To have phoned DH’s nephew twice to ask why me daughter and grandchildren aren’t invited to his wedding

[SlothsRUs]

Husband is fucking angry with me. Received an invitation to his nephew’s wedding for us and our two daughters but not for my eldest daughter who is from a previous relationship.

Nephew’s response was that she was a step-relative who hadn’t been thought of but he didn’t think they were close.
He is closer in age to her and has known her longer than he has known the others.

I got his number off husband’s phone. He's furious with me.

Nephew is son of Brother-in-Law. The daughter of Sister-in-Law is invited with her toddler but my grandchildren aren’t invited.

When I found this out I rang him back asking how he felt closer to this family as they had grown up in different countries. He said he wasn’t willing to carry on the conversation.

BiL rang husband suggesting had I requested an invitation, one would be forthcoming, I don’t believe him. I get the sense it was more of control your wife.

I have no hope at all of my daughters not going, husband is definitely going.

I am fucking sick to my stomach. SiL rang me directly virtually threatening me saying I had upset people and not to involve my MiL.

Fucking furious.

People are going ask DD1 is 28, younger two are 19 and 20. Groom is 29.

Just sounds to me like the OP wasn't going out of her way to transport the 2 younger Girls to and fro, but her DH stepped up and did.

Sounds like he didn't.

She's nearly 30.

Maybe instead you could focus on encouraging a 28yo grown woman not to think too much about the invite to a wedding of distant step family members she barely knows. Why does she care? I don't get it.

As for my grandchildren, they should be invited as the equivalent child I.e. SiL’s grandchild has been invited.

See here is where your thinking breaks down. It's a wedding. You make it sound like a point scoring competition. Everyone to X level of relatedness should be given Y 'privilege' (let's call it privilege for the sake of explanation).

Your SIL grandkids get to go so your grandkids should get to go. But how does your eldest DD feel about not being invited and her kids not being invited?

The FIL died and your eldest DD was the only one who missed out on speaking at the service. Now that seems shitty on the surface but context is important too. How long had she known him and how was their relationship? Did she feel slighted, or did she feel humiliated because you felt slighted?

Yes, but their reasons are different. The OP did not facilitate a relationship because of their eldest sister. That is why they have an issue with her.

If OP pays any attention to any post THIS is the one.

Because he just wanted a quiet life

Why does she care.

Maybe because she's been brainwashed to be. Honestly when you've been groomed to be manipulated by someone who's supposed to care it gets very opaque.

The younger ones have had their eyes opened. I suggest they take strength from this.

How big is the bag you use to carry your audacity around with you?!

😂😂😂

I thought OP saying she COULDN'T stop him taking the younger two, not WOULDN'T was quite telling.

Well look at the drama OP has caused here, do you really think she would have let him take the younger two to see his family quietly? And OP has categorically said she didn’t allow them to go for special occasions because of the eldest so birthdays, Christmas, weddings etc.

Also note OP’s language, she says she couldn’t stop him, not that she wouldn’t.

Well she'll be smarting now so don't expect to hear from her again

Honestly op.

I know that this has been hard for you to accept but your husbands wider family do not see your dd as the same as your husbands children.

You keep saying 'you would never exclude based on blood or Dna' but not everyone is the same and while of course your dh made the decision to take her on as a daughter in all ways, his wider family didn't make the that choice.

Would it be kind of them to adopt her as one of them, of course it would but not all blended families are the same and I think if your dd was away at weekends visiting her own dad and grandparents, and cousins then this would all sting less for you, which I think means at some level you were expecting your husbands family 'to pick up the slack for your daughters deadbeat dad' which probably isn't strictly fair either.

It's clear that they don't see your daughter as a biological member of the family and you can't force them to, restricting your other daughters relationship with them as a result was a mistake , two wrongs never make a right .ultimately you can hope at the start that they incorporate her fully into their family, but you don't get to insist because ultimately she is not their cousin or grandchild and if you have your dh ever split. They would probably never see her again. Some people can be wary or blending fully for that reason.

I suppose I'm surprised you're so distraught when all along you knew they didn't view her the same as a cousin. It's almost like this is a total shock to you which is why you acted so poorly.

Step back from his family now and be honest with your dd in that her sisters relationship with her fathers family will be a bit different to hers. Honesty here is the best policy so as to protect her a bit from being gutted when she isn't treated the exact same .

I think this is a “Chicken or Egg?” situation. OP admits herself that her in-laws were always nice to her daughter. Maybe if she hadn’t expected them to instantly treat a stranger as a grandchild and had given them time for a natural bond to build, it would have happened. Would it necessarily have been the same as a “typical” grandparent-grandchild bond? Maybe not - but it could still have been there. I’m not as close to my cousins as my siblings, but that doesn’t devalue the relationship I have with my cousins.

An awful lot of this seems to have been caused by OP’s “all or nothing” approach. Most people wouldn’t expect a teenage girl to be invited to be a flower girl alongside much younger siblings - yet according to OP, this was serious enough to pull her entire family from the wedding. Perhaps if she hadn’t gone for such extreme measures, the step cousins would have seen more of one another and bonded naturally as friends - and OP’s eldest would be going to the wedding on THAT basis.

As I effectively said that twice in my post I think it's safe to assume that is my position! What you do with those feelings is a separate issue on

I find it more odd that the ' youngest two' who are both adults would even contemplate going if their sister wasnt invited!

Because they don’t like her much due to all this batshittery

Oh sorry - i didnt read the whole post (which i know is a crime on Mumsnet - lol!)

So that makes sense then, if the 2 adult youngest children dont get like/get on well with the eldest one then i dont blame them from going and trying to keep a relationship with their family.

DD1’s dad chased a music career rather than a relationship with his daughter. I don’t expect the in-laws to replace him. I just expected kindness and to be invited to a wedding where other cousins are invited who she has known longer than her sisters.

Yes you did expect your in laws to replace him because you said yourself they were always kind to her (so they offered the kindness you say is all you wanted) and you fully admit you wanted them to treat her exactly the same as a grandchild or niece / nephew - what is that then if not expecting them to replace her father’s family? Even now you’re saying “other cousins” even though they’re not cousins.

Also you declined a previous wedding invitation where your eldest was invited but not asked to be flower girl (there is a significant age gap). In my family, we’re all full biological siblings but even so, there were various weddings where some of us were in the wedding parties & others weren’t because of our ages - that’s perfectly normal. Even with family sleepovers & activities, my parents certainly didn’t expect all of us to be included in every single thing just because we were siblings.

Exactly @SlothsRUs started all this

I doubt she’ll see that, rather it will be everyone else’s fault for ‘being mean’. Even on here she’s been told to cut off her husband’s family, as if 1, they won’t enthusiastically welcome that, and 2, doing so won’t serve to further isolate OP from any family member that isn’t her oldest daughter.

I imagine she assumed that her daughters would naturally agree with her as adults, like they wouldn’t develop their own opinions and end up resenting her, and their sister, for missing out on their paternal family.

Why? They are, as you say, adults - meaning they have independent adult relationships with the groom. Why would you expect them to stage a protest over the lack of an invitation for their half-sister, whom the groom barely knows?

Why is her being a half sister relevant? They were raised in the same home and are siblings. It doesn’t make them any less siblings. Weird comment.

Because the family who are inviting are not related to the sister. So the half matters why would you stage a protest for a sibling to attend a family event that’s not their family. Bonkers.

Add again they dislike/resent this sister because the mother has not allowed them to attend family events due to sister no way in hell can you expect them to fight her corner to their family.

Unsurprising as their mother has made it all about their oldest sister all their lives.