Right. Long winded and boring, but I'm in a quandary.
It's my Aunt's (Dad's sister) 75th birthday party on Saturday, and we (myself, DH, DD3, DS5m) have been invited. It's being organised by my uncle (her brother) and my aunt (his wife) and the lunch is being hosted at my cousin's house (my uncle's son) about an hour's drive away.
When I was pregnant with DD in 2008 my Aunt disowned me and stopped talking to me. I'd been seeing DH (then DP) for 8 months, and was doing a PhD (which I had to eventually quit). We knew we were going to have a future and wanted children, but as I wasn't that young in the scheme of things, plus had had ovary problems, we decided to be more lax with contraception. Of course, I conceived straight away. My Mum told my Aunt and she said 'how disappointing'. We saw my Aunt on Boxing Day that year at my parents, and when DP went to shake her hand, she quite pointedly ignored his hand, and refused to speak to him for the rest of the lunch, and also myself. We were severely disappointed, as I'd always loved my Aunt very much - she is also my Godmother. She is also a Vicar, and we wanted her to do our wedding ceremony for us, the following October. After that day, we clearly decided not to, and as my parents were doing a lot of the wedding organising, she wasn't invited to our wedding either, which made me quite sad, but I felt it was the right thing to do. She has stopped sending me birthday cards, and Christmas cards are just addressed to 'woof and family'. I got a brief congrats card when DD was born, and also for DS. Nothing else for them, no little 'welcome' kind of presents, never anything for their birthdays or Christmas.
So. I have 2 older brothers. One is divorced - 2 children from first wife - left her to be with my current SIL, and they had a baby before marrying. My aunt doesn't ignore them, showers his boys with gifts, lavish hampers at Christmas, the works. My other brother and his wife (no children) we don't talk to (he rented my flat off me last year and was a complete arsehole and messed me about when I was heavily pregnant - refused entry to estate agents trying to sell it, left drugs around, promised to keep it tidy but didn't, didn't pay rent on time, left me out of pocket, you name it). For some bizarre reason my aunt idolises him. She was my brothers' guardians when they were at boarding school when we lived overseas when we were younger.
Anyway. Both brothers, I have discovered since yesterday, are going to the party. I saw the invite as a kind of olive branch, and had decided to go. I do NOT want to see my arsey brother at all (DH reckons his blood will boil if we see him, and he doesn't want him around our children as he's off his face half the time). I kind of want to see my Aunt and show off my lovely children, and show her and her partner what they are missing out on. (Btw, she has no children, she has lived with her female friend for the best part of 50 years - no-one knows what the relationship between them is, and no-one gives a hoot anyway) I do want to see my uncle and cousin, and other cousins going. My parents aren't going, as since the Boxing Day debacle, they haven't talked to my Aunt either.
WTF would you do? I'm tempted to say bugger off to all of them, but its faaaamily innit. I'm especially sad as it's DD's birthday today, and no-one from my family (apart from my parents and my uncle - mum's brother) have sent her a card ('nice' brother says his is in the post.) DH's family - great aunts, great-great aunts, random 2nd cousins twice removed - have all sent cards.
The issues that bug me are:
- She's a vicar. Be nice, FFS!
- Why ignore me, and not my brother, when we've both had babies outside marriage??!!
- Why is my other twatty brother still existing, and bugging me so much?
- If I go, I'm the youngest cousin and will be treated as such. I'm bloody forty in a few months.
Either way, I need to call my uncle today and tell him yay or nay.
Arse. I'm so angry thinking about it all. 
. Have told DH I'm getting a MN opinion on it all..
Sorry its long!