u/HauntingAd4228

I’m getting married soon, and I’m honestly exhausted by the situation with my mother. I feel like she has been putting obstacles in my way at almost every step and making everything much more complicated.

I met my fiancée about a year and a half ago, so this isn’t some relationship that started a few weeks ago. I’ve had time to know her and make my own decision about wanting to marry her.

What makes everything more frustrating is that my mother was constantly pressuring me to get married. Now that I’m actually getting married, she suddenly says I’m too young and that I’m rushing into it.

Since day one, I feel like she has created at least 15 different arguments out of things that could have been completely simple, and each one has made the wedding more complicated.

Because of my wife’s immigration situation, there is a specific window in which we need to get married and have her move in with me. I explained this to my mother many times, including the possibility that her visitor visa might not be approved before the wedding.

She initially agreed: essentially, “We’ll try, and if it happens, قدر الله.”
I applied for the visa, paid for everything, and organized the wedding. Her visa is still pending.

When I remind my mother that we had discussed this possibility from the beginning, she tells me “you only remember the parts that suit you” and asks, “So you’re okay with getting married without your mother?”

I’ve already tried to compromise. I pushed the wedding back 15 days, paid additional fees, and changed everything I had planned to give her more time. From an immigration perspective, I genuinely cannot delay much further without potentially creating serious problems for my wife.

Now my mother says that if she doesn’t get her visa, I should cancel everything until she arrives or get married in our home country, which isn’t realistically possible because of my wife’s immigration situation.

There’s also the religious aspect for me. I’m genuinely worried about falling into zina with my fiancée. I want to get married and make things halal rather than postponing a haram relationship indefinitely.

What hurts the most is that whenever my mother disagrees with me, she blames my fiancée. She calls her a witch, says she controls me, and has even accused her of doing black magic on me. She also says that if I marry without her, she’ll disown me, be my enemy on the Day of Judgment, and curses my fiancée and her family, even though they have nothing to do with this.

She has also started talking to my friends and uncles to try to convince them to “reason with me.” This is extremely humiliating for me because I want my private life and family issues to remain private.

The bigger problem is that she often tells them a version of events that I believe is completely different from what actually happened. When I eventually explain the full story to them, they usually tell me they completely understand my position and that they think she is in the wrong — but they still tell me that I should try to make her happy because she’s my mother.

My fiancée and her family have already adjusted their plans multiple times because of all these changes.

I love my mother and genuinely want her at my wedding, but I feel like I’m being forced to choose between respecting her wishes and protecting my future wife and our immigration situation.

Hi everyone,
I submitted visitor visa applications for my mother and brother:
Applications submitted: July 14
My mother’s biometrics: July 16
It’s been 34 days and no updates since then

My brother submitted his application at the same time, and his biometrics were already completed last year during his previous application.

They applied under a family application from Algeria

The processing time was 19 days when I applied, and it has now increased to 25 days.

My mother visited Canada last year, but her visa has since expired. My brother had two visa refusals last year, so we provided additional supporting documents and explanations in his application.

They are applying to attend my wedding, which is currently planned for August 28. We’ve been trying to push the wedding date back because we’re waiting for their visas.

I also submitted a webform to IRCC but haven’t received a response.

For those who have applied recently, do you have any thoughts or experience with similar timelines? Is it normal to have no update at this stage, and is there anything else I can do?

I’m a 27-year-old Muslim man living abroad. I’ve been financially independent for several years, have a stable career, live on my own, and alhamdulillah my life has been going well. I pray, try my best to stay on my deen, and generally have good relationships with the people around me. I’m close to my dad and my siblings, have good friends, and I’m not someone who usually has conflicts with people.

Last year, I met an amazing Muslim woman from my hometown who also lives in the same country as me. We got to know each other in a respectful way, involved our families early on, and eventually decided we wanted to get married.

Before I explain what happened, I think it’s important to give some background about my relationship with my mother, because this did not start with my marriage.

Growing up, dealing with my mother was never easy. She has always had severe anger issues. She often yells, creates scenes at home, verbally insults people in very harsh ways, and often becomes physically aggressive. Almost everyone in the family has had issues with her at some point.

She has had ongoing conflicts with my father for as long as I can remember. Their marriage has been extremely difficult, and my father has seriously considered divorcing her multiple times over the years.

She does not speak to her own siblings anymore. She also caused major problems with my father’s side of the family, and because of that we basically grew up with almost no relationship with our grandparents, aunts, uncles, or cousins. My grandmother lived her life and eventually passed away, and some of my siblings barely knew her. They still do not really understand why we were so disconnected from that side of the family.

My sister had it especially hard. The way my mother treated her became so bad that my sister once wrote a suicide letter. Thankfully nothing happened, but to this day they still do not speak to each other even though they live under the same roof.

One thing my mother says very often is that she sacrificed everything to raise us, and because of those sacrifices we owe her complete obedience. Whenever one of us disagrees with her, those sacrifices are brought up, and we end up feeling guilty for disappointing her.

Despite all of that, I have always tried my best to have a good relationship with her. I regularly send her money and gifts. Whenever she visits me abroad, I honestly spend far more than I should just because I like seeing her happy. I have always wanted her to feel included in my life and to be proud of me.

At the same time, one thing that has always been difficult is that she almost always finds something negative to say about whatever I do. Whether it is work, major purchases, travel plans, or important life decisions, she usually focuses on what is wrong with it. Because of that, when I am under a lot of pressure and need to get things done, I sometimes avoid involving her in every decision. It is not because I do not love her or want to exclude her. It is because almost every discussion ends in criticism, arguments, or emotional exhaustion.

Ironically, when I do not involve her because I am trying to avoid conflict, she becomes very upset and tells me I do not trust her, that I am excluding her, and that after everything she has done for me I should include her in every decision.

I also want to be fair and acknowledge my own faults. I am not perfect. Sometimes after hours of being yelled at, insulted, or having my buttons pushed, I lose my patience and argue back. I am not proud of those moments, but they do happen.
Now to the marriage.

When I first told my mother about the woman I wanted to marry, her immediate reaction was negative. She told me I did not know women well enough and that I needed to be careful because I might be manipulated.

A few months later, she was not doing well emotionally because of ongoing problems with my sister, so I invited her to stay with me abroad for about a month. Part of the reason was to give her a break, and part of it was because I wanted her to meet my future wife.

On my birthday, we all went out for dinner together, and everything actually seemed to go well.
A few weeks later, my fiancée’s brother invited my mother and me to their home. During the visit, he casually brought up marriage.

My mother immediately became upset and said it was way too early to talk about marriage.

On the drive home, I tried calming her down by saying maybe he did not mean anything serious and was simply expressing good intentions. Instead, she turned on me. She accused me of defending him and created a story that he wanted to find someone naive to marry his sister.

Later, she told my father a version of the story that, in my opinion, was not accurate, and he became upset as well.

About five months later, I traveled back to our home country and asked my parents to come with me to officially meet my future wife’s family. The meeting honestly went very well, and both families got along.
When I returned abroad, my fiancée and I realized we had an immigration issue. If we did not complete the nikah before June, traveling together would become much more complicated. Our idea was simple: do a small nikah in May with immediate family, then have the larger wedding celebration later.

When I explained this to my mother, she immediately refused. I asked why, and she said it was because my siblings would supposedly be in school. The problem was that this was not really true. My sister was already working, my university-aged brother lived in the same town anyway, and my youngest brother would already be on summer vacation.

I explained that immigration deadlines were a much bigger issue than school schedules and that I was the one living abroad, paying for everything, and dealing with the legal consequences.
That is when everything escalated badly.

She verbally insulted me, insulted my fiancée, and accused my fiancée of using black magic on me. She called my future mother-in-law and told her that if I got married in May, she and my father would disown me. My father never actually said that. In fact, he was trying to calm her down while she was also arguing with him.

She also told my future mother-in-law that our families had only talked and that nothing official had happened, so she did not understand why they were acting excited.

The confusing part is that throughout all of this, she still expected my fiancée to keep calling her and checking on her. My fiancée always did. She regularly checked up on my mother, treated her with respect, and even sent her gifts. Whenever I pointed this out, my mother would say, “She is only doing that to make herself look good.”

Nothing my fiancée did was ever enough.
At that point, I realized reasoning was not working. I met with an immigration lawyer to see if there was another legal solution. Fortunately, there was, and we delayed everything until December.

I genuinely believed that would solve the problem. Instead, the objections simply changed.

Now it became about the wedding. She insisted I rent a very cheap venue even though I was paying for the entire wedding myself. She even told my father not to help me financially because, according to her, I was not mature enough for marriage.
I am 27 years old. I have been financially independent for years, lived alone for years, and have a stable career. Yet somehow I still was not “ready.”

No matter what I chose, she found something wrong with it. If I liked a venue, she criticized it. If I discussed plans with my father, she became upset because I had not included her. If I discussed them with her, she rejected almost every idea and told me that my fiancée was the one making all the decisions because “I have no personality.”

Meanwhile, she was not speaking to my father or my sister, so I had become the messenger between everyone while also trying to organize an international wedding.

Eventually, I flew back to our home country alone to organize everything. Even then, every decision turned into another argument.

The final breaking point came when I told her I had found a venue and planned to return in December with my fiancée for the wedding. She suddenly asked, “Why do you not just do the religious ceremony while you are already here?”
I reminded her that I had suggested exactly that a month earlier and she had refused.

She became extremely angry. She verbally insulted me, said she hoped I would never see happiness in my life, threw a trash can at me, and disowned me.
At that point, I went to my father and told him I could not keep doing this. I had spent a lot of money, taken time off work, and flown across the world to organize everything, and every single decision had become another battle.

My father agreed. He personally called my future father-in-law and explained that we would move the wedding to my country of residence instead. Everyone agreed.

Originally, I wanted the wedding on August 1st because my siblings were already planning to visit and could attend before flying home. Once things calmed down, I mentioned this to my mother.

She asked me not to rush it. She wanted more time to apply for a visa so she could attend. I agreed and postponed the wedding until August 29th.

Then during another phone call, she asked, “What if I do not get my visa? Are you really going to have your wedding without your mother?”
I reminded her that I originally wanted to have the wedding in our home country with her there, but she had been the one preventing it.

She became extremely upset again. There was more screaming, more verbal insults, more crying, more threats to disown me, and finally she told me she wished she would die so she could tell God what I had done to her.

At this point, I am exhausted. I honestly feel like every compromise I made simply created another objection. Every time I solved one problem, another one appeared.

I love my mother, and despite everything I have always wanted her involved in my life. I have spent years trying to make her happy, including her in my life, sending her money and gifts, and trying to balance respecting her with building my own future.
But I am starting to wonder if there was ever anything I could have done that would have been enough.

Was I wrong anywhere in this situation? Has anyone dealt with a parent who seems determined to oppose every major life decision you make? How do you maintain respect for your parents while also protecting your marriage and your own peace? I genuinely want honest opinions because I am struggling to see this objectively.