Boring wedding invite drama

So they are tight on space and don’t want to meet a partner they dont know but have room for a couple of kids they dont know. Weird.

He'd be better going alone. Imagine one of the nephews hits one of your kids (even by accident) it’ll kick off world war 3.
It would be better for him to go alone with a back up excuse of “one of the kids is sick so I’m going to check home and may have to go early but I wasn’t going to miss your special day even if I can’t stay for the whole event, congratulations”
That way he can go if he feels trapped with a good excuse of little jimmy having tonsillitis or whatever… If he drives there he can go sit in the car lots too if he’s feeling stressed and say he was on the phone home.

There have been a bunch of these kind of posts on MN lately - there are always people who defend the CF bride and/or groom and I can understand not wanting a very recent relationship partner along with the family member. But when you are talking about a marriage or long term relationship excluding a partner is shitty. And picking and choosing among the children of the family is inexcusable.

I think he should either go alone or also take his toddler. You can stay home with the baby and older children. Everyone mentioned in your OP has had a complicated life so I don’t blame your SIL for not wanting to pay to invite 5 children when she has a strained relationship with her brother.

How many plus ones are invited to weddings that don't really know the couple well? I'd say quite a few. It seems odd and hurtful not to invite you.

Perso gets an invite they decide or not if they go, why do people need to check

It is an invite not a summons, it only needs to be more complicated if people make it so, no more thought needs to go into if no thinking about reasons no long drawn out reasoning- yes or no to what is written

Why is that so hard?

Given the circumstances it’s not surprising that she only invited her brother, he’s the only member of your family that she actually knows.

These blended family scenarios come up on here time and time again. There’s no right or wrong answer because every family, every person, every circumstance, is different. What it comes down to is you are the parent to all five children - your choice (though not through “choice” with the elder two admittedly). But she is not the aunt to all five children - her choice. You cannot force relationships to happen in extended families.

Putting two and two together and potentially getting five, but as your DP has only seen his sister once in 15 years and doesn’t talk to the rest of his family, I’m guessing there is a cultural/religious difference? In which case you are unlikely to win it over.

DP should go to the wedding alone. If he wants to build a relationship with any members of his family that would be better done individually and separate from his sister’s wedding. He needs to re-establish contact before throwing you and the kids into the mix.

I feel very sorry for him. He's obviously trying to keep that connection to his family, it can be difficult to be estranged but if she's the better example of their family then he's much, much better off without them!

He can't use the children as a human shield.

He has to decide whether he wants to go or not..

I think it stinks to invite only some children of a family rather than the whole family. Splitting the children up by bio/not bio is unacceptable. If I were you, I would not want to meet this sister and I would be hurt by both her and my partner if he went with just the bio kids. It sends a really crap message. On the other hand, if he wants to maintain the family connection (goodness knows why) he should go alone, maybe just for one of the days. If anyone asks why he's not staying for the whole wedding weekend, he can say because he didn't want to leave his real family for that long.

I think the whole “you’re not family” thing is hurtful. But I’ve seen enough of these type of threads on MN to realise people clearly have two very different definitions of family.

Your definition is that by marrying her brother you’ve become family. And the adopted/fostered kids who live with you and her brother are also family.

She has the opposite view that only blood relatives are family. Being married to a blood relative doesn’t count. Being a step child/adopted/fostered doesn’t count. Those people aren’t “family” to her.

it’s hurtful to realise that she doesn’t think you and your other kids are family and she never will. Sadly I doubt there is anything you can do to change her mind. But at least you know where you stand with her. You aren’t her family, and she isn’t yours.

Bringing two kids because he will feel anxious/awkward otherwise is a really bad reason.

"You're not family"?! You've been her brothers' partner for 15 years and you share kids together!!! she sounds very strange.

She has specifically said no to me attending because I'm not family

Will her husband not be her family once they’re married? Very odd.

Why hasn’t he seen her in a decade and a half? Also very odd.

I’d say he goes alone without using your young kids as human shields.

Dh goes alone

• odd to not invite you as his wife
• not odd to not invite the kids (that’s 7 seats… that could be 10% of the wedding guests).

Strange to have been with someone 15 years who speaks to his sister weekly, and never met her!!

I actually think it's fine that it was only him that was invited in this situation. The family sounds complicated with the fall outs or whatever it is that has caused fractures within them. You have never met her, so maybe the best you could expect is for her to possibly add you on so he doesn't have to go alone, which sounds like she might be willing to do and then none of the children (which sounds like you are unwilling to accept and want it to be all of you or none of you). I don't really see someone else's wedding as an opportunity to introduce your kids to them. If you want to do that then host your own event or invite people round to visit.

If your DH wants to go, he should go on his own.

If he doesn’t want to go on his own then he shouldn’t go at all - his reason is that the whole family are not invited, this is a reasonable excuse to decline the invite.

I don't think your husband should feel forced to go either to be honest.

Is there a specific reason he doesn't see his family? Or just distance?

I would tell him that introducing his kids to his family at an event where everyone is on top of each other for 3 days, when tensions is high, alcohol in the mix etc... is a bad idea.

He hasn't seen them in so long, he can't really tell which way it's going to go, so bringing young children into this is a bad idea.

I dont see the issue with her only inviting him. As in, it's a pretty poor relationship/family set-up all round, why would you care to go. Shrug and leave them to it. If your husband wants to, that's up to him. I dont see an issue with him taking your joint bio children if that's what he'd like to do.

He needs to realise he can go and accept it being awkward or he can say no.

YANBU.