Conflicted about two events coming up

[4C04]

Basically, there’s a wedding/party coming up and the hosts are family friends (as in, my parents’ friends so they knew me when I was younger/before I got married etc). I’m not really close with them but my mum told me that they’d also invited us (me/husband etc) to the wedding and it would be great for us to all go. I was genuinely looking forward to this because I haven’t been to a wedding for a while and mum life can sometimes stall your social life a bit so I naturally got excited. We didn’t actually get a personal invite - it was merely my mum who gave us this info so I relied on this and told my husband who was also happy to go. We didn’t actually get told the date either just the month so we just carried on as normal and made our own plans to travel somewhere. So, my mum then tells me the date of the party and it happens to be the same date as our travelling plans. I initially wanted to go to the wedding party and thought my husband wouldn’t mind postponing our plans - but he’s not pleased at all for the following reasons:

1. he feels that me changing my mind has been heavily influenced by my mum.
2. he doesn’t understand how we weren’t given a personal invite and were merely told by my mum - he found this strange and slightly annoying - and we also didn’t even know the date until AFTER making our own travelling plans. If the hosts wanted to do things properly they would have asked for our numbers and passed on the party details etc.
3. he thinks that I often go along with whatever my mum wants us to do and he wants me to (in my interpretation) grow up a bit and start doing my own things
4. He had initially said that he’s fine with me going and he’ll travel alone - then he changed his mind after thinking about it 🤔

I only wanted to go because I got really excited about it - but now I feel like I’m kind of being forced to do our travelling plans - is it that bad to change your mind?

I wouldn't be prioritising a wedding I hadn't actually been invited to over anything tbh.

I'm with your husband and his reasons on this.

Yes I have a happy relationship with my husband - to be honest, I was very happy and excited about the travelling plans - I think just the reminder of the wedding made me forget about it all and I agreed with my mum to go, but yeah the lack of formal invite seems iffy to me now.

I can’t blame him to be honest.

I would ask my DM once more about the wedding...only for my peace of mind as to what her answer would be, it was wrong to mention you'd been invited if you hadn't, as it does sound as though at this late stage you haven't been formally invited.

But I'd do this knowing my mind would have already made the decision to go on holiday with my DH...

Ah here it is, the crux of it all. Let me guess, your mum is quite overbearing? Maybe a bit controlling? Everyone says yes to her all the time because it's just easier? She's even happy to invite all and sundry to her friends' wedding off her own bat?

But a dress for your holiday instead.

I suspect you would discover you've not been invited and it'll cause awkwardness if you went. Given you can't ring them up and ask, assume your holiday takes much better priority.

You seem quite flighty generally.

Like you always book a refundable holiday "in case plans change". Is that because you might get a better offer from your mum?

If so I can see why your husband is at the end of his tether.

No, that’s not the reason, it’s just more logical to me.

Yes, that's what it sounds like to me -- the mum just said the OP and her husband were invited. No invitation suggests otherwise. If the OP's mother wanted to throw her weight around by getting her friends to invite her daughter and SIL to someone else's wedding, she should have done a better job!

I agree with whoever said that the OP would have turned up at the wedding much to the surprise of the bride and groom...

this motivated me to tell him about us cancelling and travelling on another occasion. But he’s not on board. I’m not bloody surprised! You’ve planned a lovely trip away with your spouse and you come home to have them tell you that you aren’t going on holiday anymore, she’ll be cancelling it. Instead, you’ll be attending the wedding of someone who hasn’t actually invited you and who you aren’t close enough with to have their contact details? Are you trying to get divorced?

I definitely get treated like a child but sometimes when I want to do my own thing I feel like I’m being mean I wonder how your husband feels when you’re putting your mum and what she wants, before your relationship with your husband?

You haven’t been invited to the wedding. Your DH has a good point about your mum. If she’s the sort of person that goes about handing out invitations to other peoples weddings, then she’s likely to be hard work in general.

Even if your mum is right and the couple are going to invite you, you don’t know that it would be the full day. You might only get an evening invitation.

Either way, you would be bonkers to upset your husband and mess around a holiday for the sake of a wedding for people you aren’t at all close to.

OP I think you might well be a people pleaser to such an extent that you don’t identify what you actually want in life. Sometimes it’s easier to coast along letting other people make the decisions but I can understand how this is very irritating and upsetting to your DH.
In my opinion, you should by now, be quite clear about the authenticity of this wedding invitation but you still seem to have little idea if you actually are properly invited or not. Just because your mum is taking you along doesn’t mean you don’t have to consider the hosts, the date, the venue, a gift the arrangements, as a fully grown adult, checking your dairy etc.

Seemingly, there was no firm invitation nor any proper acceptance. There was no word from the bride or groom, there wasn’t even a date, you had no idea what sort of wedding it was even. Therfore, at that stage I would have taken it that the invitation via your mum was simply her wishful thinking.

It’s hardly surprising your DH is upset that you suggested prioritising a non existent wedding invitation over your planned holiday together.

You haven't actually got a wedding invitation. You don't know any details about this wedding at all.

You haven't even actually been invited.

And yet you are planning on changing your whole holiday plans because your mum thinks that the couple want you at the wedding.

The wedding that you don't have an invitation for!!

Of course you husband is annoyed with you wanting to move travel plans

I'm team husband on this one.

You cannot possibly be attending a wedding without an invitation.

Go on your travels and enjoy the time with DP.

Your mum will understand you have a clash as you didn't receive a clear invitation with the date from anyone.

On on holiday.

Go on holiday.

He's being a man child. You want to go to the wedding so go. Your travel can be rearranged at no cost, if you don't go to the wedding and keep the travel plans you'll only resent going as you didn't really want to on that date

This was my initial thinking, but now I’m starting to realise that not getting an official invite doesn’t really make sense. And he was initially on board to go when I first told him about it. In an ideal world, he would have said “no worries, we can rearrange our travel plans, I know how excited you were about this wedding etc”. But I do understand his pov now.

But... they haven't been invited to the wedding by anyone other than the OP's mum who has a history of overruling other people.and dominating them.

This isn't a woman good; man bad thread 👍🏻

It’s not that my mum dominates, I think it’s more perhaps that I haven’t really set those boundaries. I’m quite easy going so I usually don’t see a problem when this type of stuff arises. But my husband is perhaps more logical than I am.

That's my opinion. She wants to go and OH is trying to stop her to do something that they can do another time.

OP might WANT to go but the simple fact is that neither of the people who are hosting/planning the wedding have actually directly invited her & her husband. The only person providing any details is OP's Mum and she's not even done a good job of that!

I'm going to possibly guess that OP's DM has a habit of this & her DH is (quite rightly) fed up with it. I don't blame him either really; if the wedding couple wanted OP & her husband to be there then they'd have made the effort of getting her contact details from OP's Mum.

Sack them all off and go somewhere on your own
Your mum's being unreasonable, your DH is being a pain

I think that this illustrates why your DH has a point.

I'd be very cross if my OH binned off a planned holiday to go to a wedding on the say so of their parent. A wedding you don't even know that you're actually invited to.