To still be upset and I can’t believe my husband doesn’t get it

Their decisions surrounding the wedding and then reinforced with the Christmas gifts signal that they do not view you as family. It’s ok to be upset by that.

however, you need to decide how you are going to deal with that reality and move on. You can’t change them. You can control your reactions and your own behavior.

You can decide how many events to attend. At least a few will facilitate the relationship for your husband and children and you can view your time from that perspective. You can leave any preparation or gift giving labor to your husband. If they need help, you do not need to feel any obligation to provide assistance. These people treat you as an acquaintance and you can reciprocate.

Ok, so they sound like a really unpleasant family whose lives and manners are at complete odds with your values - your husband included.

So why did you marry him and marry into this family?

So they didn't want you there but want you to fawn over their photos of who was invited. Everyone telling you to move on but I'm with you on this. It's a shit thing to not invite spouses of their siblings and a shit thing to then think you should be enthusiastic about their photos. Why do people not realise their hurtful actions have consequences. They can't just move on and expect everything to be as before. And you husband's comments about your wedding is pretty shit too. Why even say that even if you thought it.

Completely agree - this minimising of someone elses pain because there is greater pain in the world, is unkind and bonkers.

the first thread @Unlisted wrote:
On Sunday we were arranging to meet them at a holiday destination after Easter but DH kept saying he wouldn’t be available. He wouldn’t elucidate but kept repeating that I should go ahead with the kids. It was really embarrassing because he wouldn’t tell me why.

We got in the car and I asked him why he couldn’t confirm and my normally mild mannered good humoured husband pulled over and screamed at the top of his lungs a few centimetres from my face and in front of the kids said that he’d be at his sister’s wedding. She is getting married in a quiet ceremony with close friends and family as his family aren’t freaks like mine!

I think what you're really upset about isn't the not being invited to the wedding, it's that you weren't even told about the wedding. Your DH prioritized "keeping his sister's confidence" about her secret wedding over your peace of mind. She and/or he didn't trust you enough to tell you the wedding was happening (and you weren't invited). I see the deception as the much bigger issue, and especially that your DH prioritized your sister's very strange request to keep her wedding secret from you over your feelings as his wife, culminating in him shouting at you and calling your family freaks. The wedding itself is a red herring. These deeper issues are going to continue to cause friction.

I’m not saying this to be unkind. I know other people have mentioned it as well, but you need to stop saying the word “devastated.” As someone else said, “devastated” is when a 21 year old dies this week with their whole life ahead of them. You’ve also stated you’re “really offended.” By someone holding the size wedding that they want, and not inviting any partners, NOT singling you out? Maybe you are really offended, but it’s not a good look. Be upset that your DH yelled at you, but your SIL has done nothing wrong here.

The words you use, I feel, are winding you up. Maybe stop saying you were devastated, because the more you keep saying it, the more you feel it, in this case; you’ll feel better if you let it go and realize it wasn’t something personal, nor was it really about you at all. Devastated by the small things is a very hard way to live life, I know, and I’m sorry if your brain is making you feel that way, but the use of certain words, or avoiding certain words is part of training your brain (example: I never use the word “stupid,” about myself or others, because my father used it to abuse me). I used to be like that, until I got my anxiety better under control. If it was something worth devastation, I would have different advice. I hope you feel better soon

💯 agree. It's really patronising and unless you are a therapist and know the OP it's really wrong.

OP doesn't need therapy.
Loads of people would be upset about this.
It just depends on the relationship you have with family and your own in-laws.

I’m not sure anyone gets why you are offended. This is beyond “first world problem”, it’s obsessing over a total non event. Unless his family completely exclude you from every event, refuse to acknowledge you, this is not about you. Of course they will talk about their wedding. They are allowed to do that even in front of people who weren’t there.

You can choose to let this go. Only you know the real reason you aren’t doing so.

Your DH is being massively tactless by slagging off your wedding and extolling the virtues of a wedding where the spouses of the siblings are all not invited.

Plus it's really tone deaf to distribute photos of the wedding in front of people who haven't been invited. It gives very 'here's what you could have won' vibes.

I really couldn't give a toss about weddings and think they are all a massive waste of money, but if you have a proper wedding like your DH's sister did, what she did was pretty rude.

Honestly, I'd just pull right back from his family. Stop getting upset and treat them with the contempt with which they treat you. It really isn't worth crying about.

Why do so many people write posts like these? Are you really qualified to say she needs ‘treatment’ and ‘professional help’?

We’re discussing a woman none of us have met who feels a bit hurt about being excluded from a family wedding, not someone on the brink of nervous collapse.

She has a right to feel hurt, and she should probably just write the episode off as a bad job, but she doesn’t need some random online ‘diagnosis’. I’m only picking on your post because I see this a lot here and it’s starting to annoy me.

Offended by what? No spouses were invited. It’s nothing personal, it’s nothing to do with you. It was about the couple and the cost.

Are any of the other spouses crying over it? You really need to get over this, it’s so childish.

I can see why you were upset originally. Not inviting siblings partners is odd and I can see that it may be interpreted as well you, you and you aren't part of our family. Maybe it was, maybe it was about finances. I would let it go because it's not doing you any good dwelling on it. But I don't think I would view your SIL in quite the same way going forward. And I certainly wouldn't be seeking out their company.

He said we could have had a fantastic wedding with the money we had if we hadn’t spread it too thinly. I am genuinely devastated by this.
I thought we had had a fantastic wedding with all our important people who had brought with them their significant others. He said we could have had a free bar like his sister and one of our friends had, if we had invited fewer people and their hangers on.

Who decided on the wedding logistics, @Unlisted ? You, him or both of you together?

It reads like you have married someone with whom you are temperamentally not very compatible (and his family).

I wouldn't be a happy camper at being screamed at but that doesn't seem to be the basis of your (current) complaint. I also think your SiL sounds insensitive to do a photo showing of a family event you weren't invited to in your presence.

But aside from that, it all sounds like high drama and theatricality that you've been festering over for months. If you want your marriage to last, just accept that your husband and his family are very, very different to you and your family, and that they do things differently and are not specifically targeting YOU. You'll probably be a lot happier when you stop giving this headspace.

Don't do that. Where as I understand your point and theres obviously no comparison to the death of a young person and not being invited to a wedding but this is ops thread and not connected to anything else. Sometimes ppl here nit pick on words ... shes used the word devastating, it only has one meaning I know but sometimes someone's explanation of a situation is to the best of their vocabulary ablity. Don't run off with it.

Although it’s an unusual choice it really wouldn’t bother me. They didnt single anyone out just made a blanket choice presumably to get the wedding they wanted. However id say it makes it clear that your SIL doesn’t see you as a friend. But is that a problem? Would you consider yourselves friends? Do you call/msg/meet up for coffee? If so I can see that would be upsetting but if you just meet up at family events then she has made a decision as to who she wanted at the wedding.

as for the photo it’s a picture of your dh with his family. Again I can’t see the problem. Stick up a photo of you with your parents and siblings if it makes you feel better. It’s just a photo.

@Unlisted - I totally get why you feel the way you do. In your shoes I would keep my distance from SIL in future.

And obviously don’t display that stupid photo. Talk about rubbing salt into the wound…

I like PP suggestion of leaving DH to organise presents/meet ups for SIL and her DC. Also in future the only favours I'd do for SIL would be those that I'd do for any casual acquintence.

Possibly, possibly not. It doesn't change the fact that he put his sister before his wife though and directly led to him prevaricating in front of OP's family followed by screaming at her. He could have said that he has a prior commitment with his family and could they please discuss it privately later on.

I am really not surprised OP is upset. Discovering your spouse has been lying and keeping secrets can be very difficult to get past. It makes you reevaluate everything you think you know about them and can no longer take them at face value.

And I have to say, if my OH was invited to anything without me he’d probably decline, one because he hates driving on motorways and also not keen on doing things without me.

the issue here @Unlisted isn’t the wedding, it’s the lie, and the shouting in your face, that’s on your H.

let it all go, drop the rope on the lot of them and focus on yourself and your family.

In the words of Meghan Trainor, you need to let it go.

It’s not top trumps love.

if so, I can actually top that, tragically, but I won’t, because it’s irrelevant.

there is always someone going through worse than you, but this does not and shouldn’t erase the experience of others.

what’s upsetting/devastating to @Unlisted is valid, it’s relative to her personal life experience

I missed the bit where you said the wedding was kept secret! So you were not only not invited but were not even allowed to know about it, while your DH was, presumably, supposed to sneak off for the day and lie to you about there he was?! Jesus, OP, stop being upset and find some disdain for this bunch of twats! i've never heard the like!

Your sister in law sounds incredibly mean- spirited. Who excludes partners from weddings ffs? Weddings are about celebration and inclusion. On the other hand at least you were not singled out for this treatment, it was all their partners.

Is this really worth tears though? If she wants to behave like this, let her and don’t let it affect you. Keep a cool distance from her.

I find it strange that you're so upset and think you need to move on

Also op, I have a friend who basically did this because her partner who has serious anxiety related issues (not that you'd know he keeps it very well under wraps) was a nervous wreck about the idea of a big wedding and their wedding was planned deliberately tiny so he didn't have to walk into a big group of people and possibly risk a panic attack.

You have no idea if there's an issue like this going on behind the scenes, or if maybe the other partner has real problems with one of his siblings spouses and wants to avoid them on his wedding without singling them out in which case this is a fair way to do that. You won't be privy to why those decisions are made. Obviously this isn't common in weddings here so they must have a reason for doing that.