so, my friend has this issue. with a few people involved.
Mr Friend, Stan. His fiance, Sophie
His brother John. His girlfriend, Caroline.
To paint a picture: on the whole, Caroline is a manipulative and quite controlling person. For example, she has told the brother (John) that he is no longer allowed to drink any alcohol, otherwise she will leave him. John was just a social drinker before this. Caroline accused him of being a drunk etc, She will do things like, say it's a gathering and the attention is on someone else for something, say they passed their driving test, she will start crying and dramatically leave the room - to get people to follow her and focus on her etc. She is 'spoiled' by her side of the family, they will give in to her to get her own way all the time. (e.g. will allow her to have wrong answers on trivia game,s in order to avoid the tantrum) John doesn't want to upset her so will do as she asks, and not 'stand up' for himself etc.
There is an ongoing feeling from Sophie, that Caroline does not like her.
This is the dilemma:
Caroline has organised a family holiday to Spain. She and John will go, and she has invited, her parents, her sister and husband, John's and Stan's Parent's and John and Stan's Auntie.
But NOT Stan and Sophie. ie. her siblings are invited, but not her partner's siblings. She has organised this holiday over Stan's birthday weekend. (perhaps coincidence)
It was all a secret and Stan knew nothing of this until the other day. Caroline doesn't know they know (iyswim?)
So the problem is this: How to deal with this?
I feel like, Stan and Sophie should "rise above" the behaviourm, don't bring it up with either brother or Caroline and book a break for themselves on that same weekend somewhere different, using his birthday as the 'excuse'. So, when the proverbial hits the fan and it all comes out that they weren't invited, and inevitably they get invited by this woman. They can go "thanks, but were actually away that weekend, have a great time!" Otherwise, they will feel compelled to go, and then she will just make it all about herself and they won't have a good time.
(In fact my prediction is she'll go "Ohhh, but it was going to be surprise! Of course you're invited, we were just making all the arrangements first")