

They're like, no, I don't want.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

so she just ends with saying, because peace is better than chaos and eventually

boundaries have to be drawn, even if it takes a decade to get there.

She then storms off again.

I check on him.

We get in the car and finally we drive off.

Still married, still heading to our honeymoon, but absolutely stunned.

And sadly, this wasn't the last of it over the past 10 years.

Okay.

So this was 10 years ago.

Wow.

Oh my God.

Noticed.

This was 10 years ago.

We've dealt with stunt after stunt, emotional manipulation, dramatic

scenes, chaos at every family gathering.

But this was the first of many wild moments.

She's thrown our way.

And finally, this year, for the sake of our children, we've made the decision

to significantly limit contact.

Wow.

So it took 10 years of manipulation and dramatic scenes, all that stuff to

finally be like, okay, you're limited.

I don't even know if I'd want someone like that around my children knowing

they're gonna throw something or

It's hard.

Yeah.

It's hard

having I should mention my parents aren't together and the man my mother

destroyed our family for, he was married.

So this is like a cycle.

Hmm.

Okay.

my mom was the other woman for 10 years.

Oh wow.

Oh my

Oh my

gosh.

I just talked to a friend of mine that's a therapist, and you might

have seen this in your work too, but she, you might know the name of it.

I can't think of the name, but there's like a study about like, looking at cycles

of like trauma, trauma, intergenerational

cycles,

intergenerational like trauma and stuff.

And she's like.

Like if there's like cheating in a lineage, like it's very common.

Like if a mom was cheated on, maybe her mom was cheated on, it's just like this

interesting thing of like, you don't think like, oh, because I was cheated

on maybe my mom, you know, or whatever.

Or she had breast cancer because she had this hap, you know, it's

just this interesting lineage.

Mm-hmm.

You can see.

So when I just saw that, that's kinda what made me think of it as,

I was like, oh, she's kinda looking back and it's like, oh, her mom was.

In a relationship where a man was cheating.

Yeah.

It sounds like the person at this, while she maybe didn't have the awareness

when she was going through it at where she's writing to you right now, sounds

like she does have a lot more awareness.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's what I'm getting to.

That around Christmas that year, my sister came to visit and my

mom was showing off new jewelry.

It was basically my engagement ring

Oh, oh no.

Oh, red

flag that I'm

not okay

with that.

This came outta left field.

I thought this was be all about the guy.

same design, same setting.

Only hers was yellow gold with yellowish diamonds instead of white.

When I confronted her, she told me it was completely different and that I was

being dramatic, but it wasn't different.

It was identical right down to the setting.

I was furious.

I feel sorry for her.

No, imagine like that's your moment of like being so excited.

Obviously the relationship has its issues it's toxic, but that aside, right?

Yeah.

She's so excited and the mom's like, you know what, I'm gonna go

out and get myself the exact same.

And it was her custom design and everything.

Like, how can you say it's different if it's like, oh, we

both had, a single solitaire, like princess cut is the exact same.

Like, okay.

But no, it sounds like this person created some whole special design,

special setting, her own vision that she's wanted since she was 16.

They had it custom made.

Mm.

Yeah.

I don't believe the mom,

it's a little interesting.

Yeah.

She

said, I was furious.

My sister immediately told her she should never wear it again because it

was a blatant copy and incredibly rude.

Good for the sister.

Yes.

My mom got angry and said she wouldn't wear it on my day.

Fast forward to about one or two months before my wedding planning was

going pretty well until my mom showed me what she was planning to wear.

Here we go.

Wait, and I didn't notice.

So it says the mom.

okay, so the mom destroyed her family, so I'm guessing she was also married, cheated

with this man who was also married.

Right.

Sounds like they were both married because she said, my mom just started

her marriage for 10 years, meaning that she never got married to this man.

what my intuition is saying, she's jealous now that her daughter's getting

married to this man, which she is been the other woman all these years, right?

Yeah.

it says, I go to her house and she proudly pulls out a garment bag, a white

garment bag inside was a white gown.

Just when I think

she knows exactly what she is doing, she knows exactly what she is doing.

No one is that naive to be

like,

oh, you can't wear, you can't wear a white dress to your daughter's wedding.

What?

my ring's different.

What her excuse was, you're doing a black and white wedding.

What color am I supposed to wear?

Oh my God,

my sister and I immediately shut it down and forced her to find something else.

The disappointing part.

The next dress she chose was literally the same dress my

stepmom had already purchased.

Thankfully my stepmom is an angel and just picked another

dress without making it a thing.

That is an angel.

I'm glad this person has her sister, her stepmom, like people

in her corner who seem to get it.

Her mom is a problem for sure.

Yes.

Yeah.

You need those people to like not add more gasoline to the

fire like she was saying earlier.

Mm-hmm.

Just to kind of be like, and I know some people get mad in the story sometimes when

I'm like you can keep the peace, like it's protecting your boundaries in some ways.

Right?

Keeping the peace doesn't necessarily mean you're hurting yourself.

It just means like.

Not igniting more, because I think there's some people that thrive off the drama.

Mm-hmm.

And they want to start more drama, you know?

So I feel like they were very smart about like, you know what?

We're not gonna even bring it to her attention.

Let's just change the dress.

You know?

Yeah.

Or the bride could have gone to the stepmom being like really upset, and the

stepmom being like, I don't care enough.

I wanna solve this problem for you.

The way that I wanna solve it is by getting a different dress and

not engaging with your mom, and then take this off your plate.

So it's like up to the stepmom to make that decision to brag just out of it.

And that's like, those are the people you need when you're.

Going through stuff like this?

Yeah, 100%.

The ceremony was beautiful.

While photos were being taken, I showed the mother of the

bride the reception room.

So it's weird.

Everything's just like going as normal even though they Yeah.

We're just like

going forward.

Even though nobody was confirming anything.

Okay.

Yeah.

Alright.

Immediately she began tearing it apart.

The mother of the bride tearing apart the reception room.

The linen colors were wrong.

The tables were too far from the windows where a large buffet had been

set up overlooking the golf course.

The dance floor was too large.

Even though most guests danced at their tables, the cake was

missing a tier and it was crooked.

Or she's saying it wasn't.

These are all the things that the mother of the the bride was saying.

Okay.

And it was crooked.

It wasn't, the lighting was too dim and felt solemn.

The servers were dressed too formally One server hunched too much.

She didn't like my dress.

She's

talking to the, your server has bad posture, okay?

I get being upset in certain things, and we'll hear more story.

I understand.

Okay.

don't, what if that person has a back issue?

You dunno.

Why are we going after the servers themselves?

Like, that's kind of crazy to me.

It's wild.

That's wild.

Okay.

Yes.

You don't know anything about this person.

Yeah.

What in the world make that comment?

they're doing their jobs, aren't they?

They're, they're like helping.

Right.

Like, oh my God.

then to say she didn't like her dress, the person doing it, she's

saying she didn't like my dress.

It clashed.

So the person that sent in this email that runs these letters?

Yeah.

Can you imagine?

I'd be like, okay.

Like, sorry.

Right.

That's what I chose to wear.

That's wild.

Okay.

Bizarre.

Oh my gosh.

The flowers were too sparse.

there were too many ribbons.

She was irate.

I was completely dumbfounded.

And that's a problem too.

Well, I mean it's, there's so many problems with this, right?

Thinking that she has some power coming in.

It's like she's not the client.

Yeah.

But it weird that she, they just stopped hearing from the bride and

groom and then the uncle just comes in.

Right.

And it's weird to me too, that, weddings that I've been to my wedding, we very

much discussed like what the layout was going to be, how things were gonna look.

And I know that they said, we did let them know that the linens wouldn't be

able to be the same because of whatever.

So they were aware of that.

Maybe this mom isn't aware of the change.

Okay.

But also who are you?

Like, I get you're the mom, but you're also like not the deciding factor.

Yeah.

I feel like it was something where.

The mom wasn't as involved as she wanted to be or something.

Yeah.

And it sounds like, like the person that wrote this, I always

say it's a little biased 'cause she's the one that sent it to us.

Right.

So I'm like hearing her perspective, but I'm like, sounds like she

knows what she's talking about.

She's done all these weddings and events before.

Right.

So I'm sure they're following the contract, following the plan.

The mom's, she's like, I don't like this.

This is not what I envisioned.

Or she's embarrassed because she wants her family to see something different.

Or I,

that's just so, it's so silly to me too because let's say all of these things

are the genuine, the bride comes in and ends up saying the exact same thing.

Where have you been?

You haven't like been communicating with us to like even know, maybe the original

discussion was that there were gonna be this many ribbons, or maybe the discussion

was that the flowers were gonna be how they're gonna be if you're not having.

' cause it's sounding to me like the venue is providing

most, if not all of the setup.

So it's not like they're having to coordinate multiple different vendors.

It's sounding like it is the venue that's doing this.

So how that communication between the couple and the venue itself got so lax.

Mm-hmm.

It is strange to me, like, yeah.

Okay.

I need to

hear more.

I need to Very on.

Okay.

It says she stormed off and I went back to business as usual.

This was a $16,000 wedding.

Absolutely.

All out.

demolished the food.

They ate it all.

That's what I'm gathering.

shiny.

Yeah.

shiny Yeah.

I'm like, okay, I was gonna pronounce that wrong.

And all music continued, some dancing followed, and then the

mother of the groom approached me.

She said the food was awful.

The servers were slow, people were spiking drinks at a dry wedding.

Apparently sneaking alcohol from another bar into the building.

The dance floor was a slippery hazard.

The linens were dry after people ate, or No?

The linens were dirty after people ate.

It didn't take a genius to see where this was headed.

The hints for a massive discount started shortly after.

they don't wanna pay.

They don't want to pay.

They don't want to pay.

Hopefully they've already cashed that check, girl.

And it didn't bounce like this.

What it's for, the dirty or the Dirty Linens thing reminded me.

I saw this thing where an influencer was trying to do something or she was

getting free, something free money.

She was at a restaurant and she filmed the floor and was like the place was dirty.

And then the owners came out and they were like, she was there right after like a 12

party or a 12 person party just got up and left and she filmed right under the table.

So it's just all about like if you've never worked in a restaurant or,

yeah.

That's wild to me.

The linens are dirty.

I mean, aren't they there to like.

Get used and like to protect like the tables and to like look nice.

I mean, your wedding dress is gonna be dirty by the end of the

night, like the bottom of it.

You know, you're using the item.

Yes.

That's wild.

And again, saying servers were slow, you're gonna complain about that.

That's wild to me.

After two days of silence, we decided to travel with them to Belgium, where I

grew up, to share the news with friends.

My brother and sister were happy at first, but within two weeks my sister

started trying to seduce my fiance.

What is this family?

Okay, what?

Okay, what's up with the family now?

Now I'm like,

this is very odd.

This is what, this is a

real story.

I tell you.

Sometimes I read these stories and I'm like, this cannot be real.

Like,

oh my gosh,

some are just outrageous.

But then I'll post a story or like I'll share, you know, story time.

If people are like, this happened to me, this exact thing happened to me, and

I'm like, I don't think they're as, I think they're more common than we think.

It's wild.

telling him that she was the better option.

We ended up staying for a month.

I'd be out of there a month still after that, a

month.

Do they not work?

I know they're doing all this traveling, but then the mom was

mad that they wanted Hawaii.

Not enough money

for Hawaii.

Yeah.

Oh my gosh.

Not enough.

Because it wasn't a place she selected as a wife, right?

Yes.

Right.

We ended up staying for a month because my mother promised to pay

for the wedding dress and booked appointments at bridal shops.

I said, I didn't wanna bring my sister, but I was manipulated into

it with the whole family as family.

Guilt trip.

Yikes.

at the first shop, the saleswoman told me my body wasn't made for fitted dresses.

My gosh.

After trying on 10 dresses, I hated and hearing nonstop comments from my sister

and mother about how I looked fat.

Why I would not be including well either of

them.

That's just toxic.

You don't even, they shouldn't even be in the wedding.

No.

Or

at the wedding.

This is definitely a story where, I mean, I don't know what happens, but,

or it'd be like, let's just elope.

Right.

where does your family wanna go?

Let's,

I would hope that the husband is saying like, look babe, let's just

go do this thing with just us.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

The second someone starts making you feel bad, especially when it's

supposed to be like your day trying on dresses, feeling beautiful.

I'd be like, I'm done with this.

I'll go with a friend or go by myself later,

a hundred percent.

they were saying, or I showed too much skin or looked bad.

I finally said I wanted to leave at the second shop.

I found my dress within minutes and started crying.

My father seemed completely unbothered and asked how I planned to pay for it.

I was confused and that's when my mother said, they don't

have the 690 euro after all.

So they get her excited, say they're gonna pay for the dress she finds when they're

like, oh, we don't have the money for it.

And I wonder, wow.

In 690, I mean, I'm trying to think of like the calculation, but.

That doesn't seem very expensive for a dress, 690 Euros,

because I think it's like,

I don't know what the conversion rate is right now.

I feel like it was pretty close, like when I was just in, I was

in Spain a couple years ago and

yeah, I mean, it seems like the price of like an average.

I mean, I think my golly, my wedding dress back then was like

$400, $500, something like that.

But man, this is just toxic.

Yeah.

Wild.

she says, I ran outta the shop crying and went to the cafe

where my fiance was waiting.

I told him everything without hesitation.

He marched into the store, bought the dress without seeing it,

booked us a hotel and said we'd figure out everything ourselves.

Love

it.

Yay.

Good husband.

Good man,

good husband.

Two days later, we returned to my parents' house and my mother exploded.

She was angry that we bought the dress without telling her.

and said it was unfair because they never had a big wedding.

So she's now kept trying to control it because they didn't have the

wedding they wanted or something.

she also claimed my father never gave his blessing.

My father agreed with her and said he could never trust anyone

with his beloved daughter.

A massive fight broke out and we ended up flying home.

Once we were home, everyone there was happy for us, but my heart was breaking

because my own family didn't accept us.

In January, my mom finally called and said she needed the wedding date

and location so she could book time off or they wouldn't come at all.

My father is still refusing, wait, so this is happening right now?

She said, my father,

I was about to say like, this is now.

Because sometimes people will like send a story and then they'll be

like, oh, that was 20 years ago.

We're happily married.

Yeah.

So I wasn't sure.

But yeah, it says my father is still refusing to walk me down the aisle.

if we have a wedding weekend, that's the short version of part one.

I'll write a part two when you're ready.

Wait, I wanna know if the wedding happened yet.

I know.

I need to find out.

And where are they located?

Are they like in the us?

I'm wondering if they're in the US and then they traveled.

They traveled to Belgium where they bought the dress.

Damn.

If old girl is like anywhere near me, within driving distance, she

needs to invite me to the wedding and I will be there in a heartbeat.

And I'll make sure her reception is a blast.

Yes.

Oh my gosh.

That'd be so fun.

We're like, we're coming here wedding.

Yes.

Yeah.

I wanna know if it happened.

Yeah.

You need the part two.

Yes.

I know.

I wasn't expecting it for it to end like that.

I feel like, I like the way this is going, in the way that her

boundaries have been really good.

Like her boundaries are firm.

Her fiance's backing her up.

'cause I feel like in a lot of these stories, we don't hear about the fiance

or how he's like supporting his wife, whether it's a mother-in-law or not.

and so I feel like it's really good that she has him.

And so I'm hoping like they stick firm on their boundaries and are

either like, and the mom's calling like, okay, when's the date?

This is their chance to be like,

no,

you know, we're not gonna give you the date

No.

And do our own thing.

No, this sounds like as much as it sucks mom and dad, it doesn't

seem like it's beneficial to have them in your adult life right now.

Hey guys, welcome back.

All right, so I hope you enjoyed that little trip down memory

lane of some previous episodes.

If you guys missed those full episodes, we do have them linked at the very

bottom, so you can check it out.

Now, I know for you guys it seems like a short little while, but for me, typically

I record intros and outros all at the same time, but while that was all happening,

we were dealing with a crazy storm here.

So I'm recording using my hotspot, and, um, we're out of power.

So luckily it's during the day at least, so, while we're waiting for

power to come back on and kind of figuring out next steps, the sun is

shining, so we can be grateful for that.

But it was very crazy here for a while.

So as I promised, we are revisiting a dilemma from a couple weeks back.

If you wanna follow along or go back to it, I believe it it was episode 73,

and you can go back and listen to it and kinda see what we talked about.

We also shared it on social media if people wanted to give their input.

But this was essentially about a bride asking her friend to be the maid of

honor, and it seemed like task after task she kinda just showed no interest.

The only time she really showed interest was in, like, getting bridesmaids gifts.

there was a birthday cake issue where she kinda dropped the

ball and didn't follow through.

Most people were just saying swap her out.

have your friend that kinda stepped up for the bachelorette party be your

maid of honor, and so we gave a lot of tips, social media and whatnot.

So she gave a little update, so I wanna read what she sent over.

And see what's going on this time.

Listened to your advice today and really decided to back up and take her

situation into further consideration.

She's in a very bad relationship right now.

She's a stay-at-home mom to a toddler, which is very stressful in its own right.

Her toddler is my flower girl.

I think it really boils down to me being a low-maintenance friend and

her putting what energy she does have left over into her higher maintenance

friendships, because I see her showing up for them and making time for them.

I've taken a step back from this friendship and noticed that when I stop

helping her out as much or reaching out, I start hearing from her less

and less, which is pretty common.

I have two kids, but I always made time to help her whenever I could

tell she was stressed, watching her kid, cleaning her house, et cetera.

Meanwhile, this help was not reciprocated.

I think we are both just not as good of friends as we were telling each

other, and that it perhaps would be the best for right now that we

allow our friendship to change.

I hope we grow closer again one day, but for right now, I'm uncomfortable

with having a different relationship.

We started hanging out a bit more recently, and I enjoy our relationship

more without the expectations.

I have other friends who I've gotten closer with.

All in all, I think I'm happier already.

I have not had the talk with her yet, and I'm honestly thinking a petty

side of me knew she'd brag all day about our closeness and her being

maid of honor, and that was a big driver for me to want to demote her.

That being said, I currently think I will not change the wedding party

title unless it's brought up by her or the other friend that has

stepped up and creates some tension.

I really hope that taking the pressure off my maid of honor will allow us both

to enjoy this whole thing a lot more.

There is a sisterhood I really wanted to experience in this process of

just having people excited for me and just generally being interested in

what I'm planning, and I'm finding that more so in my other bridesmaids.

I think some friends just aren't wedding people For anyone curious,

I got my bridesmaids custom cute canvas bag, baskets, and totes with

their names on them, and I plan to fill them with various goodies.

Going to need to look at some inspo.

I plan on giving the friend who stepped up something special

in hers as acknowledgement of how much I appreciate her.

She's also a baker and giving me a wedding cake, which she

keeps refusing to let me pay for.

I will update you on our bachelorette in August about how that goes

because that is currently the last hurdle before the big day.

Okay.

I love this because I feel like it was very, like, emotionally intelligent.

I think a lot of times, especially in our younger years, we wanna victimize

ourselves and say like, "Well, they weren't a good friend to me.

They're not stepping up to me.

Why are they doing this to me?" And then as we get older or kind of as we

step outside of it, we're like, "Well, wait, have I always reached out to

her," or, "Are our friendships changing?

Does she have a lot of other priorities?" And that's okay. so I think this was

really big of her. I've done similar things with friendships of mine, people

that I've known for many years, some that I've known more recently that I'm like,

" I think I need to show up differently," and, cause we kind of show up differently.

Or you kind of realize, " Oh, my gosh, this friend has shown

up for me so many times, and I feel like I've dropped the ball.

I need to stand up more with this person because I really care about

them." And I think it's really good to kind of look inwardly of being like,

"Okay, how can I show up better?" Or, "What am I capable of right now?"

And it's okay that she doesn't wanna move the party around, and it's okay that

their friendship has kind of changed, and they're kind of in this weird stage of

like, okay, her friend has new friends.

She has new friends.

She's kind of prioritizing other friends.

And the person that wrote this in is kind of prioritizing her wedding, which is very

common and completely expected, right?

When you have this big event going, that's kind of like your number one

priority, and it can kind of cause us to have this tunnel vision of like,

everything needs to fall in line with my wedding, without realizing, like,

people have other responsibilities, other things going on in their life,

and it's sometimes hard to see that.

So I think this was a really, intelligent and mature way

of, like, looking at things.

Like, I'm sure in her first email she was like, " This really sucks.

This friend sucks.

She's dropped the ball.

I wanna move her, I, you know, I feel bad." But now she's like, "Wait a second"

Have I been there for her just as much?

Yes, maybe in different stages, but right now I'm low maintenance.

Right now I'm like, "Okay, we have this connection, this string that's

holding us together, but I don't have the time to maybe reach out to her

as much." so I love this decision.

You don't have to make any drastic decision right now.

I think it's great to do something a little extra, 'cause it sounds

like this friend that's stepping up for you is amazing and

really wanting to help you out.

so I think this is really great, and I think this is a good lesson for all

kinds of people, no matter what stage you're in, about how friendships change.

And I made a video about this a while back about friendship breakups, and I

think especially in our younger years, not saying it doesn't hurt now, but

especially in our younger years, we take it so personally and we're like,

"Oh my gosh, they're the bad ones.

They did this to me," or, " I ruined this friendship." And we're

so quick to point, when in reality people change, circumstances change,

priorities change, and that doesn't make either of you good or bad people.

It's just happenstance, it- it's life.

there's been friendships that I've had that I'm like, " These

are gonna last forever."

And then you kinda look back and you're like, " Oh, I haven't seen them in months.

I should probably follow up with them," you know?

and vice versa.

Or like, they haven't reached out to me.

or I'm always the one that reaches out to them, you know?

And you kinda have to, like what she says here, I think we both are just not as good

of friends as we were telling each other, and that perhaps It would be for the best

that we allow our friendships that change.

I hope we grow closer again one day, but for right now I am comfortable

with having a different relationship.

We've started hanging out more recently, and I enjoy our relationship

more without the expectations.

' Cause sometimes we're like, "Oh, we have to be best friends.

We have to do everything together.

We have to have this closeness right now at all times." And we

see someone online and we're like, "We're not doing it that way."

Or we see two of our best friends and we're like, "We're not doing

it that way." Or we see our friend being really close to another person

and we're like, "Wait a second.

Are they closer?

Like, am I a shitty friend?" Like, we kind of like go in this cycle of

like how… are we dropping the ball?

Are they dropping the ball?

And I know I have this habit of like, if it's a friend of mine and I

see they're getting really close to someone, I am, am so anti-competition

where I just I let myself fade away.

not like in a way where I don't reach out, but more so like I'm

like, " Hey, girl, you have your time.

Like, it's fine.

I'm not, I'm not competing for a friendship.

Like, everyone should have their own friends." I have this habit of doing

that in the past of like, just letting them know like, " Hey, it's okay. Like,

you can have whoever you want as your friend. I'm not gonna find issue to it."

So I think this was beautifully said about you're comfortable

having a different relationship.

When you let go of certain expectations and understanding different

relationships are gonna be different, I think that's a beautiful thing.

I've too experienced that where I felt like I was holding certain,

friendships to a really high expectation.

I'm like, "Oh, I'm reaching out all the time.

I'm doing this all the time." And then I'm like, "Wait a second." we're not

meeting each other in the same spot.

like two ships sailing.

Like, something's off.

So really evaluating friendships I think is a really powerful thing.

So if anyone else listening has more advice for her, I feel like she seems

pretty confident in what she's doing now.

but if you guys are listening and you have a similar situation, whether it's

bridesmaid or not, wedding or not, if it's a friendship, share the story.

I would love to, share my take.

Although, of course, I always say I'm not an expert, but I'll

give you my expert opinion.

we've all had friendship breakups.

We've had, friendship seasons, right?

What do they say?

Everybody's in your life for a season, a reason, or a lifetime.

And I think the more and more we get comfortable with that and

understanding that every friendship's not gonna stick forever, I think it's,

we could have more peace with it.

All right, guys, as a reminder, I do dilemmas, every other episode

or so, mostly on my solo episodes.

So if you guys wanna send a dilemma of your own, you can

send it to hello@christainnis.com

you can also DM me on social media.

Instagram's probably the best way to do that.

I just tend to see my DMs a little bit better there.

The other platforms confuse me a little bit.

All right, guys.

Thanks for hanging out with me this time, and I will see you next week.

Bye-bye.