It is really hard to post today. My mind and my emotions are going every which way after having lunch with Betsy today. I found out that a lot of what I was hearing about the situation when it was unfolding was extremely filtered through Mom and Dad. Betsy and I met at the Boston Beanery today for lunch. Nancy said I could take extra time if I needed it which I did. We talked for a while about the wedding, the shower, Robert's surgery etc. Then I asked her to tell me how everything went down. I hadn't heard her version of it and I wanted to do that to see if the bad things I had heard were true. It turns out that some things I had heard were way off in their perspective. Which I probably should have guessed. She did confirm for the that it was Kim who sold her on the Calvanism. The way she confirmed it for me was by going on and on about how she figured it out for herself. I am fairly good at seeing what people really mean when they talk. And the conversations she described to me that she had with Mom and Dad made much more sense to me out of what I had heard. In fact she was dealing with a lot of things that I have problems with Mom and Dad about. There was a massive lack of communication from the parents. And a lot of passive aggressive animosity towards the Messers. Which I can understand to a point, but they have to offer an alternative or a reason for it. One of the big things was about courtship. Mom and Dad are/were high on the idea of courtship as an alternative to dating. Unfortunately they don't know exactly how they want to go about it. The especially don't know how to pick the guy/girl out in the first place. I have complained several times to them about this. They can only say what amounts to "no girls/boys allowed" and all that that entails. I half think that they don't know, and or don't want to know how it will turn out. For them it might be that marrying or dating means rejecting them. I don't know. It turns out that T and Betsy fell in love very slowly and that when they actually talked to each other one-on-one it was a huge deal. After that Betsy went to Mom and Dad and said I would like to cout this guy, how should I go about it? Dad walked out of the room and Mom cryed a lot. After a while they talked to him and to her and then sat her down and told her that they would be willing to try and make the courtship work with him. After that they did nothing for about three months. Except deny her seeing him at every turn and put them down a lot. Which I can't blame them for really, this family comes into town and has a radical theology. Influences theri daughter away from them to the point where she spends twice as much time with that family as theirs, and then wants to marry her into the family. When it came to a head Betsy confronted them and was like "look nothing is happening, I LOVE him and want to be with him. You have offered no structure, no conditions, no encouragement and no support. So if this is what courtship is then I don't want it. I'm 23 years old, I want to get engaged to T and work on having a life together. Here are the reasons I like him and here are the reasons we will work together." And of course this didn't go over well at all. But I understand both sides of the coin. This is where I got the idea from Dad that she had threatend to elope if they didn't let her marry T. While a total distortion of what she said, it's what he heard and the only thing he was going to hear from that statement. The other thing came when she was switching churches and doctrines. She went through the Bible twice(supposedly, I still think that Kim influenced her severly in this. If I wanted to I could go through the Bible and support poligimy....but anyway) and came out a Calvinist. And didn't let Mom and Dad talk her out of it. After this she came to Dad and said "I realize I am going against your will in this. And that I am also living under your roof and you provide a lot for me. I will move out if you want me to." Dad of course told her that she would never have to move out and that she was always welcome here. And the way I heard about this conversation, either from Mom or from Dad I can't remember which, was that she had threatend to move out if we didn't let her go to their church. Which again is not what she said but what they heard. There were a few other things but I don't feel like getting into them right now. Maybe later. I have to get home and get ready for tomorrow. The rehearsal dinner is tomorrow and now that I know all of this I don't know how I want to give the toast. I could piss off a lot of people if I say what I want to, so I'll probably just be funny instead.