Boring wedding invite drama

This
its fine both ways.

Inviting and catering for a group of people you’ve not met is not something that should be forced on someone for their wedding. Great if they can, not an insult if they don’t want to

but equally if going by himself after all this time makes him feel awkward, that’s also fine to decline

not worth falling out over. There is a chasm of issues there that cannot necessarily be sorted at a wedding

It's glamping!?!?!? Yanbu!

He can do what he likes but no way would he be taking the baby and toddler.

He needs some therapy not a human shield formed by clutching onto to his 2 x youngest children for 72 hrs....

Given he doesnt like / isnt comfortable woth his family... In his shoes i'd sent a card and wouldnt attend myself or go for the actual wedding.

Separately your SIL sounds like an absolute dickhead. Shes trying to "make him choose" and he is "choosing" her.
Its all very dysfuntional.

The bride is nuts.
Your H should not go if you’re not invited, he’s condoning her very poor attitude/ behaviour.

I can understand her inviting you but none of the children, but why is she getting married if she doesn’t believe marriage makes you family? Is her new husband or in laws not going to be her family?

I think DH should just decline the invitation. Not out of a sense of outrage, but because it sounds like it will just bring him stress & sadness.

3 days solo-parenting a baby and a toddler on a glamping site sounds like a nightmare, and that's before you throw in pissed up wedding guests and estranged family members. What on earth is he thinking?

Not read previous posts but from initial statement, DH should decline the invite. And you all do something nice together instead. It’s just rude

Having just read your update...I had assumed she lived far away. If you live in the same city and just never meet, he should absolutely not take any of the children. They could have met any time if they wanted, but haven't because of complex family dynamics. And a baby and a toddler glamping as a solo parent sounds crap. What's he going to do, sit in a tent from when the baby goes to sleep while everyone else parties?

thats rude ive been to a few weddings where i hadnt met brife or groom was still invited as my dh wife

If we're talking "traditional etiquette" though, I'd say it would be pretty traditional for a man to introduce his partner to his family - or just his sister if she is the only one he keeps in contact with - at some point during a 15 year relationship.

This clearly isn't a "traditional etiquette' kind of a situation, is it ?

It's traditional etiquette to introduce your wife to your sister sometime in the decade and a half you've been married, yet here they are 🤷

I think he should go on his own. His reasons for taking two are all about him and a bit shit. It sounds like he wants moral support (he will be 'on his own' otherwise) and I don't think it's appropriate to ask that from your own children. His discomfort about having to make small talk with strangers should not come over your other children's hurt at being excluded if the two children go. And his reason for thinking it would be good to introduce kids to family...I really don't think a wedding is the beat place to do that. Hyped up people, alcohol, busy, noisy, heightened emotions is not the place for estranged family to build bridges (although can be the start of it).

I don't think the sister is being unreasonable in the slightest.

You don't invite 6 people you don't know, to your wedding. Potentially even more so if it is going to be a 3 day affair, 24 hours a day. That's a long time to spend with people you don't normally live with before you throw all the broken family into the mix.

Your dp is being very unreasonable to want to use small dc as some sort of human shield.

He has been invited, and can choose to go or choose not to go, he is being incredibly unreasonable to try to get you all invited, when it seems he has never invited his sister over to meet you in 15 years of your relationship! I had assumed you lived on different sides of the world, not in the same City.

Even if he didn't want her to know where he lives, he could easily have arranged to meet up for a drink / meal / picnic / walk / coffee etc.

Can he not see that it is really odd to expect his sister to invite 7 people to her wedding when your dp has NEVER, in 15 years, felt it was important enough for him to introduce (in the first place) you, and then your dc, at any point in your relationship ? It's just bizarre that - however messed up his childhood / teen years were - that he can't see a relationship is two way.

Your other kids will only mind if you engineer that that do. It’s easy to make an excuse why you and them aren’t going. I understand the SIL only want people her or her spouse know.
id encourage your husband to go with the toddler.
Its someone who is almost a total stranger to you so I wouldn’t care if I wasn’t invited.

I think your husband should go to the ceremony and depending how that goes he could have a drink and a snack for an hour or 2 at the glamp site and then leave. That way he has maintained his relationship with his sister by showing his face. It sounds really difficult I’m pleased you’ve managed to bite your tongue and support him

If he doesn’t want to go on his own then he doesn’t go at all.

I can’t see that not going to the wedding of a sister he hasn’t seen for x years and who he has never introduced to his partner or family is going to make much difference to the way his family interacts with each other, and it doesn’t sound as though the bride cares a toss anyway.

It’s traditional etiquette to invite established couples together.

I think you need to set aside the weirdness here. It is weird for you not to be invited. Most people would allow a plus one to a guest, and I find it hard to believe that every single invitee is a blood relative of either the bride or the groom.

However, if SIL has mental health problems and your DH is trying to navigate a tricky situation I would try and take your feelings out of it. They haven’t had a normal upbringing and they don’t do normal family stuff as adults. It’s not personal.

If your DH wanted to take his biological kids, I would arrange an alternative for you and the others and explain it to them as: DH’s family is weird, usually we would all be invited, but they have some issues and this is how it is.

I say all this as someone who married a man who was in foster care and has siblings who all went through different struggles in childhood: living in different houses with different influences, some now have mental health problems as does their mum. It’s not the same as another family and you can’t expect it to be.

Why though? There is still this persistent idea that married people are completely joined at the hip. That if you want to invite someone to your party you have always invite their spouse even if you don't know them.

How have you never met her in all these years? Particularly when you all live reasonably close. Is it your husband who hasn’t tried to introduce you? Her that has refused to meet you? I can’t get my head round it. There have been fractures in my close family over the years, and I haven’t spent too much time with my brother, but we have met and introduced partners over the years. I can kind of understand why she hasn’t invited you and is saying you aren’t family if she’s felt snubbed/insulted by not having met you for all these years.

Your poor DP. Wouldn't it be better to turn down the invitation but invite his sister and partner over to your house after the wedding to meet you all?

He’s seen her once in 15 years, he has no obligation to go to her wedding. I wouldn’t bother personally.

If she really wanted him to go she would have invited you.

She sounds like an absolute cow, you’re lucky you’re not invited and feel you have to go. Poor DH

It's obviously an odd family dynamic. You would be 7 people l, thats a lot at a wedding if she's not met 6 of you. I can see why she'd just want a couple of kids rather than all of them there. Her semi- estranged brother's girlfriend's sister's kids aren't really priority at her wedding.

She obviously should have just invited all of you but sounds odd all round. No reason for the small kids not to meet their family. You're obviously all blended but she doesn't see it that way.

It is incredibly rude not invite people who live as married and it is incredibly rude to exclude their children by making judgements about who is or isn't family enough for you.

You tell them the truth. That as far as you are concerned they're all your children equally, but that not everyone will see it the same way. And that that's ok.
It's probably not news to them. No need to make a big deal about it.