Aibu to be upset that my extended family have gone away for a long weekend and my family wasn’t invited?

Oh OP. No words of advice, but just wanted to send you a huge, unmumsnetty hug. You have been - and are being - so badly treated by your family and your ex h's family. They are all so toxic! Thank goodness for your lovely children and your partner and for the fact that you have apparently managed to remain a sane, kind, thoughtful person despite their many unkindnesses.

(Big hug)

I am in shock reading your post.

I can’t believe they moved to North America and left you when you were 19.

I also can’t believe how they have treated you since then. This is abuse. It’s neglect amongst other things.

You mentioned you’ve had therapy… do you still? Because I truly think you need as much as you can get.

You’ve been through so much and have been abandoned so many times.

Personally I would cut contact with them.
You can’t chase them, you can’t force them to behave like normal loving parents. Let alone the impact on your children… they can’t grow up thinking this is normal behaviour.

Do you believe you deserve better than this? Do you believe you are worthy of love and stability and security?

I don’t think you gain anything out of being in contact with them. Unless they know how they treat you and want to go to therapy together with you I can’t see any other way you are going to be happy then cutting contact.

OP, do you still have the counselling? You’ve been abandoned by your parents,your sister and your inlaws.

Sorry that things turned out this way.

Glad that you have your lovely DP and DC around.

I wouldn’t cut off your parents off but I’d definitely reduce the contact and be less available for errands and entertainment.

Hugs ((()))

In the meantime, get onto AI - Grok on X or CPT as a PP recommended. Grok is brilliant and doesn’t remember conversations so as long as you don’t use actual names, you can be quite honest. The AI bot will come back with empathy, an analysis and recommendations for going forward. And it’s instant. And free.

I just wanted to say that I'm sorry you've been treated so shabbily OP. Your family upped and left you when you were only just an adult and then the people who took you in as their family have now left you because you didn't want to be treated like shit by exH. As hard as it, distance yourself from your family, for your well-being and only surround yourself with people who treat you well (your partner and DC). All the very best x

@fortygin
You sure your parents actually like you?
Dumping you when you were a teenager?
Are you sure they didn't use the "daddys visa" as an excuse to get rid of you?
That seems so off to me with and with obvious favouritism towards your sister
You are kidding yourself that although their behaviour deeply hurts you're 'loved' because when sisters not there well hey you get some attention then right?
Stop making excuses about dislike for ex and cloudy judgements
They have no time for you and although its going to hurt
You can pick up on your dignity and carry on with life alongside your beautiful children
At least you'll know that in the future you won't be the one to have to provide care for their old ages
That's all on their favourite who, according to them will always do it much better than you would've anyway...........

OP, your parents sound absolutely horrendous user narcs.

I really hope for your self-esteem and mental health you go extremely low contact.

Their behaviour is really dreadful.
Please don't take responsibility for it.

You have raised lovely children and built your own life.

I have children arou d the 20's and could not imagine in any world doing what they did.

Please stop allowing them to use you.

So sorry it's happened again @fortygin. How are you planning to step back from your parents? It does sound as if you really need to for your own mental health.

Talk to them. Say to your mum how it makes you feel, and explain what you say on this thread.

You have one life and time is passing.
Yet you spend it visiting family that treat you poorly.
What a waste of your time.
Cut it back to once a month.

It won’t make any difference. If they cared about how OP feels, they wouldn’t treat her like this in the first place.

The whole point is that they don’t care. It’s horrible, and it’s hard, but it’s the reality of the situation.

You can’t make people care about you who don’t care about you. Even when they’re your own parents. Some parents are just defective, and if they don’t want to recognise that and put the effort in to change (and Hollywood dramas notwithstanding, they virtually never do), nothing you can do about it but protect yourself from them.

fortygin, I hope you can step away further than this. These people really don’t deserve you and they’re harming you. Your DC deserve a mother who’s not being harmed in this way, especially now you have health problems. You wouldn’t be human if it didn’t bother you; of course it bothers you.

Rather than trying to suppress your feelings, acknowledge them and act on them. Protect yourself from this toxic, damaging situation, from your toxic, harmful parents.

You poor pet.
I'm so sorry.
Please be kind to yourself.
You sound like a great woman who has made a success of your life despite your disgraceful parents abandonment.

I remember your thread last year and have just read your update. Hope you have recovered from your health issues. Not surprised they have repeated the same pattern this year with the collusion of your sister and her family. She is a huge contributor to their behaviour by allowing it to happen and reaping the rewards.
I know you find it difficult to cut ties completely but as someone else suggested cut back the duty visit to once a month and then reduce further. Are the text messages when the golden child is not around, still as frequent? Again, cut back on your replies and the length of time it takes you to reply. As they age this will only intensify and their expectations of support from you, will only increase. Start building walls and boundaries now to protect yourself.
Plan more with your partner and your own children. More days out, more experiences, more weekends away. Build your support system with them. Your children more than anyone have seen what they did to you and they too have suffered as a result.
I think your mother uses her anger with your ex as a smokescreen. Pretending to have an intense hatred of him, because you support and encourage your children's relationship with their Dad, is justification for her own bad behaviour towards you.

Exactly this happened with my ‘family’, myself and my children were regularly excluded from days out and holidays, yet if I invited my parents anywhere they’d not even consider attending unless the invite extended to my siblings and their children. I had enough and cut ties with all of my family nearly a decade ago, best decision I ever made.

You have said that you can't fully step away but maybe if you did do that, you'd feel more in control rather than just waiting for a few crumbs from your mum's table while your parents kill the fatted calf regularly for your sister and her family.

Your relationship with your parents only seems to cause you pain and sadness. The difference in how you are treated compared to your sister is so stark and obvious that it cannot be ignored. If you make a decision to stop seeing your parents, you and your children will no longer be exposed to their obvious favouritism for your sister and her family.

I know! They sounds horrible, without how they are currently acting.

Cherish what? They sounds horrible.

Next time could you invite your sister to stay with you for a few days?