engagement ignoral

This is one of the weirdest posts I’ve ever read on mumsnet. Do you know anyone at all, socially? The only explanation I can think of for you drawing a total blank on this is that you’re a complete recluse who has no regular interaction with others.

Perhaps your sister felt that if you hadn't bothered to tell her personally about the engagement she didn't want to express any interest in it?

I live in UK and I simply don't recognise what other posters are saying about engagements being a non event. All of my nieces who have got engaged have rung me to tell me their happy news, send pics of the ring etc. I don't think engagement parties are a big thing here, but in my experience it is very common to let family know and for people to send a congratulations message or card, even a small gift depending how close you are to the couple.

If I'd had my social media invaded by a filmed fake proposal scenario with all the filters, then I would pointedly absolutely ignore that bollocks 😁

Otherwise, I'd type a quick congrats and ask when the big day will be?
We all know engagements sometimes never end.
I have friends 'engaged' for 35 years now.

Why do threads like this bring out the posters who always claim to scorn any form of happy announcement or celebration? One has even claimed she’s never actually heard of people announcing an engagement 😂

Ignoral is a word, I'm confused by the confusion! It means ignoring something on multiple levels or occasions. Which fits with the OP post.

Yes my aunt went very funny with my mum when I got married as clearly she thought my cousins would marry first. Then a few years later my best pal's aunt acted in a very similar way about her wedding.

Why not just phone your sister and ask her ?

Yes, might be a generational difference here. I'd expect a close family member to tell me in person (in person could mean via a personal message or text only for me).

It used to be normal to actually tell people in person or over the phone.

I still think for something like an engagement you should tell important people in person or over the phone/in a private message, not through a post on your Facebook page which goes out to every Tom, Dick or Harry that you've added over the years, the random you met in a club once, the guy from your first job, the school friend from when you were 8 that you haven't seen in 30 years.

So I would have scrolled past his post and thought " I'm obviously not important enough to be told in person".

Of course we have engagement parties here in the UK and acknowledge people's engagements. Obviously not everyone has a party, but any normal person would say congratulations upon hearing a close friend or relative got engaged, strange that people are say that we don't.

It’s not a UK thing, it’s a MN thing. And probably only a small but highly “vocal” part of MN.

Probably the people who never answer the door, require any phone call to be made by appointment, see no need to reply to texts, view all strangers as suspicious or not quite of their ilk and will ghost and block a friend that displeases them in some way.

The other MNs are intelligent, kind, interesting and delightful 😬

So you already know your sister is angry with you about something? If the two of you have fallen out, I can see why that might disrupt her communication with your children, though I think it’s a shame. Seems like the focus should be on why she’s angry with you, though. Not the lack of congratulating your DS which, if you’re right, is just fall out from your relationship having gone sour.

But also, even without the upset between you and her, this may just be a difference in communication norms between the two of you. None of my aunts or uncles congratulated me when I got engaged (neither, I think, did my DH’s), and we didn’t expect it. We didn’t contact them to let them know and didn’t expect them to contact us. They still like us (and our parents), came to our wedding, chat at family gatherings, have entertained our children, etc.

It baffled me too- Not a typo, but a new word! Ignoral.

Sounds like what my Whippet does ,when she deliberately doesn't look at me while I'm eating-but is listening, in the hopes of maybe getting a a bit by being polite.

Pic: ''Ignoral''

And we definitely do have engagement parties in the UK although they’re not that common but more often people post it on social media and text others closer to them to let them know and it is expected for people to react /comment.

But again I think the issue here is neither you or your son bothered to tell your aunt directly which IMO is no less unusual or rude than your sister not congratulating him.

If you feel your sister congratulating your son is so important why did you not reach out to her to let her know the happy news?

Instead you/your son were happy just leaving it for her to be informed via a mass announcement on social media and her receiving the news alongside your sons former colleagues/neighbours and other randoms that are likely to be on his social media.

Also, I forgot to add, that I thought us in the U.K. very much did celebrate engagements...
I would definitely respond to the FB announcement if I was often on that site.
Even if I was annoyed or upset with you, I couldn't treat an innocent party with a non response.
Sending you a BIG hug 🤗 from my little part of the U.K.

Well you don’t seem to be happy and smiling. You seem to be choosing to be aggressive to posters and miserable.

Exactly. It goes both ways really, I’d expect a nephew or niece to tell their aunt directly in person or over the phone. Perhaps he would’ve got a lively response if he had done that?

The fact he never to me shows there’s distance and that is maybe why she hasn’t bothered to acknowledge it or she may even see it as a slight.

I can’t imagine any of my brothers children if they have any in the future letting me know something like that via Facebook/social media. I’d hope they’d reach out and tell me their good news or my brothers would . Same goes for my goddaughter when she’s older - I’d expect either her or her mum (my close friend) would tell me.

Op, wiithout knowing the"backstory", it is mighty difficult to make a useful comment.

It comes across like you think your sis has deliberately ignored/snubbed your sons and her Nephew, just because she knows it'll likely "get to you".

Please take some comfort from the fact your dear son seems to have not been upset... that would make it far worse.

He may have felt offended at it, and it may well come out later... perhaps he chose not to tell you he's upset, coz he senses that it could worsen the seemingly rocky relationship between you and your sis'.

I guess there's some part if you that woul like to have it out in the open with her, and for her to apologise and make it all good.
Then the other part of you is wary that everything will just get worse, and cause more upset to you parents, that I guess just want peace between their two daughters...

I feel your pain 🙏🏻

If you told me your son had got engaged, I'd probably say something about that's exciting and ask when they were having the wedding.

You said they've known each other for years. Are they living together? When someone who has been living together gets married, I'm usually a bit meh. They're already sort of married in practice and this is just a formalisation really.

I wouldn't contact a relative I wasn't close to about an engagement if they didn't tell me personally. If they don't share it with me themselves, I'm not that involved and more of an outsider. If I'm close, I might send a card.

If they posted on social media, I'd probably just post a brief, congrats. Maybe ask when the wedding is.

The variables for me are how close I am, whether I'm involved or on the outside looking in as a more distant family member, whether they are already living together.

When my child got engaged I'm not sure any of the relatives, including my sibling, sent a card or did anything much. They weren't living together till marriage and the wedding was where we all celebrated. No-one felt anyone had done anything inappropriate.

When I got engaged I told my friends, my parents told the aunts and uncles. Who then said congratulations via them. I didn't tell any of them.

And social media is a pain in the arse. It is the cause of so many arguments because people can't live without the validation and see likes and comments as validation that they are truly liked.

It is not your engagement whether someone congratulates my child or not is between my child and that person it is none of my business, sad about what?