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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To uninvite her? Would you?

165 replies

HopeAndDriftWood · 02/12/2019 10:05

Fiancé and I have been together for 4 years. We get married in April, and he has a group of friends from school that will be attending. There's 7 men and 1 woman.

We don't live that close to the friends anymore so don't see them often, and I've only met the woman four times as she had a child a few years ago and then split with her partner, so she's been quite busy. From the first time I met her, she blanked me completely. She treats other girlfriends/partners the same, and I tried to rise above it. The group threw us a little engagement meal and she came to that, but didn't talk to me even when her daughter was playing with me.

To be honest, I didn't think she'd come to the wedding if she hated the bride, so I didn't mind her being invited. But we saw them yesterday for the first time since the invites went out, and she went out of her way to be cold and hostile. She does seem to be intending to come to the wedding, she had a bit of a cry over not having a role and wanting to be a groomsman, and she rolled off a list of things she wanted to plan for his stag... I kept my cool and had a good chat with the barman.

If I'm honest, I don't want her to come. It's not that she doesn't like me, it's that she makes it very obvious and awkward, and I can see that causing drama. I feel like she had her chance to be civil last night and we should remove her from the guest list... but I don't want to be the reason that he's not included in the group anymore. Fiancé is happy to do whatever makes me happier - either tell her that she can't come, or talk to her/one of the other men and try to find a solution.

Would it be completely unreasonable to just uninvite her? We probably won't see her before the wedding.

OP posts:
CoraPirbright · 02/12/2019 13:40

She treats other girlfriends/partners the same, and I tried to rise above

At least you can take a tiny crumb of comfort that this has nothing at all to do with you personally - she is an utter cow to all the girlfriends & partners.

I think fiance should email all the males in the group:
“I am getting to the end of my tether with Bitchfriend. Over the years, I have see her be rude to all of your wives & girlfriends and now Hope is on the receiving end of her hostility. It doesnt cost much to be civil so I have no idea why she thinks this is ok. I hope I will have your support when I tell you that we are not going to invite her to our wedding....I know that I will have your partners support!”

And then disinvite the bitch and tell her why!

BreatheAndFocus · 02/12/2019 13:41

Uninvite her. She’s had time to amend her behaviour and has chosen not to. She obviously doesn’t like or respect you, and has repeatedly blanked you. She sounds nasty and self-centred. Who knows what unpleasantness she could cause at your wedding.

Don’t invite her and get your DP to tell her why, and also tell the other friends in the group just to pre-empt any crap from this woman.

You really don’t need to have someone like that there for your special day.

ElluesPichulobu · 02/12/2019 13:48

She sees herself as one of this group of friends. She's not in the same category as the other WAGs attached to the group, and doesn't want to be relegated to WAG category. She sees herself as a full member, and partners and children of members are in a secondary associate membership category. Wives and girlfriends will come and go, but the core friendship group will remain friends regardless of the making and breaking of friendships. These men are her friends and she is at risk of losing them if she gets categorised as one of the group of women who are obviously excluded from the group's core activities that don't include wider families.

Honestly, did she interact with you significantly less than the other male members of the friendship group? Your expectations of how she should behave towards you must have been swayed by your expectations of male and female behaviour (not through conscious sexism, just through normal influence of living in a sexist society).

But even if by some miracle you have escaped having this unconscious bias, she will be well-used to living with other people's unconscious bias and making damn sure she doesn't live up to those expectations deliberately in order to avoid being reshuffled into the category of associate member.

Lizzie0869 · 02/12/2019 13:52

*On a more charitable note, maybe its nothing personal at all and all about her own struggles
*
Or maybe she's just an arse. No one should behave like this.

^This 100%. I don't understand why this line is so often used in mitigation for treating others like dirt. There is never an excuse for that. A lot of us struggle with our mental health, but it doesn't give us the right to make other people miserable too. Hmm

Mummyoflittledragon · 02/12/2019 13:56

Ellues
Not being wanting to be relegated to WAG. That’s a really interesting point. However she’s gone too far. I bet the men are civil / friendly to op. This woman isn’t even able to do that.

Hope
I was going to say just sack her off. But I think in the light of this comment, the men / your partner at the very least need to all have a word with her about their expectations of her in regard to their partners / wives. The tears are just her not wanting to have the conversation. But it needs to be had. If after that, she still cannot be friendly and civil then she needs to be ditched. The message being if she wants to be one of the lads, she has to follow the lads code and that includes respecting partners right from the off.

recycledbottle · 02/12/2019 13:56

Do your future DH's male friends engage with you a lot more? This is your DH's friends and therefore it is a matter for him to decide/deal with. I must admit that I don't speak that much with some of my friends DH's for no other reason than I am busy catching up with my friends. i don't completely ignore them but do spend most of my time talking to friends. I would hate to think I wouldn't be invited to a friends wedding for this reason. Although maybe I would.

ThumbWitchesAbroad · 02/12/2019 13:59

Have any of the other guys in this group of friends got married, or is your fiancé the first? I'd be interested to know, if you're not the first couple, whether or not she was invited to any of the other weddings and how that went.

As things stand though I wouldn't invite her, and I'd have your fiancé tell her why - because she has the chance to remedy this ridiculous behaviour before she loses ALL the friends in the group, or to decide for herself that she's better off out of it if she can't behave with any maturity.

My own feeling is that, as 1 female in a group of 7 blokes, she felt like she was the "queen bee" and she doesn't like the competition from any other females. Bloody stupid and she should have got over that by now!

Lizzie0869 · 02/12/2019 14:04

There's not talking much to someone and there's being openly hostile. They are two very different things. It's possible to be polite and friendly and engage in a few pleasantries at the start of the evening before spending more time with your actual friends.

It doesn't cost anything to be polite.

Velveteenfruitbowl · 02/12/2019 14:06

It doesn’t bode well that he lest anyone treat you this way. And trying to make you take responsibility for what he should have done years ago is just a shitty thing to do. I would just tell him that she is his friend and he needs to make the decisions regarding her behaviour and take responsibility if she ruins your wedding.

Louise91417 · 02/12/2019 14:13

As our wedding is fast approaching i would like to address the problem that seem to have taken with me..if i in anyway have been the cause of your "aloofness" directed solely toward myself could you perhaps engage in a conversation to enlighten me. If however, your rudeness is simply because you are suffering from some unpleasant insecurity and have a deep rooted hatred toward your friends bride to be..might i suggest you reconsider you attendance to "our happy occassion". I say this as a wedding is meant to be attended by guests who are happy for the couple and who wish celebrate the coming together of two. As you appear to dislike one of the two i would not wish to put you in the unpleasant position of having to endure looking at me for an entire day! Send this in email form to her..if that doesnt work a good old fashioned f@#* off should do the jobWink

ElluesPichulobu · 02/12/2019 14:16

I didn't answer the core question when I posted my theory above:

If you will be uninviting (or choosing to not invite) other male close friends of your stb-DH who he wants to invite but who haven't made much effort to get to know you personally, then maybe you would have a leg to stand on in this. However, even this isn't a fair comparison as the blokes won't be conscious of a danger of being dropped from the circle of lads.

This is stb-DHs wedding too. If you corporately have a policy of inviting only friend who are good friends to you both, and are applying that fairly so that no-one is being invited who is a close friend to you but who barely knows stb-DH then fair enough. If there are any friends of either sex who know one of you and not the other who are being invited then YWBVU to uninvite her.

Roussette · 02/12/2019 14:24

Bottom line AAIC is.... she had a tight group of friends from Uni and then suddenly shock horror, along come girlfriends, wives etc and she feels pushed out and her only retaliation is to be horrible to them. It won't achieve anything but she's still going to do it.

I really dislike people like this. She could keep her male Uni friends and also have a ready made group of girlfriends... but no... she wants to hang on to the past and alienate the women. Yuk

MaudesMum · 02/12/2019 14:32

Speaking slightly in defence of her, it can be really awkward when you're part of a group at uni, and everyone except you pairs up in the following years, and even more so if they're men. I was in a similar situation, and found social events really hard, as I had much more in common with my long standing male friends than with their partners, but some of those partners weren't entirely happy with that. And I wasn't in any way a sexual threat , I can assure you.

Yesmate · 02/12/2019 14:36

She sounds horrible and rude. I wouldn’t get your man to message her. Do it yourself. Tell him you are doing it but be clear in the message. If you can’t be civil to me then I you can’t be part of our day.

Justmuddlingalong · 02/12/2019 14:38

I've read back but can't see if you mentioned it. Is she being invited to the whole shebang or to the evening do?

Frankola · 02/12/2019 14:42

Ah. She's "one of the lads", which quite often means she has a lot of their attention and jealousy sparks when "her lads" settle down with other women. This would also explain why she is strange with all the wives and girlfriends.

I dont think she should be coming to the wedding if she treats you that way but I do think your fiance has a chance to sort this before it all turns sour.

He needs to meet up with her and explain he has noticed her poor behaviour towards you and make it clear he isn't happy about it. He should also mention he cant support having her at the wedding unless she changes her behaviour. Xx

JingsMahBucket · 02/12/2019 14:42

@ElluesPichulobu great theory and I think you’ve hit the nail on the head.

ActualHornist · 02/12/2019 14:48

@MaudesMum and were you rude and dismissive to the women that partnered up with your male friends? Coz it’s not an excuse, feeling ‘awkward’ because everyone is coupled up doesn’t give anyone carte blanche to be nasty.

Olliephaunt4eyes · 02/12/2019 14:49

I think @ElluesPichulobu is bang on the money. Very good and smart comments.

Drabarni · 02/12/2019 15:08

My dp didn't continue the friendship with a woman who treated me like this. Yours sounds terrible tbh and I wouldn't be getting married anytime soon.

blueheaven97 · 02/12/2019 15:10

Is it definitely the case that she's being deliberately rude? I just wonder from what you've said if there's any chance at all that she's just shy/introverted around people she doesn't know?

AryaStarkWolf · 02/12/2019 15:21

Sounds like she's mad keen on proving that "she's not like the other girls" embarrassed for her

FizzyGreenWater · 02/12/2019 15:29

This is stb-DHs wedding too.

Yep exactly, and he's already pissed off with her - He was a bit irrate by this point so he just bluntly said it had already been arranged with his groomsmen and then went back to talking to me.

If I was the OP's partner I'd be really fucked off if one of my supposed best group of old friends was visibly hostile and childish to my partner. REALLY fucked off and embarrassed.

Yes there is almost certainly an element of her feeling less sure of her position in the friendship group as time goes by and people settle down. But frankly, that's up to her to sort, and if she's going to act like this she's going to lose her old friends, not because she's a woman being sidelined but because she's a rude twat.

Leave this up to your DP but be clear that you absolutely don't want anybody at your wedding who can't muster up basic politeness to you. And if he's happy to agree that she shouldn't come then fine. It's your wedding day, not a random party or a holiday. Don't have someone there who will cause an atmosphere.

Howlovely · 02/12/2019 15:35

It sounds like she just liked the bragging rights of being the only female in the group and her way of trying to hang on to this sort of weird 'alpha female' role she has created for herself is to be dismissive and actively rude to new women on the scene, as though she is relevant enough for that to matter. She's living in the past while the rest of the group are moving on with partners. I think the idea of sending an evening do invite will send a very clear message to her that she's actually not all that, you are all happy without her. Not sending any invitation but not saying anything might lead her to believe her invitation has gone missing.

Lizzie0869 · 02/12/2019 16:30

I very much endorse the suggestion that you send her an evening invite. In view of how she's been around you, she wouldn't really have a leg to stand on if she complained about feeling snubbed.