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.

Also, I'd say that even if one of the lunching ladies disliked the OP for some reason, it's not acceptable for an adult to isolate a kid from their cousins, unless there has already been some insurmountable family split

DiL infiltration alert !

I'd be devastated and would absolutely it be accommodating to mil or sisters In law ever again. Civility and nothing more

I'm furious for you - total bitches the lot of them

I do hope the in laws see this thread and realise how mean they've been rather than trying to justify their behaviour to themselves

Isn't that the very definition of using though?
Having someone around when you need them, but not when you don't.
I feel for you, its not nice.

Oh op this would hurt a lot. Good on your dh but do not just let everyone imagine this has been smoothed over. I wouldn’t be dropping by mils to help any time soon. She feels uncomfortable because she’s been called out with good reason and doesn’t get to not feel this way. Nice of Bil to call but also bullshit smoothing it over. Whatever the reasons this is what happened and you feel shit and they are all part of making you feel shit, and of leaving you and their child/childrens cousin out. I hope one of the women extend the olive branch to you personally, not just their husbands.

I so feel for you op, it's horrible to be left out. But I've noticed that you said you were/are constantly ignored when you mentioned on the WhatsApp group about meeting up, so they had plenty of opportunity to invite you and tell you about the meet ups. I'm wondering if maybe it's your children, if it's not you 🤔 Maybe one of your SIL jealous of you for whatever reason. Until these other 2 Dils came into your mils life, were you quite close? Maybe it Is as someone else said because you were so young when you came into your husbands life. Where is he in the family, oldest, youngest? (I probably missed this bit). Was/is he close to his sister? Maybe she wasn't happy with you taking her brother away.
I would just make myself less available,

Dh should get back to his mum and brother and say none of you can sugar coat this. My wife has suggested meeting up multiple times on the family WhatsApp and never been taken up on this by any of you. Our children are being cut off from their cousins also. This is no better than school yard bullying and far worse because it’s in our family. For all we know mum and the others are commenting on their private whatsapp they clearly have and mocking my wife every time she has suggested meeting up. I don’t want to hear anyone try and tell me oh that wasn’t intentional, it’s like the school bully saying oh she just tripped. Don’t bother calling me until you can acknowledge this.

Mil has showed you who she is. Sil the same or at least complicit. I'm glad bil is now aware. I'm sure there'll be a few uncomfortable females who are not perhaps who their spouses thought they were. OP keep your head high and let the others do all the helping. Well done to your DH who is rightly angry at the way you & the children have been treated. He can do visits etc and you can enjoy a bit of peace & quiet every so often. They're not nice people.

this has got to hurt. It might not be MIL driving it though. Do you get on well with all of the others? Thing is, if you get an invite because you’ve asked I’m not sure that would make you feel much better would it? Because you’d have had to ask. If you can ignore it and live with the small hurt, I would. They all know they’re being rubbish. And mean.

Youre not mad, over sensitive or childish (or any of the things that might be levelled at you to make like youre the unreasonable one who is over reacting, and theyre not a bunch of nasty mean girls). I would also be hurt and upset by this. Your MILs blustery cowardly response on the phone shows she KNOWS it was exclusionary and wrong. Its not often that the man in the story actually stand out as the ones with any backbone, but in this case your DH has been magnificent and his instinct to be honest and drag this cosy little secret out into the harsh light of day so everyone can see how spiteful it was, was absolutely the right one. And your BILs response was pretty good too - he had the guts to own up and get in touch while his wife is still hiding. I dont have any advice except to accept it - hurtful as it is. Now you know who you are dealing with, and can react accordingly. I certainly wouldnt be doing any housework or favours for ANY of them, especially your nasty MIL, who by the way, is extending her favouritism to exclude your children.

If she had wanted to speak to you immediately and was profusely sorry, I could believe it was just a thoughtless oversight.

Sorry to say, they have excluded you, and her silence confirms that she doesn't know how to handle this. She doesn't want to apologise because then she acknowledges the problem and would have to do something about it, so instead she's hoping that it'll go away by ignoring it.

I also suspect there are more upsetting behaviours, but for now anyway, she has damaged your relationship. She's an idiot, because clearly she has enjoyed your support over the years, and now she's lost it.

It's going to be very hard for her to repair the damage.

They sound horrid. Your MIL is a user. I'd mute the family whatsapp, and never speak to any of them again unless absolutely necessary. If anyone of them do invite you to anything I'd suggest being busy.
My ex MIL made every excuse under the sun to not visit us and the baby. I was on mat leave for a year. Her and FIL were the only family nearby. She finally decided to visit on my first day back at work (husband on a day off)! Then when we moved away back to my family she had the nerve to be upset! May be a bit drastic, but can you move away if it suits you to do so?

Bloody Nora, Sacredhandbag! I’d feel as hurt as hell,too. What a deeply thoughtless action from your assorted female in-laws.

The only thing I would say - being human, we can screw up. And sometimes we screw up SPECTACULARLY. Even otherwise fabulous, loving, thoughtful people can screw up. And, IMO, this is what happened here. Rather than being a deliberate “we don’t like/value/ want HER” they probably just somehow slithered into it and once they had met up more than once or twice without you, they may have surmised that you would have always felt like an afterthought. Or everyone thought that the OTHER person would surely invite you, yet no one did…so they just carried on.

NB in no way is that a valid excuse, it’s merely an explanation how something like this could have happened without any inherent ill thought or deliberate attempt at exclusion. But heck, yeah, I’d be hurt AND sulk.

The tricky bit here is - this is family. Friends can come and go throughout life, but these people are always going to be DH’s mum, sister and your SILs. Only you know whether a weekly lunch date without you justifies an irreparable, permanent family rift.

Kudos to your hubby for taking the bull by the horns and confronting it. Hopefully you’ll get some sincere & deeply remorseful apologies. Depending on how good they are you may or may not want to extend grace.

I feel for you. I hope you get an apology from MIL as that’s the right thing to do. I suspect though she won’t apologise and think she has done nothing wrong. In fact she will probably be upset you feel upset / think you are over reacting. What a great husband you have calling his mother and telling her.

Is Op coming back? No word since Saturday evening when a poster pointed out several major discrepancies in her previous posts.

I guess that can happen when you're trying to condense what you're writing to what is simply relevant and at the same time avoid outing yourself. It may be that correcting it all and explaining it all is just too much effort.

My guess is its more to do with the children, Are the 2 DILs are very close? (They probably think as you are UK native that you have a lot of network.)& see & help each other a lot, are their kids similar ages? The SILs are learning the UK system together... Are there for ex 2 girls? what is the dynamic with your DC ? Do you have a boisterous boy for example ? Maybe the kids are happier without yours there?
I think its appalling that they have deliberately excluded you, particularly as you have messaged them asking if they want to grab a coffee & cake & no one has said, "lets meet up at X", whether its Tues club or not.
Now the only question is, How do you deal with them going forward.
In my case, I back off, I feel hurt to the core. I don't confront, & I try to carry on knowing that I'm not important to them, so, subsequently, they are not important to me. (not simple !)
--I recently discovered my BILs & SILs had all gone off on a private jet to inaugurate the reception of a project.... in a clearly planned silence... except one of the SILs mentioned it to my hair dresser...
Fuck them...--

My own mum pushed my SIL out and then subsequently my sister has also pushed her out. All down to my mum being jealous of her.

I have felt horrible at family events where they weren’t invited but when I mentioned it they flat out refused.

Maybe a similar thing happening.

I've been wading through all the posts and I can't find that mother in law and the three DILs have contacted Op to apologise.have I missed it?

If they haven't wholeheartedly apologised, within a few hours of finding out she is upset, it's game over and shows they did this on purpose. If I was SIL I'd be straight on the 'phone or go in person to apologise.

It’s quite hard playing lady bountiful (or whatever role) when someone who has known you for donkeys years is about. I wouldn’t make this about you. Shame on all of them nonetheless.

In reality - if one of them doesn't like you of course they couldn't really "have said." Because it's nasty and unpleasant, so it's easier for everyone if it's unspoken.

It's rude, OP, and not easy to explain. I think I would let my DH ask what was up though.

I would just take a step back.
Don’t do any favours and get on with your own life

Her husband rang his mother and then the BIL rang them. We’ve had no more updates after people tried to out OP.

MIL might not have been the instigator but if one of her DILs suggested it, she agreed to go along with it and all the subterfuge. Its so childish, I couldn't get past this kind of thing.