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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to think that DP should have taken my side about this

53 replies

Lifeskills · 14/12/2012 19:59

Background - DP and I been together for over 3 years currently looking to buy a place together. We also hope to marry next year.
His sister got married a few months ago. I got on okay with sis at first and still ok on surface. However over the last year she has been making the odd snide comment - very difficult to pin down - just feel I'm being got at. I don't think she dislikes me - more that she thinks I am not a suitable life partner for her brother. Tbh I think his parents secretly share this attitude though they are nice to me and on the whole I like them.
Anyway - she gt married in Kent and we are up north. Invited to the wedding - had to beg for time off work and pay travelling expenses and hotel to attend - a lot of money for me. My DP played no formal part in the wedding which was a very traditional affair. Found out a few weeks before the event that she had arranged for him to sit at the table with bridesmaids and best man and placed me far away with 7 random strangers.
I asked DP to object to this arrangemet but even though he knows I am shy and would hate spending a copuple of hours with strangers he did not want to rock the boat. Also he said he didn't think it was intended as an insult to me.
So this has been festering and I guess I am asking whether you think I am over reacting and am wrong to take it as a personal insult. Do you think he should have insisted on sitting with me?I do not have much experience of formal weddings but I really did not think that's the way to do things.

OP posts:

Original poster

Lifeskills · 14/12/2012 20:59

Ok so apart from the wedding, has there been anything else? And what exactly do you want here? If you are concerned that DP is not being supportive then talk to him about it.

Yes - I suppose there has been something else - see my last post. However he his the vaguest peron when you try to talk to him..

OP posts:

ENormaSnob · 14/12/2012 21:03

So you are engaged but he won't tell his family?

This doesn't bode well I'm afraid.

Pandemoniaa · 14/12/2012 21:06

I think, if you don't mind me stating the obvious a bit, that what is preying on your mind is your DP's very evasive approach to commitment. I've experienced similar problems with being introduced to family and I'm afraid I had to get rather definite and have a very robust conversation before it was sorted satisfactorily. Which is not how I prefer to tackle things.

I realise how difficult it is dealing with someone who'd rather take the vague approach but if the situation is making you unhappy, it'd be better to get it out into the open and take the consequences. Which, hopefully (as happened in my case) turned out well.

MrsLyman · 14/12/2012 21:07

You're engaged but he won't tell his family! WTAF
Do you know why?

HollyBerryBush · 14/12/2012 21:08

But she was a random, he met her at an AA meeting the week before, she was just a very random person to bring along. ((My brother)) mad as your gandads tousers I wonder who she was

Original poster

Lifeskills · 14/12/2012 21:09

That's what I feared - though apparently he will tell them soon..
They may (he syas) be a bit disapproving because they think he should not settle down yet.
We are not very young. I have no family myself so I don't know if it is normal to care so much for opinions of family.
I do not really doubt his feeling for me just getting really down about this whole family thing

OP posts:

DontmindifIdo · 14/12/2012 21:14

sooo, you are engaged in secret because he doesn't want to tell his family...

You have a bigger problem than the sister's view of the seriousness of your relationship, you have a problem with your DP's attitude towards the seriousness of your relationship. If he wants to spend the rest of his life with you, he shouldn't be ashamed of you, which is what it sounds like.

It could well be his sister didn't treat you like a member of the family because her brother doesn't treat his girlfriend as a member of the family. They don't know you are getting married, has he even mentioned that you're buying a house? Are you living together now, and does his family even know you actually share a home now, not just there quite a bit?

It could be that she didn't know how to treat you - if he isn't prepared to tell his family you are going to be part of the family and treated you as "just his date" then you can't be surprised if his sister doesn't treat you as 'family' but just 'DB's date'

BridgetBidet · 14/12/2012 21:16

No offence but re the photo's - you are still just his girlfriend, 3 years is not that long a relationship and they are going to look back at these pics/have them on the wall for the rest of their lives.

My BIL's ex fiance is in all our wedding pictures as a member of our family and I bloody wish she wasn't as she was just an acquaintance I knew for a few years when she happened to be in a relationship with my BIL. If they'd married or had kids together at least she would have been part of the family for a bit. As it is she is just a transient person in our lives who happens to be in all the pics.

They had a very messy break up and she was a cow, but still, can understand why. Girlfriends of brothers aren't really necessarily put in family pics unless they're really close or something.

Doinmummy · 14/12/2012 21:16

It's not a good sign that he hasn't told his family. Do you think he has played down your relationship and that is why you weren't seated with him ?

Original poster

Lifeskills · 14/12/2012 21:24

No - Dontmind - I don't think that is right although I would see why you might think that. Sorry, i didn't make myself clear - when I say he did not tell his family about our plans I meant his parents. His sister actually knows much more about our plans than they do.
She thought it best not to say anything to parents. At the time I thought this was because she did not want to take focus off her own wedding plans - now not so sure.
As I said I got on quite well with her at first and the small jibes and put downs started after we became more serious.

OP posts:

Doinmummy · 14/12/2012 21:25

His relationship with his family sounds odd.

Original poster

Lifeskills · 14/12/2012 21:25

Doinmummy - he has not played down the level of our current involvment and I am regularly invited to his parents house. It is the fact that we plan to spend our lives together he is evasive about.

OP posts:

TheDoctrineOfSnatch · 14/12/2012 21:32

Op, if you and he weren't engaged, would you still be together?

Cos you don't sound Very engaged.

Original poster

Lifeskills · 14/12/2012 21:33

BridgetBidet

That is a fair enough comment about the photographs though - so I will not see that in itself as unwelcoming

OP posts:

IceNoSlice · 14/12/2012 21:35

Seems to me like communication is the real issue here- mainly you and your DP. You need a good old chat. Perhaps go out to dinner so no distractions?

Are you seeing his family over Christmas? Might that be a good time to 'announce' your engagement?

On the other hand, Christmas can be a bit of an emotionally charged time, perhaps not.

Original poster

Lifeskills · 14/12/2012 21:41

Doctrine - that is a good question. Maybe I would have moved on - I don't know.

I sometimes think he asked me to marry him just to keep me from doing so. But he is not a commitment phobic per se - or at least I don't think so. I believe if his family were mysteriously out of the equation we would marry.
I think (although he and his parents family would deny this to the last breath) they like me but look down on me. I am from a very different backgound to say the least.
Not sure whether much of this is coming from the sister, who has a very close relatinship with parents and they respect her opinions) or whether she is just reflecting them.
it would almost he easier if his mum and dad were unpleasant to me - if that makes sense.

OP posts:

Shakey1500 · 14/12/2012 21:44

I don't think you're being unreasonable at all.

You've been his partner for 3 years, it's an established relationship. I think it was extremely rude of her to seat you away from him (not on a "joined at the hip" angle, just courtesy) and I think he was unreasonable to not point it out. Even moreso if he didn't play any part.

I would be royally fucked off and would have second thoughts

Original poster

Lifeskills · 14/12/2012 21:46

Ice - I think you are right about the communication. it is hard though to discus a problem when one party will not admit to the problem.
His take on it is simply that his parents would be happier when he is a bit older (we are mid 20s) and has a proper job i.e. well paid.
Not exactly on the horizon..

OP posts:

catwomanlikesmeatballs · 15/12/2012 02:39

I'd get out before it's too late. Nothing will change when you marry him, his family will continue to snub you, he will continue to see nothing wrong with that. People don't change, they get worse.

SantasBigBaubles · 15/12/2012 02:58

I'd be annoyed at your do and his sister tbh

SantasBigBaubles · 15/12/2012 02:58

Three years not three weeks. Its been a long time long enough to be treated as a ltp

DontmindifIdo · 15/12/2012 07:46

hmm, well if she knew then that makes a difference to seating plans etc, but the point remains, you aren't part of the family yet (most people do only see you as joining the family when you get married), you weren't officially an engaged couple, and as you don't live close enough to be part of their every day lives to be close to them.

It really is a problem with your DP not being clear and honest about his comittment to you. That they might react badly isn't a reason not to tell them, that suggests he thinks they are right to feel that way. Granted, it would have been wrong to announce it the day before the wedding, but you'd been engaged for over a year at this point, why he didn't call them to tell them within a few days is rather a big question. He's kept it secret for a long time.

If you think you would leave if you weren't engaged, then you should do so anyway, don't buy together until you are sure you want to be with this man and he is actually proud of you. Do'nt settle for a man who is ashamed of his relationship with you. I would put money on you being able to do better than that.

ComposHat · 15/12/2012 07:55

I did stop worrying about the wedding, it is past history. The other, bigger question that you should be concerned about is why he won't tell his family.

Unless you are a pair of 16 year olds (which I guess you aren't) who plan to elope to Gretna Green, why is a fully grown adult not prepared to tell his parents he is engaged?

DontmindifIdo · 15/12/2012 07:58

ComposHat is right, and the argument that "well, don't want to steal my sister's thunder" by announcing before her wedding is now over (although being engaged for 17 months before she got married, most people would have told their parents within a couple of weeks so shouldn't have been an issue anyway)

RubyGates · 15/12/2012 08:03

I wasn't even asked to my ex-OH's brother's wedding despite having been together for several (more than 3) years and having a child together. We'd also made it clear that we were not going to get marries, not because we were a "temporary" relation ship, but because we felt it wouldn't add anything to it.

That was entirely down to the bride, who for some reason, absolutely despised me, despite never having spent more than 10 minutes in my company.

I thought it was a bit odd, but as they broke up in a spectacularly nasty way not that long afterwards I really don't care. (While ex-OH and I are not still together (for reasons I shall not go into here) , we are still very good friends and I'm still in close contact with the rest of his family)

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