About this wedding invitation?

[thisismynewpantsname]

My partner and I broke up after 6 years together. After some time apart we have reconciled and we are working on rebuilding our relationship slowly. We aren't planning to live together again for the time being but we are going to family occasions together and very much back "on".

A very close (in relational terms, not in emotional connection/closeness terms) family member is getting married in July. I have just received the wedding invitation. DP is not invited.

I'm really hurt. DP and close family member obviously knew each other well and got on fine.

AIBU to be hurt by this? I'm dreading telling DP. I know I'd be upset in his shoes although he will probably try to pretend it's no big deal.

Thanks all for your input, seems IABU. I'm just going to leave it I think, it's her wedding, her choice. I'll have no hesitation at leaving her the only one out of the wedding party and with no plus one at my wedding though 😂

Good choice I think to just leave it OP. Weddings aren't worth the amount of emotional hassle a lot of people seem to assign to them. I hate all this drama too! We had a cousin kick off at a lack of invite to ours when we didn't even have room for all my SIBLINGS (admittedly I do have six) to come and I had never even met this cousin. It was exhausting and so unnecessary.

Why are you so worried he’ll be upset? Is it because you think he’d have genuinely wanted to be at the wedding? Or would he not be that bothered about the wedding itself, and the actual issue is pride and the fact that he may perceive it as a ‘snub’?

If it’s the latter, all you have to do is make it clear that you wanted him there and expected him to be invited. Don’t let this turn into ‘Your family obviously don’t want me around, so maybe you don’t either’.

'I'll have no hesitation at leaving her the only one out of the wedding party and with no plus one at my wedding though 😂l'

Says it all really

I think I have assumed he would be upset as I would be if it was the other way round. If he received a wedding invite from his family and I wasn't on it, I'd feel like it was them effectively saying "we don't see you as family anymore", IYSWIM. Like they were focusing on our three months apart rather than all the years and shared family history, or that it was a way of saying they didn't like me.

I'll have no hesitation at leaving her the only one out of the wedding party and with no plus one at my wedding though 😂

I hope she sees this and un-invites you.
The difference will be she'll have been with a long term stable partner who's actually part of the family.

Being related doesn't automatically give you permission to be a bridesmaid.

IMO this is why it’s never a good idea to get family members involved in relationship breakdowns unless there is e.g. abuse or violence in the mix.

Because reality is that when you break up you naturally want your family to side with you and not the other party, but if you get back together then you expect the same family who you wanted to push him out to start including him in the family again.

This happened to my DP. His brother split with his wife who was a good friend of DP’s DW at the time. Naturally she rang them and DP and her spoke to one another, and his DW offered her a place to stay. In fairness the brother was a real piece of work and when she wanted to leave him sat the kids down and told her to look at them because this was what she was going to lose etc.

He found out that his DW was talking to DP and he rang him and had a go saying he had no right to speak to his now ex and how dare they include her in the family etc.. To which DP told him that he was unreasonable because it was very early days and if they got back together then he would be expecting her to be included back in the family - you can’t have it both ways.

And as it happened they did get back together and stayed together.

If the family had done what he’d demanded then when it came to them being back together it would have been much harder for them to just welcome her back in - not because she wouldn’t have been welcome, but because of all the bad feeling directed towards her from him.

IF you’ve got your family on side when you split then it’s understandable that they’re not just going to welcome him back with open arms just because you have. In an ideal world they might, but in reality it’s rarely that simple.

To be honest at this point I wouldn't mind being uninvited. I'll be sat on my own, away from both my own family and my blood relatives who will all be on the top table. It's a plane journey and whole weekend away from DP and our DC, costing a lot of money. And evidently I'm wrong to be upset, or to have suggested I wouldn't feel bad for giving her the same treatment I've received. So yeah, perhaps let's hope she's does uninvite me. Thanks for being so nice

Why don't you just reject the invitation then?

@wllheart1 I think you're completely right. I do wish we'd worked harder at things rather than jumping to breaking up, but I can't change that now. There wasn't any animosity during the breakup but I guess in other people's eyes it makes us less stable or perhaps not a real couple anymore.

You clearly don't like her

Maybe don't go

There's a jealous undercurrent

Do you have dc with the Dp you don't live with?

@GiveHerHellFromUs because our parents would be devastated and it would probably cause a huge rift for years. It's not worth it over one weekend is it. And regardless of anything else, she's my sister and I want to be there for her on their big day.

IMO if you've been back together longer than you were separated I'd have invited him because of the history of your relationship being long. But from your last update it seems it will be more agro for you if he does go, seeing as kid's aren't invited, you'll need him to stay home and look after your children surely?
Unless it's only your v close family going who will be sat at the top table and no other family are invited you obvs won't be sat with no one you know as surely cousins aunts uncles etc will be there

@MarthasGinYard yes he is my DC father

@thisismynewpantsname there's obviously some built up resentment between you both for whatever reason.

I apologise for my earlier harsh post.

She might have not invited DP because of the instability or she might not have invited him so that she knew you had childcare covered.

Do you need to travel because she lives quite a distance away or because she's having a wedding abroad?

Either way, could you make a holiday out of it so DP doesn't feel like he's just being left behind?

I don't consider someone that you're not living with a partner, they're just a boyfriend. We only invited partners to our wedding, relatives included.

As this is a very big wedding being paid for by your ‘shared family member’, I would have expected you to have a plus 1 invitation, irrespective of what has happened with your DP so I don’t actually think you are being unreasonable.

I think it would be better to talk to her about it, rather than just replicating this situation when you get married.

I wouldn't ask for a plus one. Mostly because she knows that she's just invited you, she knows who your plus one will be and so it's likely she'll just say no, and then you're no further forward but there's even more bad feeling.

I do think AllHeart and the people mentioning that often family relationships don't go back to normal after a split are right here, and perhaps your sister has decided that right now, when she's doing the invites, he isn't really involved enough in the family to be included. That's sad for you, but you're starting from a position of loving him - your family have seen you be together; then split up saying he wasn't coping with the kids and you were making each other unhappy, and then it looks like you've somewhat cautiously got back together as despite it being quite some time that you've been back together, you're living apart. They're probably seeing that as a sign of instability - that you've lived apart for nearly a year because you're testing the waters, things aren't what they were yet. And on those grounds, it doesn't seem unreasonable not to invite him.

Have you told him yet? Maybe he won't be as upset as you think. It could well be pretty awkward for him to be at an event with your family before he's totally accepted back in.

Would he be able to attend anyway, or would he need to stay with the kids but you'd have preferred him to have felt included?

@underneaththeash to be fair they were together for 6 years and had a child. The only reason they're not living together is because they split for 3 months. They're now having counselling and working on rebuilding their relationship and it makes sense to stay living apart and create a stable life for their child with SEN. It's not like he's a new boyfriend.

This really comes across as you being upset that they don't recognise your relationship OP. You are upset that they don't see your relationship the same way you do.

We can only go on what you've said here but you've been living apart for a year now by the sound of it (split last January). I would think a relationship was rocky if they'd split and not moved back in after a year tbh! You also seem to think it is down to jealousy - I don't think it is, I think it's difficult sometimes to see how you come across to other people - and I certainly don't think your partner should move back in if you are not ready!

But just think about how it comes across to other people. You see yourself attending family occasions together, they see the everyday aspect of him not being there.

I hope you can sort something out OP.

@underneaththeash

To be fair they have DC and were together for 6 years before taking a short break. Hardly a boyfriend.

IMO and my family’s my partner became one of the family completely when we had our son.

Sorry x post with @GiveHerHellFromUs

Why don't you speak to your sister and tell her how you feel. If she won't change her mind, as another poster suggested, take him on the trip with you and just go to the wedding on your own. Could he go to the evening reception with you?

YABU. Each wedding guest costs a lot of money, maybe £100 plus per person, so why would you pay for anyone who isn't a close family member or really good friend? It amazes me that people feel entitled to bring along someone else, who may be close to them but not to the person paying the bill.

IF you don't want to go then just decline??

It's only a wedding - which is just an expensive day out for you - and you sound like you don't even like your family !