Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Not inviting someone's wife to a wedding

729 replies

soundsys · 30/09/2024 08:57

Sorry, it's a wedding one! And it's a bit long so as not to drip feed.

Husband has been invited to his (female) friend's wedding. He's been asked to be a witness and to arrive the day before, stay over in a hotel and "help set up". The wedding is in the city where both couples live. I haven't been invited. We've been married more than a decade and no falling out/backstory between me and the bride to be that I'm aware of.

YANBU - that's fucking weird
YABU - it's totally normal to not invite someone's long standing spouse to your wedding

Additional info: I did ask DH if it had come up that I'm not invited and he said the bride said "it's my wedding and I'll invite who I want"

Further additional info: bride to be has been invited to many social events we've hosted as a couple but has always declined to attend, preferring to only meet my husband on his own. He has been invited to many social events by bride to be and her future husband but I have never been included

OP posts:
AmberAlert86 · 02/10/2024 12:25

IOSTT · 02/10/2024 11:00

When your husband is ready to leave to go to the hotel, could you breezily say “I’ll come with you to the hotel to help you all set up, I’m free today so happy to help” Then sit in his car! See what his reaction is, go with him and see what her reaction is….

Edited

Yesss this is a good idea!
It's strange that the wedding is in the same city as they all live but the husband is staying at a hotel the night before???
Bizarre situation!

Tellysavelas · 02/10/2024 12:27

hildabaker · 02/10/2024 12:24

A response in kind does not a marriage make. Grown up issues demand grown up solutions. The DH is spectacularly disrespecting the OP. She needs to find out why in order to understand what the hell is going on in her marriage.

She has already tried that.

Yalta · 02/10/2024 12:27

snowlady4 · 30/09/2024 09:35

I was once invited to a wedding and my partner wasn't. I just replied saying would love to be there, but with everything involved in going to a wedding, flights, hotel etc, it will either be both of us or neither of us.
I think it's quite strange of the bride tbh, obviously upto them who they want to invite, but I do wonder does your husband know more than he's letting on, perhaps to keep the peace. If he's doing witness, they must be very good friends- surely he would havrle talked to her about it at some stage.. or at one of the multiple events over the years.
Don't let it get to you. If he does decide to go, try an do something nice that weekend for yourself.

Like seeing a divorce lawyer

If now exh would have done something like this we wouldn't have made another anniversary

Firm believer in expecting people who are supposed to love you and have your back to stand up for you. If they don't then I would be examining the relationship and how you are being treated

AmberAlert86 · 02/10/2024 12:28

Pussycat22 · 02/10/2024 10:04

SHE wants him!! She's jealous.

Either that, or he is taking his girlfriend to the wedding as +1

burnoutbabe · 02/10/2024 12:30

At the least i'd expect my husband to say - look, she doesn't agree with you as you vote tory/think sex can't change/voted against Brexit.

Like some reason. I don't have to agree, but some actual reason for it. (and if it was a stupid untrue reason, i'd wonder why husband doesn't challenge it)

Calliopespa · 02/10/2024 12:38

Tellysavelas · 02/10/2024 11:32

Why is it that women responding in kind is dismissed as ‘tit for tat’?

He’s the one lobbing the grenade, she shouldn’t just take it, as she’s already told him how she feels about him going to the wedding.

Edited
Show quote history

Because it achieves nothing for op. That’s what tit for tat means: an empty trading of insults.

It’s not because she shouldn’t upset him by doing it; it’s that she needs to do something more substantive. I suspect he’d actually be delighted not to have to go to op’s friend’s wedding anyway. He’d probably just bound off for an evening alone with his exclusive set. 🙄

Calliopespa · 02/10/2024 12:40

Tellysavelas · 02/10/2024 12:27

She has already tried that.

Show quote history

I reckon she should ask the groom.

MrsPeterHarris · 02/10/2024 12:43

I agree @Yalta

Rosscameasdoody · 02/10/2024 12:46

Tellysavelas · 02/10/2024 12:11

As I said, he has thrown the hand grenade. It’s nothing to do with impropriety, it’s up to Op whether she wants him there or not. I wouldn’t want him there, Op is free to make up her own mind.

But I really hate that a woman responding in kind is called ‘tit for tat’, implying she’s childish.

Show quote history

I don’t think the OP is being childish at all, and I can understand the inclination to exclude him to show him how it feels. But in doing that there’s a certain element of sinking to his level. Going on the info OP has given I think he would see it as tit for tat and would think he was being excluded for that reason, whatever OP said.

MandyFriend · 02/10/2024 12:47

I find it really sad that DH is happy to see his wife so disrespected by his so-called friends! He really should have your back on this, so shame on him!
A few years ago, a very good friend of my husbands was horrible to me and about me. I mentioned it to my husband; at first, he thought it would blow over, but then he heard him say something very nasty about me, and my husband never spoke to him again. He said we come as a package, and if he doesn't like you, he can F*%K Off!

IchiNiSanShiGo · 02/10/2024 13:08

It’s so weird that your DH is so close to the bride he’s been asked to be a witness, but she flat out refuses to meet his partner of 10 years. I don’t get it. At all. Have you actually ever met?

When is the wedding? If it’s in a church can you go and sit at the back, say you wanted to wish them well?

Ilovelifeverymuch · 02/10/2024 13:27

IOSTT · 02/10/2024 11:00

When your husband is ready to leave to go to the hotel, could you breezily say “I’ll come with you to the hotel to help you all set up, I’m free today so happy to help” Then sit in his car! See what his reaction is, go with him and see what her reaction is….

Edited

That's childish and unnecessary. She has made her view clear to her husband and it's his choice to go or not. She doesn't need to play games like that, make it clear and stick to her guns.

She also doesn't need to see what the DH friend will do or say, her issue is solely with her husband who doesn't see anything wrong with his friend excluding his wife.

Calliopespa · 02/10/2024 13:33

Ilovelifeverymuch · 02/10/2024 13:27

That's childish and unnecessary. She has made her view clear to her husband and it's his choice to go or not. She doesn't need to play games like that, make it clear and stick to her guns.

She also doesn't need to see what the DH friend will do or say, her issue is solely with her husband who doesn't see anything wrong with his friend excluding his wife.

Edited
Show quote history

Yeah I agree. I think this situation has gone past games.

I’m usually inclined ( well more than some MNers) to say Dh, like all of us, aren’t perfect and marriage requires us all to be able to cut our partners a bit of slack for dud moves here and there. But this is something much more long-lived and insidious than a mistake. It’s building total disrespect for op and her feelings into the marriage as a state of being. It’s an ongoing friendship op is consistently excluded from and not a case of a DH making a one-off spur of the moment error of judgment, and it smells really, really off to me the way the DH is handling it. It really comes across that he doesn’t want op there and doesnt care that it bothers her. That’s quite different from having a few mates he sometimes sees separately as she doesn’t especially want to join anyway.

Fleamaker · 02/10/2024 14:29

Have you ever met her?

GrannyRose15 · 02/10/2024 14:34

It is totally against etiquette to invite one spouse and not the other to a wedding. Neither of you should go.

Mermaidsarereal · 02/10/2024 15:30

I was about to say YABU in case it's a small wedding but then read that they're having 100 guests! I'm having a very small registry office wedding next month only 16 guests allowed, which means a few people can't bring partners but will be having a party straight after the registry office where everyone's partners can come along.

Owly11 · 02/10/2024 15:56

Could you answer whether you have actually seen the wedding invite? It's a key piece of information as to whether your DH is being truthful or not about you not being invited. Sometimes controlling men try to exclude their partners from work events, social events and so on to build up his own network of friends and supporters and to isolate their partner. It allows them to keep control of the narrative and potentially builds up bad feeling from others towards the partner ("she didn't even come to my wedding, the snooty cow"). In this case it does sound as if your DH wants to keep this woman all to himself, but it would be good to know for sure whether it's her excluding you or him.

Calliopespa · 02/10/2024 17:06

Owly11 · 02/10/2024 15:56

Could you answer whether you have actually seen the wedding invite? It's a key piece of information as to whether your DH is being truthful or not about you not being invited. Sometimes controlling men try to exclude their partners from work events, social events and so on to build up his own network of friends and supporters and to isolate their partner. It allows them to keep control of the narrative and potentially builds up bad feeling from others towards the partner ("she didn't even come to my wedding, the snooty cow"). In this case it does sound as if your DH wants to keep this woman all to himself, but it would be good to know for sure whether it's her excluding you or him.

Yes it would be good oP.

Akso how far off is it? Apologies if you’ve said already .

FootieMama · 02/10/2024 17:57

He is probably having a thing with the brides best friend. And she is helping them

FootieMama · 02/10/2024 18:01

Or he fancies someone else on her circle and dont want you there to cramp his style. Did he have a formal physical nvitation or have you just heard it from him?

RT5463 · 02/10/2024 18:37

I think the only reasonable explanation for not inviting you is if it were a group of friends who always socialised without spouses (work friends, sports club etc), but from what you have said that’s clearly not the case.

I’m trying to put myself and DH in this scenario. I think he would feel so embarrassed and awkward that I wasn’t included that he would decline the invitation without telling me. (He’d probably then leave the invitation lying around, I’d see it and become paranoid and it would result in a row anyway!)

My bridesmaid was in a very new relationship at our wedding with a guy that no one had met before as they live abroad. We still invited him and appreciated the effort that he made in coming. I just can’t fathom excluding a spouse of 10 years when DH is a member of the wedding party.

Even if there is history between them, if that is over and there are no residual feelings then I can’t see the problem with inviting you. I’m now good friends with a long-term ex of mine, but as it’s now completely platonic I wouldn’t consider not inviting his partner.

I think the best case scenario is that she’s just rude, with no etiquette and he needs to have the balls to stand up to her and decline the invitation.

Otherwise there is more to it that you don’t know. The staying overnight thing is really weird given that you live nearby.

I don’t know what I would actually do in your situation though. Hopefully DH will come to his senses and tell her that he won’t be attending without you. Failing that I would probably be doing some snooping, or tell him that you intend to contact her to have a chat to try to find out what the issue is. Or could you “accidentally” run into the groom-to-be and have a chat with him to try to find out from him what the explanation is or whether he finds it weird as well. It’s his wedding too after all!

(Actually, best case scenario is that it’s a Monica at Franny’s wedding type situation and it’s a case of who YOU could possibly have done! No chance of that is there?!)

Sending you love and luck with this situation.

Fleamaker · 02/10/2024 18:59

If there's no paper invite to clarify if you're invited or not, I would contact the bride and say 'sorry there's some confusion with DH as to whether the invite includes me, or just him, no problem either way but I just need to double check?' then you'd have your answer.
Either you're deliberately being excluded by DH, or the bride.

bitsalty · 02/10/2024 20:11

Fleamaker · 02/10/2024 18:59

If there's no paper invite to clarify if you're invited or not, I would contact the bride and say 'sorry there's some confusion with DH as to whether the invite includes me, or just him, no problem either way but I just need to double check?' then you'd have your answer.
Either you're deliberately being excluded by DH, or the bride.

Do not do this, it's a batshit idea. 😄

NigelHarmansNewWife · 02/10/2024 20:32

I'd put money on this being the OP's husband being weird. Who, and how, have this woman and her husband to be been invited to things the OP and her husband have hosted? If via the husband, maybe he hasn't actually invited them?

Fleamaker · 02/10/2024 20:36

bitsalty · 02/10/2024 20:11

Do not do this, it's a batshit idea. 😄

Show quote history

Why is it batshit 😂
Nothing to lose!