To be hurt by MIL having regular lunch with her other two DILs and never inviting me.

[Sacredhandbag]

DH has two brothers and a sister.

I thought MIL and I got on well. Not besties or anything but got along fine together. She's a great grandmother. I've always considered myself lucky to have her.
Recently she's been unwell and as I can be around during the day (I'm on maternity leave) I've popped round her house to help her with some laundry and other bits and when she went back to work I spent the day waiting in her house for her for an important delivery she couldn't miss.

Ive just found out that for the past year, she, her daughter, and the wives of her two other sons meet up for lunch every Tuesday and I have not once been invited.

I'm also regularly ignored on the family whatsapp when I suggest to the SILs that we meet up with our kids.

I'm really hurt and I just don't understand. If they dislike me, why was MIL happy to have me over to help her out when she needed it? The other DILs and her daughter didn't, as far as I know.
If it was just her and her daughter, or her and one of her other DILs, I'd understand but it's the fact that it's a group of them that I've been left out of that's upsetting.

DH has offered to speak to her and ask if I can come along but I've said no for now.

AIBU to be upset?

Edit: we all live locally, in the same small town.

No, they take their kids, per the OP.

"Yes, they take their kids. It's deliberately been set up in a (very nice, very middle class) kid friendly place that has kid menus, highchairs, a play area and is attached to a park."

They have chosen to hang out, regularly, on purpose without the OP. I can see why she is hurt. Hope she now just grey rocks them and is nothing more than civil.

@joanofaardvark Yes, I realized years ago after a hurtful incident that my in-laws don’t care about me and I know that if we ever had a crisis of any kind, they wouldn’t help either me or their GC. They might help DH, but I’m not even sure about that tbh as he’s not a Golden Child.

So it’s best to lower expectations and focus on people who really care.

That’s enough for me to never speak to them again, it’s mean spirited and done behind your back. I wouldn’t want anything to do with people like them anyway. It’s sounds like your winning. How crude, rude and disrespectful.

I'm really sorry you are facing this as being excluded is horrible and raises all sorts of feelings we don't expect.
I think you just have to chalk this up to experience and accept that if MIL genuinely cared about you she'd have thought to extend the invitation. Make your decisions going forward with an awareness of how much you think people think of you

After reading the updates I’m more convinced it is deliberate. MIL’s reaction was all about her - she didn’t apologise, made excuses and then calls another family member to involve them in her muddle.

Any normal MIL reaction would be, “I’m really sorry I can see how this has come across and feels. This is dreadful I will talk to OP. I am very sorry.”

She would not include anyone else. The way your BIL supported his mum just confirms how much in her pockets they all are.

OP, you are in the best position. You can ditch any help that MIL needs in the future. I hope somehow there are some mums maybe who also looking for a mum’s group and I would focus on this.

I would keep it casual with any in-law family members going forward and not really bother greatly with any sort of events or help anyone needs. I would stay silent on WhatsApp for a week then jump out.

I think you’ve actually nailed it with the younger girlfriend / doesn’t view you as an adult.

my MIL does exactly this to one of my SIL. She has been with her youngest son since 16 and she still treats them like they’re teenagers. Meanwhile I arrived as a property owner at 30 and she’s always treated me like an adult. Fortunately for SIL I find MIL grating so no issue like this has developed but there was definitely potential.

Incredibly rude behaviour from MIL. Stop doing stuff for her, she doesn’t respect you.

As soon as you said they were from EE I thought "MIL is taking them under her wing". I think that's plausible.

The rest of it is unconscionable. There is no way one of them didn't at some point think, or even say, "what about OP?". Possibly the wife of the BIL your DH had a convo with. He came out with it pat, didn't he. She's discussed them with him, he'd been in your side and she'd said something like "it's not up to me is it?".

You will feel great when you take control of the situation in a way that makes you happy. This is the sort of thing that can't be undone. Their loss.

They go to a child-friendly place with all their children

I would do it, and when you see them go over and say "Isn't this place lovely. I only just found out about it. Have you ever been here before?" and watch them squirm. Then leave with a huge smile and a wave.

Your DH sounds lovely, but in some cases better to ask forgiveness than permission.

I doubt you will hear from them that quickly OP (if at all with apologies) - they're currently scrambling their brains to rewrite history. They're trying to figure out how they can turn this into "something and nothing" i.e. it's your fault for being upset about something 'so trivial' (your MIL's response to your DH along these lines was so telling).

@Sacredhandbag I could be you! DH eldest of 4 siblings - 3 boys 1 girl, I've been around the longest.

Can I offer a different perspective?

My BILs and their wives rely a lot on PIL and their own parents not just with childcare but just general "parenting" eg always texting or ringing, asking for advice and just generally giving updates on the grandchildren. My SILs are the type who like to have family heavily involved in everything.

I'm more of a "leave me to crack on" type of person. I'm the only only child amongst them all and I think in part it stems from there, I am fiercely independent almost to a fault that I don't ask for help when perhaps I sometimes should.

This has meant that MIL often sees and spends time with my SILs more than me. She loves her GC and is the matriarch of the family and loves to feel needed.

But I can tell you right now who is "favourite" and who it is that PIL know they can come to for anything if needed and who would be there for them at the drop of a hat in a tight spot or emergency.....

I don't see any of this as a negative. I love my PIL and we just have a different type of relationship than they have with their other SILs but I wouldn't have it any other way!

I reckon they're busy trying to concoct some plausible excuse to cover themselves but it would only be an excuse and not the truth.

Exactly. Why did MIL make an excuse to end the call with OP's DH when she could have said something along the lines you've suggested and then insisted on speaking to OP immediately to apologise. No, she hung up, called OP's DH's brother to claim she's upset that OP and her DH are angry with her, acting like she's the victim. Puh-lease, pass me the world's tiniest violin! 🙄

My heart goes out to you, OP. Being excluded - whether by act or omission - is incredibly confusing and hurtful.
The fact that this has been going on so long demonstrates that your DH's family are not very nice people, however pleasant they seemed on the surface. That is no reflection on you.
I read something online which I have to paraphrase (as I have forgotten the exact words) and pass on to you now in hope that it helps - don't sit next to someone else's table and accept the crumbs that fall from it, move on and find and fill your own plentiful table with those who love and care for you and vice versa. I hope that you are able to move on from this and in time it no longer hurts, and wish that in years to come you will have plenty of lovely lunches (and dinners, and drinks, picnics, days out, nights out, shopping trips, anything and everything you like!!) with excellent company.

Exactly, now she’s put out and made to feel bad while she caused this upset to begin. She’s what I call a waste of human space. The SILS and the mother’s daughter probably kiss her ass and know you wouldn’t be ok with that so she made sure to separate you. Mean and cunning behavior

This ^ 100%

They’ve made it clear where you stand.
its up to you now if you want to continue to be the one to do MIL favors and be available to her.
I wouldn’t, she and all your SILs made a choice and now you can make yours.

They probably put her on a pedestal and she knows you don’t bow to her majesty.

If yoi are on maternity leave could it be that the others feel the new baby has usurped thier own children in the grandchild pecking order? Or could potentially take the attention away from thiers?

What absolute bitches. All of them. They all knew you were on maternity leave. I wouldn’t forgive this. Because it was no accident, it wasn’t a one off. It was a sustained and deliberate exclusion- whilst you’d been doing loads to help mil. I would be minimising contact with MIL. Don’t see her unless necessary. She needs help? She can ask one of her preferred daughter/inlaws. What a cow.

I think one way to approach this is to really act your age and station. Start again with your dh’s family as though you just got there. Only go too events where you are specifically invited and your hosts make a fuss of you and the children as if you are honored guests. Forget old jokes and familiarity—they don’t deserve it. Don’t do any favors for the others—not for MIL and not for the little cousins. Don’t be sentimental about that cousin relationship to start with. None of the other four women give a fuck about your children socializing with theirs.

You might also think about the ways your 20 years in the family made you an absolute danger to your MIL’s ability to define herself to the new DIL’s. She may not have liked having someone around in your position—a long time insider who knows all the local and family scuttlebutt. She had new DIL to impress but by rights you should already have been her right hand woman. Perhaps she didn’t want you taking the shine off her as she presided over her queendom by remembering something she wishes forgot.

In the end, though, the progress of this situation will be this:

Narc prayer:

That didn't happen
And if it did, it wasn't that bad
And if it was, that's not a big deal
And if it is, it's not my fault
And if it was, I didn't mean it
And if I did, you deserved it

She a,so might be intimidated by you bc your a successful working woman and she passes her life doing coffee clatches. Wasting her life away while you’re thriving in being a mother and business woman. Also.something to think about.

Your mother-in-law's reaction was not "oh no, I didn't think", it was "oh no, I've been caught".

If she genuinely "hadn't thought" , her reaction would he something like "gosh, oh dear, how awful of me, I hope she doesn't think we did this deliberately, please let me speak to her, of course we'd love it if she can come along too..." Instead you're getting the classic denial /deflect etc tactics that is no more sophisticated than a young child who's denying they drew on the walls while holding a marker in each hand. It's actually insulting to think you'd believe that, and I'd be really annoyed that she phoned her other son to try to handle you, rather than phoning you herself. It's all really disrespectful.

Whatever you do, do it for yourself and don't put yourself out for them. I agree with a previous poster - attend the family events that suit you. Limit anything that doesn't.

The problem is, OP will still have to spend time with them all if she wants her children to grow up with her cousins.

Soon OP will be back to work and won't be able to go anyway. What a dreadful pity they didn't invite her when she was off on mat leave and could probably really have done with the outing and the social contact.

OP, I guess you'll have to just do what so many people do when it comes to family: Do your duty when you have to and just bite your lip.

I hope you make more and better friends. Hugs xxx