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.

That they supposedly 'just didn't think' to me is even worse than if they actively had a problem with you. It shows total apathy and lack or respect or consideration towards you. And if they weren't deliberately keeping their cosy meetings a secret, how come they were never discussed in front of you? Load of back-pedalling bullshit. Group of bitches. You are better off without them, but I know how much it hurts having experienced similar. 💐

Hmm well if they go to the toddler group that makes it more of a casual thing. Why have you not found that toddler group? You don't have to wait to be invited to a toddler group. If you went there you probably would have naturally been invited to the lunch.

Op's husband did nothing wrong to confront his mom and be direct. I don't get why others are saying otherwise. Is she supposed to pretend like nothing happened forever? I'm not British, so maybe it's a more British thing to act like nothing happened but silently withdraw?

It would still seem like OP was an afterthought or being asked reluctantly, under social and familial pressure.

I'm so sorry, @Sacredhandbag , how hurtful.
I can only hope at least one of the SIL's is on mumsnet & feels terrible. I'd have to drop them all like a hot brick but then I'm not very forgiving.

I personally wouldn’t blame MIL ,surely the DILs can speak and have a conscience !
OP I would be really offended and pissed off with all of them!

As is often the way.

Sounds so hurtful, I'm hurt for you op. I'd be non contact until I get an apology. This is the time to show you have the brain they thought you were lacking and demand the respect you deserve. Confront if they pretend nothing happened next time they talk to you.

But why couldn't it have been mentioned to Op?

Unless they thought she wouldn't want to take her baby until older?

If so though that would have been easy enough for MIL to say wouldn't it?

I’m so sorry this is so hurtful. I’m sure they were thoughtless rather than intentional if you normally get along well but that doesn’t change how much it hurts. They’ve handled it very badly now also.

I’d leave them to it, the ball’s in their court now.

I really feel for you, this hurts.

Maybe it would have been thoughtful for the SIL to invite and include OP.My daughter is expecting her second child in a different area ,closer to her family ,no close family who have little people but a gentle reminder and invite to the toddler group would be great from a relative or friend .

@cheseandme do they all speak a different European language with each other?

Oops that was for OP

Oh my goodness, YES! It’s all her fault for not instinctively knowing about the toddler group her SILs attend after their weekly lunch with MIL and her husband’s sister and absolutely nothing to do with them not inviting her to have lunch with them each week. I mean … it’s not like they could have invited her along to both, is it!

OP I think your in laws found the thread

YANBU however I think you are forgetting this could be a SIL ISSUE. How is your relationship with your 3 sil's as I suspect one of them are the reason you are not invited.

Whoever steered the group away from including OP, the other three played along. It actually doesn't matter who steered, all four actively excluded OP, not responding when she suggested meeting and actively keeping Tuesday lunchtimes secret. For a YEAR.

As well as being nasty, these four women are also rather dim. How else could they possibly have thought they would get away with this shitty behaviour forever?

That's THEIR problem, not yours. I would maybe ask the MIL outright as to why and explain how you feel about the situation and just see her reaction and what she says to your face first, just for benefit of the doubt, (maybe that's just my naive, forgiving nature talking!) but if this IS deliberate, then, like another another post has suggested, I'd definitely stop helping her when she clicks her fingers!

True, but if that’s the case and MIL is siding with the SIL then fine - that SIL can step up next time some donkey work wants doing, not OP. I think that’s the crux of the problem here. It doesn’t matter who is excluding her or why, in the grand scheme. What matters is that MIL will happily draft OP in to do jobs for her but excludes (or colludes in excluding) her from the social thing. I’m afraid MIL needs to piss or get off the pot.

All messages about the toddler group and the lunches have been carefully kept under wraps when OP is around.

As for MIL taking her DiLs under her wing, they've been in the country 10 years +. Puhleeze. She was busted and everybody knows it. This might have come from SIL but MIL and the other DILs enabled it.

Rugsweeping her exclusion and using her for scut work will be detrimental to her family because what these women do to OP, they and their children will do to OP's kids.

My own mum did shit like this to me all
my life. Would exclude myself and family but fuss around my brother and his family no end. Add to this my sister who lives abroad would be included in the meals, days out etc when she came back to visit.
One day i did ask the reason but all I got was a very watery, insincere apology and it continued.
Fast forward nearly 10 years, my brothers wife ran off with her boss, never to see any of the family again.
My mum has a diagnosis of dementia and very limited mobility. I still help as she is my mother but my brother has to take on the most responsibility as he was always the golden child.
None of it ever made any sense , just behaviour you’d expect from playground bullies, not your family.
But never ask why they do this; you won’t get the truth plus they’ll get a buzz out of your asking. So sorry this has happened to you, it’s a confusing feeling, but I’m pretty sure you’ll have the last laugh.

Let them crack on
I wouldn't want to be part of something that I wasn't originally asked to attend when it all started
Nothing worse than being an after thought

Oh and you're busy that day/week aren't you when she needs help....yes VERY busy!

and they didn't think of your child either, which I think is even more outrageous - even if one of them had some issue with you, it's completely uncivilized to exclude a grandchild from family social events unless there is a very good reason

I’d be making it clear that I was washing my hair or something that makes my own feelings known

We have a friend who ended up with no contact with her adult child for over a year, I suspect because she (the parent) is extremely assertive an confrontational. I can't see anything to indicate anything like that from the OP, but if anyone else is reading this thread to get advice, it's worth bearing in mind that issues can be caused by personality clashes that are not apparent to the party concerned.

As some people have pointed out to me, I prefer to avoid conflict. Nevertheless I would try to avoid it here: If they were to invite the OP, I'd go along to it, and treat it like work, i.e. emotionally disengage really, just see how it goes, but be unlikely to be fully open and trusting.

If they don't invite her, I'd interpret that as "we don't give a sh**". In which case, I would be inclined to abandon the relationships and reduce contact to the functional minimum.

I would however, ask DH to contact his siblings directly before anything that would cut off him from his siblings and the kids from their cousins