MIL, passive aggressive behaviour and her wedding

Milestone birthdays are pathetic, everything’s got to be a big palaver nowadays. You didn’t invite her, she hasn’t invited you, what’s the problem ffs. Grow up !

@Auntiegaston
I sympathize . You are living the life of a parent with several SEN children. That has to be beyond difficult. It has been a challenge for my sibling and his wife but they have managed .

Even with all of the complexities , I don't see why you would object to your husband walking his mother down the aisle. You can celebrate your birthday on another day, but she will only get married on this one day.

I suspect you may resent the overall lack of support from her for your family, and it may seem overwhelming at times, but from your description, she does not seem tempermentally capable of providing much useful assistance.Not everyone is capable of dealing appropriately with SEN children even when they love them.

I see no upside to objecting to him taking part in the wedding. That won't make your life one bit better, and it may make your husband's relationship significantly worse. Who wins by his not going? Adding any more animosity to this family dynamic cannot be a good thing for any of you.

Eh? An anniversary is for the couple not other people to celebrate year after year. Maybe a milestone anniversary but 'anniversary parties' aren't as important as weddings.

@Mari9999 Are you one of THOSE people who places a massive amount of importance on the 'legal wedding'?
If you had bothered to read the OP properly they signed the papers at the registry office and then had a party to which MIL, and everyone else was invited.
MIL is doing exactly the same but not inviting the OP to any of it. So actually, MIL is snubbing OP.

Many people do the paperwork this way, either because they want to marry in an unlicensed venue, abroad/international couple or, my biggest bugbear, extortionate registrar fees!

A standard registry office legal ceremony (which they legally MUST offer) is £57. To have a registrar at a venue, on a weekend:
£765 in Cheshire (rising to £835 in 2025)
£700 in Manchester (City of Manchester)
£500 - £535 in Stockport
"430 - £480 in Preston.

For exactly the same service! How is that fair?

I'm getting married in Manchester and I'll be damned if I'm paying that much and subject to the indignity of having to follow 'legal rules' + being unable to choose my registrar. I did the cheapie legal on a weekday and spent the £600+ on things that actually mattered. Like food , booze and my dress ;) Oh, and a celebrant, that I not only got to choose but who's spent lots of time with us perfecting our ceremony. For a lower price than any of the legal registrars!

More and more people are doing it this way as weddings, like everything else have gotten so expensive. Similarly the trend in 'micro weddings'. Councils have gotten away with charging so much as people still make a huge fuss about the 'legal's but this is slowly changing. Especially as in many other countries there's no such thing as a licensed venue, you have to do the 'legals' in a government officey place.

Have you read the OP's posts?

Not sure why people aren't reading OPs posts but to clarify she has said she works from home,her husband wfh one day a week which happens to be her birthday. Their plan was to take a long lunch break that day and go for lunch to celebrate her birthday, I suppose that is easier than going out in the evening when you need babysitters when you have children with special needs.

So the OPs birthday has been fixed for some years, since she was born in fact, it was convenient for her and her husband to celebrate which is probably a real bonus when you have children with special needs. MIL could pick any day but she has chosen the milestone birthday of the OP meaning OP won't have her birthday celebration, probably won't be able to do it that week.

Life is tough when you have children with special needs, having a special lunch with your husband on your special birthday doesn't seem a lot to ask to me but hey she's just a wife, a mother with responsibilities so why the hell should she get considered just occasionally.

Fully agree!!!
He needs to tell her that you’re his wife and the mother of his children so to have some respect.

Why can’t he ask her if you are invited? It’s a simple question really.

Bit rubbish for her to do it on your milestone birthday but as you say, you work term time and you can celebrate on the weekend ❤️

hope you have a lovely birthday x

Your husband should get clarity for you.

but you can’t be hurt because she choose your birthday? Because it’s weekday and you need to take a day off?

Her wedding her choice. Kinda ridiculous all around on this.

sucks you guys don’t like each other. But hubby just needs to find out who’s invited. (He can stand up for you or not, that’s a different fight, and you can be justified in being disappointed if he doesn’t!) once he finds out you can worry or plan. But not till then.

Please tell me you'll be refusing all DH demands that you visit his mother.

@Auntiegaston

I’m not sure I’ll ever change my view on my wedding as I was doing what I thought was right at the time. I understand why MIL was hurt but my mum was also hurt she couldn’t come. But that was 10 odd years ago.

Don't. I'm not sure why you've had a number of responses suggesting you've commited some gratuitous, barely forgivable offence by having the wedding of your own and DH's choosing and only a couple of friends present. But I don't set the store by weddings that many MN members do, so I wouldn't necessarily see why it's so 'hurtful' to marry quietly in this way.

My DH and I married in Italy with only one couple we are friends with and their two children present. My dearest childhood friend, who I've known since I was four, wasn't there. My brother, to whom I'm very close, wasn't there either. And my mum is dead. We told others of our plans shortly before we left.

Big parties have never been the way DH and I celebrate. We are fairly unconventional. We don't stand on ceremony. We like informality, we don't like attention, and an identikit wedding that 'others expect' would have been anathema to both of us. Anyone who knows us, or even knows the remotest thing about us, knows this. The issue arose, I think, because DH's family barely do know him. He left home at 18 and hasn't been back. His mum contacts him (and our DC) all of three times a year. This considered, it shouldn't have come as a surprise that it never even occurred to DH or me that anyone might mind.

My family, my friends, all our mutual friends, were delighted for us. Sister-in-law went on the attack because we'd dared to do something unconventional without having it sanctioned by her. MiL said nothing, but according to SiL she was 'very, very upset'. In the circumstances I don't see why. It was DH's choice even more than mine, but of course being the woman I am 100% at fault. When are we ever not?

All this said, if I could go back in time I'd do exactly the same thing again. You had your wedding the way you wanted - the way that was imposed on you because of your child's SEN - if others choose not to understand that then that's on them. Now let her get on with hers. You don't have to prioritize her when it comes to making your own plans but that seems an inevitable consequence of the nature of your relationship in general, not the wedding per se.

Drop the rope and let DH deal with her.

OP has said, more than once, that she has flexibility and they planned a long lunch hour to go out for a meal. So it does matter

Just do that on a different day, then?

Your MIL sounds awful but I still think YABU for many reasons.

It’s not clear whether the kids or me are invited.

So why have neither you nor your DH just ASKED if you and the kids are invited?! Jeez.

To be honest, I'm really not sure why you'd want to go anyway. You don't like her, and you say in relation to your own wedding that you kids would find 'even a small wedding too much' so why are you bothered that you and the kids can't go?

Also, if you can't get time off work anyway, it's irrelevant that it's a 'milestone birthday' because you'll be at work. (I also don't understand the obsession with having to celebrate on the actual day of a birthday - just have cards and presents on your actual birthday and then go out to celebrate on the nearest Saturday ffs, you're not a child).

Or you could read her updates.

That would have been relevant in the original post then she wouldnt have to state it more than once would she 🙄

OP has said, more than once, that she has flexibility and they planned a long lunch hour to go out for a meal. So it does matter.

You haven't explained how the arrangements for the wedding are all on the OP. She didn't marry herself, she married a grown man who had every right to his input on if they used a sitter, ran off to Gretna Green, or invited his mother. Somehow it is all the OPs fault, she can spend birthday alone and her equally culpable husband gets invited to the wedding and misses OPs birthday lunch.

If you can't get time off work anyway you wouldn't be doing anything for your birthday on that day so what does it matter? She's not préventing you having plans with your husband and if the meal afterwards is lunchtime he can get home by the time you get home from work

@Auntiegaston
I do not have a child with SEN, but I hat a sibling who has a child with SEN. When the child was younger they often had to arrange for respite care services. and of course family members were often on call. So, I am very familiar with the challenges involved in caring for children with SEN.

I doubt however any family member was ever excluded from an event because of some parity issue related to offering or not offering child care. Better to have characterized this an event to which no one was invited. Once you decided that someone "was not invited" you created the feelings that now exist.

That may not have been your intention, but it was the very foreseeable outcome.

@Iwasafool
Would this couple have said to their mothers,"since neither of you have agreed to keep our children neither of you are invited to our wedding? Who plans a wedding with the intention of excluding their parents?

Surely in planning a wedding you have enough lead time to hire a sitter even in the most difficult of circumstances. Obviously a brief Registry wedding would not have required the use of the sitter for any extended period of time.

I would imagine that the MIL thinks that the idea of not inviting her as some kind of parity gesture originated with the OP. She is not inviting her son as a guest but instead as a member of the wedding party.

Sadly, this is a pretty fractured family dynamic within this family grouping.

I totally understand where you are coming from. You are being set up for years of people having to choose between their Wedding Anniversary and your birthday for things. I don't think your DH should go personally. I definitely don't think you or the kids should go. Even if you are working, I imagine you'll want some sort of treat, even if it's only a takeaway or for your DH to do all the school runs. I don't know if location means DH could do both - I do know my DH went to a family event when my SEND child was in hospital and ended up leaving because he suddenly realised his priorities were out of whack.

Unless you really love your mil it's best to steer clear,.let your dh deal with her and remind him he's married to you, not his mum

So it was the OPs wedding? Nothing to do with her husband?