DEAR NATALIE: I had an abortion fifteen years ago when I first met my now-husband. I didn’t tell him at the time because we were both so young and I didn’t even know if we would make it as a couple. Fast forward to us celebrating our ten-year wedding anniversary and two kids later, we went out for a romantic anniversary dinner. I had one glass too many and ended up telling him about the abortion. My husband is a wonderful, liberal guy but I was surprised by his reaction. He was very hurt. He almost started to cry at the table. He said that he wished he could have been there for me at that moment. He wished that he was given the opportunity to weigh in on the decision and help me. He feels now as though I’ve kept secrets from him. I didn’t expect him to feel so dramatically about something that happened when I was 19 and he was 21. Any advice on how to move us forward and out of this funk? I have no regrets about my abortion. We were completely unequipped to have a family at that time. Our life together is so good and we are so happy. How do we get beyond this? – OLD DECISION NEW PROBLEM
DEAR OLD DECISION NEW PROBLEM: While he may not be happy with being left out of that experience, what’s done is done. I would put this to rest by acknowledging his feelings at this moment. Remember, you’ve had years to unpack your decision, but he’s just finding out about this now. Give him space and grace to come to terms with the situation and allow him to feel whatever he needs to feel so that he may heal. Walk him through your decision and share with him how you felt about it. Express to him how you feel now. Remind him that you love him and the wonderful family that you have built. Recognize that while you can’t go back, you can make a promise moving forward to be honest and transparent with one another. Relationships will always have some conflict in them. It’s not in the falling down but in the getting up and repairing that will define who we are individually and as a couple. Hopefully with a little bit of time and some compassion, you can be stronger than ever before.
DEAR NATALIE: My fiancee and I are getting married next spring and we plan on having a very small wedding. I think we should have an engagement party that can include people we can’t have at the wedding. My fiancee thinks that we should only invite people to the engagement party that are on the list for the wedding. It will be a much smaller event that way. I am fine with keeping our wedding small, but I feel as though the engagement is a great reason to have all of our friends and extended family together. What do you think we should do? – WANTS TO CELEBRATE
DEAR WANTS TO CELEBRATE: As someone that had only 60 people at their wedding, I also invited more people to my engagement party. I think we had about 100 at that event. I wanted a small, intimate wedding but we have big families and a lot of wonderful friends. It just made sense for us to invite more people to the engagement party so that everyone could feel included. We made it very clear – and this is the important part – that we were having a small wedding and so this is why we were having a big engagement party. Everyone had a great time and we got the intimate wedding that we wanted. Do what you want. If your fiancee’s only concern is whether or not it is appropriate or not, let her know it can be done. The key is to be transparent with your guests and make it a fun experience to celebrate this exciting milestone in your lives. I may get a lot of pushback on this, but we don’t regret the decision and everyone involved had a wonderful time.
Please send your questions to Natalie Bencivenga to
asknatalieadvice@gmail.com.
Check out her new radio show every Saturday from 2-5pm EST on KDKA Radio 1020AM, 100.1FM, stream it on the
Audacy app or at www.kdkaradio.com
Watch her new video series with Pennsylvania Capital Star, Facts Over Fear: www.penncapital-star.com
Follow Natalie on Instagram and TikTok
@NatalieBencivenga