So hurt for my daughter - do I say something?

[SquarePeggyLeggy]

I am really upset and want to check it’s reasonable to say anything and if so what and when.
I don’t think my sister in law likes us all that much, but it’s always civil and not unpleasant, she just doesn’t pursue any relationship with me or closeness for the cousins really, but does always take me up on invitations. I feel kept at arms length by my brother too, but again, always comes anywhere they’re invited and stays in touch at least once a week. I tried to push a closer relationship, but it’s clear they don’t want that, so for the last several years, I just backed right off and am here if they need, rather than trying to be friends per se. The exception to this has always been my daughter and niece, they are 6 months apart. They are close and get on well, and we have my niece for sleepovers etc sometimes, they’ve got their own relationship going. We are always invited to their parties etc.
They are 8.
This year my brother told me his daughter didn’t want a party. She was going to catch up with “a couple of friends” one day, us the next, and then the grandparents the following weekend. I said: “we can drop daughter off to one of those other things, we don’t all have to come”. He insisted that she’d asked to spend the day just with us, and “didn’t want a party”. It all felt weird, and like we were being ring fenced, I don’t know but convinced myself I was paranoid.
Cue today: SIL posts a bunch of pictures on Instagram, they’ve had a full on, pony ride party with a bunch of kids, has to be 30. Its a mix of their friends kids and school friends so it’s not just a school party, and anyway, they said there was no party?
It’s allowed here, btw.
We are supposed to have our catch up tomorrow and I just feel sick to my stomach. I felt they were leaving us out and this was our consolation to make us feel better, and I was right! For some reason they need to segregate us away from their friends and family. I have no idea what’s happened, and my daughter is 8! The girls haven’t had words, nothing like that, I’m so confused!
Do I say something? I just feel crushed for my daughter who thinks they’re besties. I don’t know how to act tomorrow! I want to cancel, but it’s not my niece’s fault! What do I do?

@Chickychickydodah

I would message him, enclose photos of party and tell them to go f*ck them selves. Delete block and take your kid out for aspecial treat on her own .

I'm fascinated by this response. Assuming it isn't a joke, why on earth would you do any of these things in response to what is, after all, a storm in a teacup about an eight year old not having been invited to her cousin's birthday party (and who is not upset about this, as she doesn't know.)

If people actually respond like this to such minor things, no wonder that friendships on Mn show up overwhelmingly under either 'I'm lonely and don't have any friends' or 'Insane drama involving loan/hen party/wendying/lack of invitation/school run clique'.

I think people, including OP, are being a bit unrealistic about the “lie” element.

Of course it’s disappointing and uncomfortable, but it’s the kind of white lie people very frequently fall into out of fear of a conversation getting awkward.
There are a number of reasons why they may have wanted to keep it to her school friends, many already mentioned.
Eight is an age when girls often hit a mini adolescence and get more cliquey and peer driven. It’s possible that DN is experimenting with new personas at school. They often compartmentalise a lot at that age. She might not have wanted her cousin coming and unintentionally outing her as still liking X & Y and not having been a fan of KSI since being in utero.
However the important thing is that there are separate arrangements to see you so the relationship isn’t being shut down.
For your daughter’s sake I’d hide my upset, which I do get, and just carry on. Very soon the cousin relationship will be able to be sustained (or not) with minimal management from the adults.

YANBU in the slightest!!! I would be really upset for my child, too. They lied to you, and then were not even discreet about the party. I would have to ask them about it. Obviously what you decide to do next will depend on their explanation, but I think I would be preparing to avoid future contact.

I think you have to say something today to your brother about not appreciating being lied to. I’d tell him how hurt you are not about not being invited, but his lying to you.

I would cancel the catch up actually and invite Niece over to yours sometime for a play date so you can give her the gift you’ve got for her.

That's what's hurt - the lying.

Not really. Because if they had said “we’re having a party but aren’t inviting you or your daughter” you’d have been here whining about that instead.

As others have said, this isn’t about your daughter, it is about you. They chose to come and spend time with just you and her but you see that as an insult. I expect they can’t win no matter what they do.

The first year my kids were not invited to their cousin’s birthday party was like a kick in the guts, I’ll be honest. My DD in particular was devastated and didn’t understand. Their aunt said it was because the age mix wouldn’t work with the activity but that was never an issue the 8 or so years before when we had been invited. That was clearly an excuse.
The lying would grate on me. Have the courage to be honest! They weren’t honest because they know it was a bit shitty. The sharing of Instagram pictures suggests they will know you know? Then I guess it depends if you want to save the relationship? If yes I’d avoid the subject completely and hope they didn’t raise it. They’ll probably lie if confronted and say they never said they weren’t having a party.

Given everything you’ve posted I would wait for some time to pass, maybe even a month or more, and then mention it to him in a no -confrontational way.

“James you know I actually saw the photos of Adelaide’s birthday party after you told me there was not a party happening. And I wondered why you felt like you couldn’t just tell me you were having a friends only party for her. I would have understood. We don’t invite you to everything we host either. It made me worry that you don’t trust me to be reasonable or understanding. And since you are my only family nearby that is concerning. If there something I can do to repair things with you I hope you will let me know.

Make it about your relationship with him, not the girls and not his wife. And do it over text or through the post on a small notecard (not a letter!!) so he can digest, doesn’t feel attacked and doesn’t have to respond right away.

Because it’s really about you and him and not about anything else. If he felt comfortable he would have told you.

Still haven't rtft so apologies if this has already been said, but the other thing op is that, at her age, your DD will take her cue from you as to how she reacts to this. If you are gracious, smile and take it on the chin and switch your mindset to enjoy the occasion to which you have been invited, then she will too. Likewise if you feel hurt and offended and cause a fuss. So for the sake of the cousins' future friendship then discretion is probably the better part of valour in this instance.

Reply on Instagram 'Oh, you said the other day that you weren't having a party! Lovely to see (name) had a good time though'.

I feel you are far too over-invested in your and your DDs relationship with SIL and niece.
It’s great to have close family relationships, but people have different attitudes and interests, and it’s clear SIL doesn’t want a close relationship. It sounds like you have regular contact with your DB, just leave it at that and encourage your DD to develop more reciprocal friendships.
I can understand why the party hurt your feelings, but hopefully this will be the catalyst for you to realise you are flogging a dead horse putting all the effort in when your SIL clearly doesn’t want to be close.

I’m fond of my own SIL, and enjoy her company - but we are only really friendly because she is my DHs sister - we don’t have a lot in common. We see each other a couple of times a year - these meet-ups are usually organised between her and my DH. Now and again I’ll message her with family news, such as pics of my DS, but I have plenty of friends and don’t need regular contact with SIL. I’d find it a bit uncomfortable if she was a pushy as you tbh.

Without being unkind, you do sound a little old-fashioned in your attitude that it’s the women in the family who should be the ones maintaining family connections, are you perhaps from a different cultural background?

I think it’s also very tough because with friends you really do not mention events to which they are not invited.
I don’t think that means you lie; but telling someone “we are having a big fun pony party and you aren’t invited” would be very cruel.

I think it’s different with family.

@SilverBirchWithout

Inviting your only local family to birthdays and christmases and responding to your brother’s casual text once a week is over-invested?

I agree, keep this between you and your brother. Don't involve SIL or DN.

Totally normal for you to feel upset about this OP but it's their party and they can invite who they want to create the right dynamics and atmosphere without having to worry about who they're going to upset in the process.

Chunkymenrock

Really OP, I would just go with the flow. It's absolutely not worth any of this scrutiny. Your daughter and their daughter have their own friends which is normal and fine. It's also nice that they enjoy cousin time together. I would stop thinking and worrying, it's pointless“

Agree. We had a cousin to stay over on our son’s 6th birthday. Not a sociable child, he clung limpet-like to our son for the whole time and made it very difficult for him to do anything with his other friends.
Keeping family and friend occasions separate can be a good idea. Really wouldn’t get worked up about it.

[quote hannayeah]@SilverBirchWithout

Inviting your only local family to birthdays and christmases and responding to your brother’s casual text once a week is over-invested?[/quote]
Yes, because OP sounds like she had the desire for a close relationship with SIL and the nieces,
I can understand her disappointment this has not been reciprocated over the years, but for whatever reason this is what has happened. She should have backed off in the past once it was obvious she was the one making all the effort.

However 'well intentioned' their reasoning was in not having your DD there, they've acted like giant arseholes in telling you their wasn't a party when their was one. There's no argument against that.

What's more, your SIL must have known you'd see the Insta photos of the party so they clearly don't give a shit.

It does sound like you've been more than a bit pushy in both trying to see them more and pushing for DD's involvement (the whole 'drop her off' thing). Unfortunately it sounds like you're pushing them further away.

Maybe the kids aren't as close as your DD thinks they are. Girls that age can be spiteful and fall out/change friends all the time. Maybe your niece only wanted school friends there? We don't know but I doubt you'll ever know.

What I do know is that there's no way I'd be meeting up with them for a happy cheery post-party get together after the lying stunt. Feck that!!

Forgot to say - it's likely that if your brother lied about party intentions & SIL doesn't know (your interpretation, as stated, as you don't think the Insta posts were malicious) then it's possible niece is oblivious, or that she won't be able to resist talking about her party tomorrow and DD will be upset.

Might be best to break it to her before tomorrow, if tomorrow is still going ahead (I'd be telling them to stick it up their arse).

I think this is definitely your brother not being bothered to go through the reasoning and tried to get out of it easily and you pushed them on it.

Having a day for you isnt a consolation prize it actually is really nice thing to do to make your daughter feel special.

DS had to break his party up due to the rule of 6 in October. He had 2 small gatherings (one of 2 friends one of 3) and for his closest friend we had pizza in the evening me, DS and DD and his best friend, sister and Mum. Then they came back to the house. It was by far the longest and most relaxed party of them all just spending time together.

Errr no you don’t lie - you tell the truth and say dd is having a party but just wants a certain number of friends there so you’re doing such and such on one day and something else another to include d niece! You act grown up about it and be honest rather than lying knowing full well the other person is going to find out you’ve lied!

Ps I would be furious if I had been lied to and would expect more respect than that! Thankfully my siblings would never do such a thing and if they ever had I would have called them out on it!

@IrishCharm

Errr no you don’t lie - you tell the truth and say dd is having a party but just wants a certain number of friends there so you’re doing such and such on one day and something else another to include d niece! You act grown up about it and be honest rather than lying knowing full well the other person is going to find out you’ve lied!

Sorry this was in reply to @SquarePeggyLeggy I wish we could edit our posts!

@SilverBirchWithout

So you think OP should stop responding to the weekly texts and stop inviting them for holidays (which they always attend)?

@SquarePeggyLeggy so from what you’ve said it’s not maliciously thoughtless, it’s just thoughtless - however their lifestyle “seems” to be chaotic (your info about the house etc).

If it helps my Dh had been caught out in similar lies to his family and I often struggle to understand why. E.g Christmas one year I wanted to go to our local church service on Xmas day. Instead of telling MIL that we would be with her half an hour later than she’d wanted because of this he came up with some codswallop. Worst thing is he didn’t TELL me so actually he ended up looking like a blustering buffoon. Additionally there was no reason to lie/make up a story. It confused and pissed me off and everyone felt very let down. I stress that telling the truth would t have hurt anyone and there was no reason to lie but I guess he felt he was letting her down that we didn’t want to be there earlier as we wanted to do something for us! Idiotic and thoughtless - yes, malicious -no.

To clarify, after this incident it hadn’t happened again so perhaps it’s worth saying to him that you don’t have any problem with no going to the party BUT that your really disappointed that he felt he had to lie about it!

[quote hannayeah]@SilverBirchWithout

So you think OP should stop responding to the weekly texts and stop inviting them for holidays (which they always attend)?[/quote]
Well she can if she wants to - I can’t see what you’re getting at by questioning me. I’ve posted an opinion on a busy thread, not sure why I’m being interrogated 🤷‍♀️