To tell my sister she can’t bring her husband to my wedding?

"My sister then realised she’d missed the messages and said she’d never told him about it because she hadn’t seen them."

The sister didn't know about the messages until after the BIL thought he had been deliberately excluded.

I've been in this situation. My DH has a chat group with his brothers but is a terrible communicator. So we've had situations where I hear that something has happened, feel left out, and then DH says 'oh no, we were invited but I said we were busy/couldn't come, etc., because <insert reason>. He's not being difficult. His brain just works in a very linear way. He can't understand that it's nice to be invited (because he thinks that if you can't go it doesn't matter that you were invited), or that I might think we were left out if I didn't know we had been invited (what does it matter, we couldn't go anyway), or that I might want to consider if there's a way we could make it work (DD with SN so often can't, but would like to have the chance to think about it). So I can see it from the BIL's POV.

My big question is why he would assume she's been controlling rather than think a mistake has been made. Have there been issues between them before?

It’s not great, of course, that they had this falling out (admittedly where they both acted badly, to differing degrees), and while I understand your fiancée not being overly keen on the man now, I think it would be somewhat an overreaction to not invite your sisters husband. It’s entirely likely you’ll barely even see him on the day.

Your fiance and BIL need to grow up. I fully understand why your sister wouldn't attend without her husband and your fiance is being deliberately difficult in not letting him attend and controlling in threatening to cancel the wedding. Most bridal groups have relatives they don't particularly like at their weddings and they simply ignore them. Better still this could be an opportunity to build bridges.

Most bridal groups have relatives they don't particularly like at their weddings

I wonder how many are called a controlling bitch because messages hadn't been read by that person's spouse?

Tbh it sounds as if he is an arsehole.

So your sister missed a message in a group she was in. (Totally normal to have multiple groups with similar people in)

Your BIL blew the whole thing out of proportion, decided your fiance was the problem and called her a bitch.

He sounds delightful.

Tbh I wouldn't want him at my wedding either. He sounds like an arsehole.

It's an overreaction on your fiancé's part to want to want to call off the wedding but is she serious or is she just feeling anxious because she feels she has no option but to share her wedding day with a bloke that likes to overreact and call her a bitch?

Still say smaller wedding with just 2 witnesses is the way to go.

Definitely invite him. Be the bigger people otherwise this will be the start of the end.

Having now read your much clearer explanation 😁, it seems the initial issue with the BBQ was a big misunderstanding. He was invited but your sister didn't read the messages. However, did no-one notice that your sister hadn't responded?

He does sound like an idiot, but your partner hasn't helped.

You sound like you have been a bit passive. - as has your sister as she had the opportunity initially to sort this out as it was also partly her fault for not reading the messages.

A fairly simple misunderstanding has got totally out of hand and there is fault across the board.

I think I might postpone the wedding as I wouldn't want the drama that this will cause, whichever way it goes.

You can either be the bigger people and smooth everything over, or you can make a massive, public deal out of it and ensure that Christmas and all future family events for the next decade are awkward.

I can understand she is feeling upset and her knee jerk reaction is to say she doesn’t w

If he thinks she is a controlling bitch who will stop your daughter seeing her Aunt, why does he even want to go?

Shame you can't guarantee his declining an invitation.

If you do uninvite him, you need to be prepared to completely ruin your relationship with your sister.

Excluding him will create a permanent family rift. Your fiancé is asking you to lose your sister over this argument.

I think you need to ask yourself if the disagreement between your fiance and your BIL was truly that egregious. Excluding someone from a wedding is normally only done for issues of safety. Was he violent? Did he threaten her?

If you want to compromise, I would cancel the family wedding and just elope. The problem is that you are just postponing this problem. What happens at family gatherings? Are you going to ask your BIL to skip Christmas? Are you going to bow out yourself so your sister and her family can meet with the extended family while you celebrate elsewhere?

Sometimes family just need to let things go. If there is no safety issue, you just learn to make small talk and extricate yourself from the unwanted interaction as quickly as possible when you see the relative you don’t particularly like.

@Omegaez - Ask your fiancee how she would feel if roles were reversed and you and she were already married and your sister was getting married and then refused to invite your wife to her wedding because of a silly misunderstanding (if you see what I mean?).
(Sorry, this may already have been suggested, I've only read the OP's posts.)

This does sound like something that really should have blown over and while I agree the comment to you DD was inappropriate, the drama now mainly seems to be down to your fiancé.

If you have a family that has a tendency to get heated and your fiancé has a tendency to hold grudges in these circumstances, this may just be the first of your family members you lose if you go ahead with this.

I note that BiL accused your fiancé of controlling who you see, which she took exception to, and now she’s trying to control who you see on one of the biggest family celebrations in your life.

It might be worth considering postponing the wedding to see if she is really compatible with how you want your life to be long term.

I’m not suggesting all the blame for the situation falls on your fiancé, but it seems like most does and it’s her involvement you have some control over.

I don’t think my fiancee meant for it to happen either.

Don't think? So it's possible that she did deliberately leave him out?

So... your sister wasn't at that specific BBQ either? That would change it a bit in my eyes.

I still think it's better to invite him.

Omitting him again, this time intentionally, would make the previous one look more intentional.

This.
A guy called your fiancee a sexist slur for something that wasn't her fault.
Gee wonder how he treats your sister ( but it is what you already suspect)

But still inviting him would at least still keep a relationship with your sister before she needs to dump this sexist prick.

It is also interesting how many posters take a man's side over this 😉

It never ceases to amaze me how much effort people will put into ignoring the behaviour of abusive men while still having the energy to criticise a woman asserting boundaries.

I think this thread is 100% invite him.

@Aabbcc1235 why are you so unsure on this. It's pretty obvious to the rest of us

Not inviting him will undoubtedly cause a rift between you and your sister, which will inevitably mean your daughter will see less of her aunt once you are married. Your BIL will feel proved right. Maybe point this out to your fiancé and just invite him

@Pipsquiggle

The reason I feel differently here is probably because I’ve heard a lot of women describe the aftermath of their sexual assaults. The words used repeatedly throughout this thread - overreaction, hysterical, over-the-top, family feud, politeness etc echo through those stories.

Im not saying don’t invite him. I’m saying ask your wife the question about what happened and listen properly to the answer. Something has happened that is so serious she would cancel the wedding over it. Don’t make a decision without being 100 percent sure there isn’t something else that you don’t know about.

@Aabbcc1235 blimey that's quite a leap.

Obviously if there was any whiff at all of sexual abuse I think we would all be answering very differently.

@Omegaez hasn't mentioned any SA so I don't know why you have gone there.
She has mentioned her fiance being entrenched in her thinking and general drama llama persona.

I haven’t said there has been - I answered your question of why I might feel differently from other people on this thread.

For me personally, there is a pretty small list of things that someone could do to me which might make me feel so strongly about not having them at my wedding that I would rather cancel than invite them.

So my suggestion to the op was to speak to his fiancé and really listen to the answer, about why this is so important to her.

This isn’t about protecting the man or taking his side. It’s about the OP and her sister. Sometimes we have to accept that our sibling is married to someone we don’t like and get on with it because we want to maintain a relationship with the sibling.

He is the one that caused a rift by calling the fiancee a controlling bitch in the first place, why would he even want to go to a wedding of people he thinks are controlling bitches?

Who wants someone who called them a controlling bitch at their wedding? It is the fiancée's wedding too.