Partner has told me today that I cannot go to his daughter’s wedding on Saturday

[Oscarcleo]

I’ve been with my partner for 5 years. He’s a widow - wife died 9 years ago and he’s brought up only daughter on his own ever since. I’ve met daughter ( we get on), groom, groom’s family, friends etc who’ll all be at the wedding. Wife’s relatives live a long way away and about 30 of them will be travelling to the wedding. As they live a long way away I haven’t met them yet.
Apparently yesterday evening some of the relatives told my partner/bride that they don’t want me at the wedding as wife isn’t there. It’s really upset my partner/ bride and I’m utterly distraught at this stage to be told I can’t go. It’s a big wedding that’s been planned for 18 months. I have been very careful to not be replacing wife’ s position at the wedding- agreed to not sit with him for ceremony or at the reception.
We’re really happy together but after this I’m not sure I can carry on with the relationship as it will be always hanging over us that I was banned from the wedding. AIBU? Any words of wisdom to help me get through this?

How very sad a situation and how suddenly it has blown up. I think you are right to not push it. You have kept the moral high ground by not issuing ultimatums and by suggesting a compromise. The aunt and uncle are being very unreasonable but I can see why having close relatives of her late mother matters to the bride. If they had any decency they would not have put her in this position. There are no winners, the bride will not view her aunt and uncle in the same way, your partner may have lost you, you have been made to feel conflicted.

This is dreadful. Poor bride being put in the middle. However - in my own family I'd be siding with my dad on this one. That's really what the choice is - not 2 relative attendees vs. OP attendee, but aunt and uncle's wishes vs. those of my living parent (and yes, the thinking that I'd like him to have a partner in his middle to old age would play into this!)

In respect of OP - graciously bow out but make damn sure you tell anyone who asks why you didn't go afterwards, as who knows what shite the aunt and uncle will say.

Exactly that. All those blaming the partner are overlooking the fact that if he kicked off and demanded that OP attend, it would make it VASTLY worse for his poor daughter.

The only people at fault here are the obnoxious aunt and uncle. The bride really didn't need this unpleasantness and awful decision making just two days before her wedding. Her dad making the whole situation worse is the last thing she needed.

Both the bride and her father were on an impossible position. I don't see this is a relationship ending thing, because he simply didn't have any option but to accept his poor daughter's reluctant decision.

OP has probably spent more time with the as than these aunts!

OP has admitted she's barely met the daughter and doesn't have a relationship with her.

This. The DP has neither caused this, nor does he have the power to fix it.

It's absolutely rotten for the OP, but there is nothing the DP can do here. The cries for him to 'have your back' are meaningless: he literally cannot resolve this in some magical, MN-approved way.

What a sad situation. And how sad that the complaining relatives (are they married?) don’t have the foresight to realise that in all likelihood one of them will be widowed one day, and be faced with the prospect of attending family events on their own. And then going home afterwards without being able to share the highlights of the day with someone special.

Maybe then they will realise how mean spirited they are behaving right now.

I hope you have a peaceful day tomorrow, @Oscarcleo, and are able to have a meaningful discussion with your partner after the celebrations.

the poor girl is between a rock and a hard place, the enhanced feeling of loss with her mum missing this milestone.

Exactly. I'm widowed and my DD's wedding was all the more emotional for the absence of her dad, who'd died eight years was earlier. I do not have a new partner, but had a similar situation arisen I'd have had to put my daughter first.

This aunt, however awful, was her mother's sister. She'll have grown up with this aunt as the nearest thing to her mother. It would have been extraordinarily hard to turn down her mother's sister for someone she knows only slightly.

The thread is infantilising the bride because post after post after post is blaming him as if she has nothing to do with it. Its her call, not his

Your response as the bride may be one thing, but you're not this bride, she favours her aunt and uncle over OP, thats her call too. She may not be close to OP, may not have any actual dislike but if you have relatives behaving like that but nontheless you want them at the wedding, perhaps they are important to you, you have to make an unpleasant choice. Again, how is that the fathers fault.

I would not want to be involved with such horrible people.

This is awful.
I know it sounds terrible but he lost his wife 9 years ago, I understand how devastating this is but it's not like you were ever the other woman or anything.
Is he never supposed to find love again?

Father should tell his daughter that if her aunt/uncle are going then he won’t be.

What a horrible selfish thing to say! Only a deadbeat father would refuse to go to his own child's wedding! Don't be so silly.

Or Get ready for my radical post on where she might be

At work!!!

Father has far more right to say who can attend than the aunt/uncle.

Poor bride on the eve of her wedding day dealing with her black mailing aunt and uncle. I'd step back and yes rethink the relationship. You deal with his is dignity...the nasty aunt and uncle will always look bad from now onwards.

But WHY don’t these people want you there? So weird and nasty. I’m not sure I could get over it either tbh

The only person who can make that decision is the bride.

She could have OP there, but then her mother's sister wouldn't come. Her mother's absence is going to be very emotional for her, so telling her aunt that she chooses her father's new partner over her if something that no-one should ask of her.

Her father can play no part in this decision. It's his daughter's wedding, not his.

Hopefully he will make his feelings known to the aunt after the event, but anything that he says or does at this point is going to make his daughter's life even harder, and OP should but demand that of him.

Him not attending the wedding would be nuclear and incredibly hurtful for his daughter, who is already missing one parent.

I’m with you op . The relatives sound awful. However it would make me feel unsettled in this relationship. You are being treated like a scarlet woman .

They are being awful. I actually do think everyone should have told them to wind their necks in even if that resulted in them not coming. It would be different if the OP was an affair partner or the death was more recent but this is a relationship of 5 years nearly a decade after the death.

I don’t blame you op. It’s not nice at all, it seems you are expected to smile nicely and not kick up a fuss which obviously you are doing but I imagine it has left a sour taste in your mouth.

So I’m not going, made other plans for tomorrow but re-evaluating whether I want to carry on this relationship now.

I don't blame you at all. It must be so hurtful to have been involved in everything then told two days beforehand that you're uninvited to the wedding and not invited to any part of it at all.

To cut you so absolutely and so late in the day, and after you've been a part of the preparations, doesn't show your partner or his daughter in a good light.

Why the fuck did they wait until after you had bought your outfit

Just to clarify- your relationship began after the passing of his late wife? If this is the case and there is no back story then the family of the brides late mother are being so unreasonable it is ridiculous! It’s so sad that her mum can’t be there and of course they will feel it on such a significant day but I fail to see why they feel they have a right to an opinion on this! I feel so sorry for the bride and her father. Please don’t let this spoil your relationship with them- they are being emotionally manipulated by the family of their late wife/mother at a very emotional time. I lost my father and would have been devastated if his relatives had suggested having my step father at my wedding was some how not ok. Horrible for you all : (

My first post stands, as I have sympathy for OP, her DP and his DD...however, I just read the update and saw that OP doesn't live w/ DP. This changes things a bit, IME. Plenty of weddings don't allow you to bring plus one, rather they address to two cohabiting life partners or 2 spouses.

Also, I feel there is some missing element here. Are the emotions of DD coming on strong lately (normal in the lead up to wedding) about the loss of her mother and aunt/uncle reacted to something DD said - maybe DD said something not unkind toward OP, but possibly that she had always wished both her parents would be at her wedding. In overreaction, auntie/uncle decide to smooth the waves, ask their BIL why his girlfriend, who isn't even live-in, will be there?

Or, DP very well may not be sharing the full story here. Maybe DP wants to preserve DD's emotions and changes his mind last minute and it's useful to use the aunt/uncle as cover? He may love OP but knows this one instance could be painful to have her along. He didn't divorce his wife, she died.

OP, unless the family have met you and decided they didn't like you, I would do your best to let this one go. It's likely just a VERY charged lead-up to a wedding day and DD's DM being gone is overwhelming to them all. Go have fun on your spa day.