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's really shite. I'd have to know why as I'd be making up all sorts of reasons.

I think you and/or DH do need to address this, to get it out in the open because this obviously reframes your relationship with each of them and it needs to be clear why that reframe is happening. I think I would allow DH to send a very simple one sentence question : 'Why is she not invited to the weekly lunch?' to the one he thinks will be mostly likely to be relatively straightforward with him in response. However, be prepared for the fact that this will likely create drama and you are unlikely to get a satisfying response because it is most likely that one of them has some bullshit reason for having taken umbrage at something you've said/done and rather than addressing it with you they've said something to the others and they've gone along with it. Whatever, it is childish, petty, mean behaviour, your feelings of hurt and betrayal are legitimate. Your husband is right to have your back. Even if it turned out that you had actually said or done something clumsy and not realised you'd offended, nothing justifies excluding you in this manner. Whatever the response is, please take care not to think it reflects on you. This is their shitty behaviour, not yours.

But it isnt your H they are doing it to. It is you. So how you respond to their snub is up to you

My way, either with close friends or my family of origin, is to communicate directly as an adult. One would hope most people are mature enough to cope with that kind of conversation on an honest basis.

But unfortunately, despite the digs from some posters about Mumsnetters being incapable of direct communciation, there are some people with whom this simply doesn't work. This is particularly true of those who are into making their displeasure known via the passive-aggressive 'grand gesture', a definion which certainly fits excluding OP from a regular family occasion.

You never get any change out of such people. The very purpose of passive-aggression is that involves just enough plausible deniability to make it all the other person's problem. Then the tone of injured innocence arises, along with the protestation that the person who confronts them is either oh, so, sensitive or so insufferable themselves that they fully deserve whatever it is they got.

I've learned to my cost with that you cannot win with such people. The only way you can do so is to refuse to play.

I’d be extremely hurt, I would very much distance myself from them all. I would also drop into conversation casually that your friend mentioned seeing them all in there every week, and make some comment about how lovely the venue is and then change subject. You’ve made them aware without making it a drama. Then just quietly withdraw from them all. You can’t make people like you or include you. Sadly women are often so cruel in packs.

DH just needs to say it's a shame they're excluding his wife especially since she has been so helpful. And leave it at that.

But i would also leave all WhatsApp chats with any of them and also not bother visiting or attending many family events. Leave that to DH, he can facilitate their relationship with your DCs

I absolutely would not be able to resist popping in there next Tuesday, and possibly shouting ‘See You Next Tuesday’ as I left. But if you’re not keen, then your DH should ask his mum outright.

I can't think of any reasonable excuses for this. Id be so hurt.

Just ask outright but for your own peace of mind rather than because you want to join in or ever do anything again. It’s pretty crap for adults to be deliberately leaving one person out but accepting help from that person. They sound like the sort of people you don’t need in your life.

It all seems very odd. Are you sure that they weren’t meeting somewhere else for years beforehand, then moved to this new place?

I have to say that I’m pretty astonished that three working age women have been free to have lunch with their mother/MIL every single Tuesday for so long. Do none of them have proper jobs?

It seems pretty mean of them. But at least now you can refuse to help with anything care related ever again on the grounds that you are not happy with being good enough to do the laundry but not good enough to go to lunch....

She's not a great GM if she is happy for one of her GC being left out. I couldn't leave this and would actually confront her about it. Not acceptable op.

She sees you as staff then? Back gwh fuck away. And tell dh why. He can pull his dm up on her attitude..

I would be very hurt. I'd also be dropping in at the time they're there! Just to see their faces!

Yes but I'm mindful that it's his family, not mine.

She got you to get the parcel as no one else wanted to. Grunt work.

go to lunch next week, or pop in for coffee at least

^

It's a Cinderella set up. You're the dogsbody who does favors and sits in the house waiting for packages and they're the princesses getting taken to the ball.

Just stop helping her. That's really going to be the only thing you can do.

What ages are the others children? Are they in school/nursery Tuesdays?

I was dithering as to whether I would say this, but what the heck we are all adults, so CUnextTuesday(s) the lot of them. I got the day right, right? 😊

For people asking did it develop while I was working - no. I've been on maternity leave for 11 months now. I go back in a month. I took a whole month of annual leave before I started my 12 months so I'll actually have 13 months in total and I stopped working exactly around the time they will have started their lunch dates

Then.... either one or more of them don't like you.

Your DH needs to sort out why.

Obviously you'll never attend these lunches now, even if they asked you

But I think you deserve an explanation

One is works for herself and is flexible/works around whatever she wants to do, one is a SAHM, one works part time and is presumably off on Tuesdays.
MIL is semi-retired and only works two days a week.

that would be the end of the family relationship for me! DH can facilitate from now on and bring the kids for meet ups while you have a trip to the spa! Christmas with the in laws - no thanks, I’ll be in a hot bubble bath 😂

This.

Life is too short to waste any days on people who think you're dirt.

There's no way I could just ignore this, it would eat away at me.

I would either get DH to speak to his mum say you know about it and you're upset at being excluded and ask why or I'd go in next Tuesday yourself and see if they're there and see how they react.