Not invited to sister-in-law’s wedding

[Unlisted]

Right it’s my first post but it’s a long one. I want to give full background.

I am very close to my family and DH would say he was close to his as well. He probably sees his mother three or four times a week, if he is working at home he will pick the kids up and drop in to see them. I don’t think he would care if I ever saw them.

I however make him see my family, not every time I see them but enough. I am close to my sister and my BiL naturally gravitates to my DH who acknowledges that he is a good guy but who he finds boring. At our wedding FiL met my BiL and nicknamed him Joe90- a puppet from the 60s!

Every time we go to see them as a family , maybe every month DH used to ask if he had to go and then my son would say the same. It was hurtful so he stopped.

About twice sometimes three times a year Sister and BiL get heavily discounted holidays and travel and we occasionally join them for a couple of days.

On Sunday we were arranging to meet them at a holiday destination after Easter but DH kept saying he wouldn’t be available. He wouldn’t elucidate but kept repeating that I should go ahead with the kids. It was really embarrassing because he wouldn’t tell me why.

We got in the car and I asked him why he couldn’t confirm and my normally mild mannered good humoured husband pulled over and screamed at the top of his lungs a few centimetres from my face and in front of the kids said that he’d be at his sister’s wedding. She is getting married in a quiet ceremony with close friends and family as his family aren’t freaks like mine!

I think I have a good relationship with his family. I am stunned,

I am not invited (neither are the other partners).

I was crying my eyes out and he was so serious with the kids about how they had to keep everything a secret as his mother doesn’t know yet.

My five year old now uses the word freak all the time.

He has apologised but I want an explanation. He says it’s not his gig!

WTAF

Well at least you and the children can go on holiday without your twat of a husband. Win!

Your husband is an arsehole. I imagine this is just the tip of the iceberg

Your husband thinks it's normal to keep an impending wedding a secret and yet thinks the family that is doing so "aren't freaks" - people don't keep weddings secret like that unless at least some members of the family (which may or may not include the bride and groom) are seriously deranged.

He could have told you calmly, the first time you asked, that there's a wedding that he's invited to that you aren't, and that the couple are keeping it a secret till after it's happened so he can't tell you who. Instead he behaved in a deceptive and avoidant way as if you, his wife, have no right to know his plans, and then screamed in your face when you wouldn't accept that. I'm sorry but that tells me he has no respect for you and no concept of you being any kind of life-partner or equal to him. I don't think your relationship will last.

No way is this a “first post” OP

When is a better time to be self absorbed than when you’re paying for and throwing a party to celebrate a milestone in your own life with your partner?

There is a lot to unpack here

Stop forcing your DH to spend time with your family, he clearly doesn't want to and doesn't see it as an important thing for ILs to see each other all the time because he doesn't insist you see his like you do with him

Going away several times a year with your Sis and BIL is quite a lot

When your DH said he didn't want to discuss why, leave it there until you are alone don't push him

He should not have screamed at you, that wasn't acceptable

Why doesn't his DM know?

It is up to his sister who she invites. No partners are invited so it's not personal

He’s sees his mother multiple times a week.
Hes asked to visit your family once a month.
He’s happy enough to enjoy discounted holidays.
He hasn’t told you about his Easter plans and got angry when you asked.
He screams in your face.
somehow this is all your fault?

He’s a prick.

I get the feeling that he KNOWS his own family is odd. The catalyst being the wedding and being sworn to secrecy about it. So when probed, he exploded, all the while knowing how daft the whole scenario is.

He shouldn't have had a go at you. He was angry more at his daft family than you I'd say.

But if he has form, get to the bottom of it. You did say that he was kind and mild mannered, so this is giving him a lot of anger at how ludicrous it is.

What happened was unacceptable but what I suspect is that his sister is in he wrong, he knows it and hasn’t dealt with it. He’s gone along with it and when you’re pushed him on it he’s lost the plot.

This.

Although you shouldn't 'make' him do anything. Discuss it and decide what's a reasonable compromise in terms of how often he sees your family.

His behaviour was out of order. That said, if none of the other partners is being invited then you are not personally being singled out. It is all very peculiar.

What does money have to do with it?

I thought my initial post was long enough but I wanted to talk about my DH and our relationship in but now I don’t think anyone will believe me!

I have a happy marriage to a really nice guy.

He genuinely never raises his voice. This incident was completely atypical and he has apologised. It was so atypical and that is why I am in a state of shock.

I admit totally and take responsibility for keeping asking him why he couldn’t join us. I admit I asked him again in the car.

I am so angry about the children and keeping secrets. He says he was asked to keep a secret so did. He says the kids are intelligent enough to differentiate between good and bad ones

I admit I keep asking him questions about what I am supposed to say to his sister, he just keeps saying it’s not his wedding and why would I need to speak to her anyway.

He feels it’s just not his doing and just cannot understand what my problem is with him.

I cannot move on or think about anything else.

Your husband seems to have his focus with the wrong family.

I would expect my husband to be spending most of his time with me and our family rather than hanging out with his family several times per week without you. You and the kids are supposed to be his main family now, not his family of origin.

Also, it would be a huge issue to me if my husband thought it was okay to keep secrets from me. Just because his sister or anyone else told him to keep something from you, his wife, doesn't mean he should or that he needs to follow her orders. You're trying to make family plans and he thinks he can assume you'll take the kids alone and that can refuse to even tell you what his other plans are? No! You two share a life.

Then he screams in your face for daring to not let him get by with disregarding you like this. Acting as if you're out of line to not accept his acting like he's single and free to do whatever he wants without your input or knowledge. Screaming in front of the kids when his obnoxious demands don't fly.

I think you should tell him to move in with his family, since that's clearly where his allegience, loyalty and interest lie.

Other possibility: His whole weird, rageful "confession" is a lie.

There are multiple different issues here

Him not liking your BIL and not wanting to spend lots of time with your family - while i can see its awkward for you that's fair enough. Spending time with someone you don't like 12 times a year and occasionally going on holiday with them is a lot and it's not unreasonable for him to ask if he has to go. Ideally he wouldn't have done it in front of the kids but I think you should take some responsibility for clearly allowing this resentment to build up by making him see your family so often and shutting him down whenever he wanted to discuss it. Three or four times a year is more than enough for wider family gettogether, if you want to go more often that's fine but you don't all have to go en masse to everything.

However you not being invited to your SIls wedding is weird
Keeping it a secret from you (and his mother???) is weird
Calling your family freaks for wanting to spend time together (independent of the wanting him to always come along) is weird and rude
And screaming it in your face is aggressive.

Some of that I'd be happy to sit down and discuss and negotiate how often we saw each side of the family going forward
but I'd want an apology for the screaming and insults before anything else. Also to accept that for most people the norm is definitely to invite long term partners/spouses to family weddings so regardless of anything else HIS family are the weird ones or at least outliers in that respect.

Hounding him seriously. You don't talk to your husband about future plans or are you single?

Other people is their children. Has the rules in marriages change to you can't ask me anything about plans or else I shout in your face. Is it the new normal?

This is what the op said "On Sunday we were arranging to meet them at a holiday destination after Easter but DH kept saying he wouldn’t be available." So she shouldn't ask what other plans he has during the Easter break. Families do spend time together during the holidays. There's no secrets between me and my dp and we're not even married but we have 4 lovely children.

Sounds like there’s got to be some huge back story tbh.

His not fussed at all about you visiting in or being invited to his family stuff where as you basically force him to attend at least once a month.

A genuine nice man isn’t someone who simply never raises his voice. There’s more to it than that.

I think his whole relationship with both his and your families is really weird.

Well, not wanting to excuse his behaviour at all, but is it possible that he is embarrassed/angry/confused about his sister's decision and her requirement he keep it all a big secret? And your constant questioning just pushed him over the edge? What you say to his sister is not the issue here, though. I suggest you simply ignore the wedding completely where she is concerned. In your position, given you normally have a good relationship, I would suggest maybe telling him you understand it is not his decision nor his wedding, but that it is out of order for her to expect him to keep secrets from his wife and children. It was inevitable this would come out and he was out of order for having agreed to keep these secrets. And then maybe tell him that you are not going to discuss the wedding with his sister or any of his family but that you want to have a proper, calm discussion about both your and his feelings when this issue is not quite so raw. Perhaps acknowledge that he has apologised for his outburst and that you accept his apology (if you do) but that does not remove the need to discuss the wider issues this has brought up around family secrecy.

I’d have text my DW telling her about it before they’d even finished telling me. I don’t keep any secrets from her and I would never even try and sneak to a secret family event and not tell her until after.

And if we were making plans and she said she was away somewhere but couldnt say and where she was going that would be so unusual for us that I’d genuinely not be able to stop asking.

I suppose everyone’s different but my wife is my core relationship. We see family together normally. I wouldn’t be happy if she wasn’t invited to a family wedding but that’s not on the husband. But his reaction is unacceptable regardless of any of that

Not being invited is one thing I know people who have only invited very close family to their wedding but keeping it a secret is very strange , why not be honest and tell the rest of the family what they are doing? and your husband's reaction to you was completely unacceptable.
If anything it sounds as though your husband's family are the odd ones not yours!

Something isn’t right about this wedding and it sounds like his family dynamics are a bit odd.

He shouldn’t have screamed at you but it did sound like you you were a dog with a bone. It’s good to respect when people don’t want to talk about something.

I do agree with this comment. It also does look as if he puts his family first before his wife and children and that's sad.

No, I disagree, you can take respect for family’s boundaries too far.