Should I invite my nephew despite being estranged from sister?

[Anuta77]

I finally had to open my eyes and admit that my sister, nephew's mother, is toxic. I had my last straw with her behaviour and I want no more contact with her. My nephew is 5 and was conceived from a donor, so me and my kids, along with my mom are his only family. We don't have an extended family either.

My son is turning 8 (my other is 17) and we live over 40 min away in a different town. My nephew and my son play together maybe once every 2-3 weeks, mostly when my sister would visit (which she hasn't for over a month and will not anymore), but my son never mentions him when the're not together. My nephew just started school and is very sociable and my sister is pretty sociable too, so I'm not worried about my nephew's social circle. My son will want to invite his friends who are already 8, going on 9, so fairly older than my nephew.

My question is: given that my nephew can not come by himself and my sister bringing him would mean supporting her presence, is it fine not to invite him? He's too young to know it's my son's bday anyway. I know it will give my sister another reason to lash out at me, but I'm thinking that if she wanted our children to have a good relationship, she would at least make efforts not to sh*t on me or at least apologize for her outbursts. Our children can see each other sometimes at my mom's place.

If you don’t facilitate the relationship between your children and your nephew, they won’t have any relationship. If you never intend to see your sister again then it’s not just this one event is it, it’s cutting him out of your lives forever. Without knowing what it is your sister did for you to go no contact, I don’t think anyone is in a position to tell you if you’re being reasonable. Reducing your nephew’s family to just his mum and nan is really sad, but without your sister’s actions to balance it against I just couldn’t say.

Her actions is just constantly lashing out at me, accusing me of insuling her, laughing at her values and what not, things I don't even understand and it's absolutely impossible to talk to her as it always revolves around her and how poorly she's treated. I just don't need that in my life.
My nephew will see my son at our mom's place, so his relationship with my son will not be completely cut out, but obviously when your parents are not on speaking terms, it's not possible to have a closer relationship.

The child shouldnt be punished for his mothers behaviour. I am NC with DHs sisters and have no desire to speak to them ever again but I stillake the effort with their children with birthday cards. Christmas, regular texts.

I don’t see how you can invite a 5 year old without his mother, so if you want to have him there you will have to accept her presence there. If you don’t want to invite her you can’t easily invite him.

I think people who try to drive wedges between parent and child are quite despicable to be honest (I’m not saying you are doing this OP). When adults stay in touch with children of someone they are estranged from it’s only ever done to cause trouble and wedges like a power move. If they loved the person’s children they would never put the children in that position, they would take a step back.

Different perspective...

My brother is a complete wanker, and stopped speaking to me when my DC was 4 years old, and despite refusing to be a decent human being speak to me he still sent birthday cards and cheap Christmas presents for my DC. I put a stop to it, as a) if he wanted to be in touch with his nephew he'd need to go via me, as he was so young, and b) I don't trust him not to say unpleasant/untrue things about me to my child.

My DC is now an adult, and still has no relationship with my brother, nor does he want one.

But you don't invite them to any activity in your house or if you have children, to their bdays?

I don’t intend to speak to my brother again because of bullying behaviour that escalated to physical aggression. Unfortunately that does mean I can’t see my young niece and nephew because they are too small to be separated from their parents and it would be confusing for them.

Older teens where you have a pre-existing relationship I would say it was different.

Well, I consider that my sister lashes out at me for no serious reason, so in my opinion is that she doesn't care about having a good relationship with me, i.e. she is putting her son in this position. Although due to her son's family situation, she feels entitled to have a relationship with my children.
For instance, she just proposed to my 17 year old to be babysitting her son (and putting him to sleep at night!) because she will be studying (and she doesn't care that he has to study and that he would have to be leaving her house too late). And obviously, that's despite us not being on speaking terms.

My sister feels that her and my nephew's relationship with my children should remain unchanged no matter what.

In my case, it «just» got to insults, including in front of my youngest, but I don't know if that's sufficient to make it difficult for my nephew to have a relationship with my son (my nephew seems to be more into him),