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?

Grave? OP is still alive! 😂

OP are you absolutely sure that the bride knows about this . I mean, it's just so odd, it would make more sense if your DP was being mean to you and just told his daughter you'd decided not to come.

Bizarre behaviour from the aunt & uncle , the aunt is it her late sister who passed.
Maybe there is jealousy and resentment because you had been included in the planning of the wedding had her nose pushed out so made it about themselves.
What a pair of shitty people , truly understand why you would have thoughts on walking away.
I said in an earlier post dont let a good relationship go because of their behaviour but life goes on your partner is allowed to move on and be happy as is his daughter and until the aunt and uncle spoke out it was all ok you celebrating your partners daughters day .
I would feel like you glad you have been with your sister and definitely get some space go away on a nice break and think about your future not anyone else's just yours xx

You sound really lovely OP. I’m so sorry this has happened. Your dp seems pretty spineless

Me neither. Didn't take much to be thrown under the bus did it! Tbf, the partner was put in a bloody awkward situation- go to his daughters wedding alone and piss of his 5 year long partner or make a stand and alienate his daughter and his maternal wife's family. That's tough. The daughter clearly didn't want to upset aunt/uncle so felt upsetting dad's partner was the easy option. Horrible situation all round.

Says it all about the daughters aunt/uncle though doesn't it. Horrible people to be dictating who goes to a niece's wedding?!

How dare they?? That's is despicable from them. No doubt the atmosphere on the day was impacted by this. Very disappointing that, especially at such a late stage, your dp and daughter didn't tell them that no, it wouldn't br possible to uninvited you but they really hoped they would still attend as it was so important to the bride for her mother's sister/brother to be there.
Though you hadn't met them, I assume they knew about you? 5 years is a long time. Did dp text back to your kind message?

It is indeed a huge loss not to have your mother at your wedding. But it’s not the bride who can’t handle the op there?? it’s this incredibly selfish aunt and uncle. Who should be putting their niece first.

It's in the OP's first post: It’s really upset my partner/ bride and I’m utterly distraught at this stage to be told I can’t go.

This is so sad. But what else could anyone do? It's the brides day. She wants her (horrible) aunt and uncle at the wedding. The OP isn't married into the family (would it have made a difference if she were?)

The aunt and uncle have to come before the OP in the "pecking order". I just don't see how the bride and her Dad could have done anything differently

However I think the aunt and uncle are vile people and I would refuse to meet them in the future (should that situation arise - if the OP marries for example)

I think it's more about things like Christmas etc, or other times when the wedding is brought up.
Maybe one day they would marry and then what- can OP be at her own wedding if the aunt and uncle blackmail people they want to come but only if she is not there?

The aunt and uncle are behaving despicably. Bride and her dad are in a very difficult position having to decide between family and dad's partner who may not be there forever.

I would uninvite the aunt and uncle if I saw they were toxic af and I wanted my dad to be happy.

I suppose the dad's happiness is not important to the daughter, and he's not bothered about his partner, so I suppose OP knows where she stands.

I don't think the (albeit horrible) sister of the brides deceased mother can be uninvited to the wedding to accommodate the girlfriend of the brides Dad

I just don't see that as an option

I can see future times where the OP will have more clout and where vile aunt can be put in her place

Not at this wedding though.

I simply cannot see how girlfriend trumps aunt when bride wants Aunt there

Just remember that your relationship is with your DP, not his DD and not her aunt and uncle. They are villains. DP, DD and yourself are their victims.

They deliberately and manipulatively throw this at her two days before an extremely emotional day, using her late mother, knowing they are the only relative left from her side and likely her youth to push through their mean power play.

Leaving the only possible outcomes of DD having to have a huge fight when her head is elsewhere or all over the place and possibly never see any of her late mothers remaining family every again because the threats would just become greater. DP issuing his own ultimatum putting his DD between two and the above. Or everyone giving in and you not attending.

It's really sad, unfair and unjust. She wanted you to attend, your DP wanted you to and you wanted to.

Lots of amazing advice already. I just wanted to help incase you're looking to get a better understanding of where you stand - because you don't feel secure in the relationship at the moment.

So a few days after the wedding, something like:

“I’ve taken the last few days to process what happened, and I need to be honest with you. Being told I couldn’t attend your daughter’s wedding after five years together was deeply hurtful. I felt excluded, disrespected, and like I wasn’t considered a real part of your life.
I understand the situation was difficult with your wife’s family, but the way it was handled made me feel like I was disposable. What I need to understand now is how you came to that decision, whether you defended me at all, and what this means for our future. Because I can’t stay in a relationship where I feel like I’ll always come second to keeping others happy at my expense.
I care about you deeply, but this has changed something for me, and we need to talk honestly about what happens next.”

I'm a sucker for needing clarification so I can make a decision.

Good luck OP, sometimes these things happen to arm us for future (if we choose) battles.

Maybe the sibling of the mother of the bride who died who didn’t want to meet OP on the wedding day just hasn’t coped very well with their grief and would have struggled being around the deceased’s replacement on such a special occasion.

There is no question that the family of the bride who have known her since she was born and significantly more important as wedding guests than the father of the brides partner that he doesn’t live with.

It seems very self centred to me to be making this about you OP. You don’t need shared memories of an event that was about people who have next to nothing to do with you. I can only image that all the people name calling the brides family are fortunate enough never to have experienced grief of someone so close.

I am just trying to imagine, in the unthinkable scenario, my sister or I behaving in such away after our deaths. I would find a way to come back and haunt her if she ever pulled a stunt like this on my dd. It wouldn't happen though, neither character would act like this aunt has.

I am very familiar with the grief of someone close, but 9 years is sufficient time to be able to park any uncomfortable feelings. I find it extraordinary the aunt and uncle were able to wield such power and control over a wedding they had no direct part of - meaning not parents of B&G, not paying, no role in proceedings other than attending as relatives.

Personally, I would no longer feel the same about these people and would walk away. It wouldn't be because I harboured ill will, just more that feeling like an outlier and so easily expendable in the face of unreasonableness, would render the relationship over.

Why on earth are you saying that OP wants to replace the bride's mother? There is no suggestion that that is the case. OP has said that:

'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.'

She was invited to the wedding until the aunt and uncle got involved in the most unpleasant way. Anyone who marries a widow or a widower enters into a family 'when the hard work has been done'. Does this mean that widows and widowers should never re-marry? It is the height of bad manners to uninvite someone from a wedding two days before.

Your family sounds weird. You have children with your partner but you never go to his family events? I could understand that if you have had a falling out with your partner's family but this sounds as though you think it is normal to have children with someone but never have any relationship with their family.

So a 5 year relationship is supposed to mean nothing? Why invite her in the first place? No word of condemnation from you for the spiteful actions of the aunt and uncle who effectively emotionally blackmailed their niece two days before her wedding.

You've been together 5 yrs but how I don't genuinely believe that's what happened. I think the daughter changed her mind a d tried to do it tactfully. Either way no she has no entitlement to a place at the wedding. Also they could be together 5 yrs but 4.5 were dating, they may not even live together yet. It's so ridiculous to be this emotionally beside yourself about a wedding of someone you don't actually know that well

I'm sorry, but you're being ridiculously dramatic now. Stopping the clocks for a wedding? Shared memories? You don't know any of these people other than your boyfriend and his daughter. It's just a wedding; whilst obviously very important to the bride, once it's over, after the first week no one is going to be talking about it!

Who do you imagine you'll be meeting where they'll be discussing the wedding? I doubt your boyfriend or his daughter will discuss it in front of you.

Having behaved with extraordinary dignity about the whole thing - claiming financial compensation for the outfit / choosing to be very offended would undermine the entire thing. Don’t do that!

stay high!

sending grit

You are just making stuff up to suit your narrative. There is no way of 'tactfully' uninviting any guest from a wedding, two days before the event. You really think that the bride and her father have made up a story to blame the bride's aunt and uncle when it is really them that want to uninvite OP at such ridiculous short notice?

OP is emotional because she is embarassed and hurt at being treated this way. Her partner hasn't had her back or stuck up for her. That is why she is re-thinking the relationship which she has every right to do.

She didn't stop the clocks, she turned them around to stop herself obsessing over what would be going on and got on with other stuff. It was a coping strategy to allow her to get on with her day and didn't impact anyone else.

I can't imagine it won't be discussed in front of her, and it would be unreasonable for them not to talk about a significant event at all around her. Before they do that, however, I would hope the first words out of the bride and DP's mouths would be "I'm really sorry about what happened".

Girlfriend of five years. Clearly a steady relationship. And you think that counts for nothing ? Just because they don’t live together doesn’t make them any less a long term partnership than anyone else. Have a read of OP’s update as to what she was doing at the time of the wedding. Turning the clocks around so she wouldn’t know what was happening and trying to keep busy. That suggests a lot more than a simple girlfriend/boyfriend relationship. It suggests one partner in a committed relationship recognising that the only winners here would be the relatives, and doing the right thing for everyone except themselves, despite being deeply hurt by the decision DD and DP could see little choice in making.

It really wasn’t a question of anyone ‘trumping’ anyone else. The relatives waited until the last minute to issue an ultimatum that they knew was going to be hugely damaging whatever the bride decided. It was either going to damage their relationship with their niece, should she go against them, or damage her relationship with her father if she caved to their demands. The fact that it would in all probability drive a wedge between him and OP was likely an added bonus as far as they were concerned, as was the satisfaction of seeing the fruits of their labour - the widower of their sister attending the wedding alone.

So nobody wins against the spiteful relatives because their demands were designed to cause maximum damage in any event. And the only way to keep them happy was at OP’s expense, sending her a clear message that she is not important enough to be a consideration.

In the aftermath l think both DD and her dad are going to come to regret the decision. For DD that will be when the stress and excitement of the wedding dies down and she realises how these two pieces of work manipulated her special day for their own purely malicious ends. And if OP decides not to continue the relationship with her dad, DD will carry some sense of guilt for that too.

DP will come to regret it if OP decides she can no longer carry on the relationship because despite a five year relationship she was left feeling that no one has her back, and that she’s some dirty little secret to be hidden away from ‘real’ family, and not worthy of consideration. And if she continues the relationship, every time the wedding comes up in conversation it will be a sharp reminder to him that he and OP have no frame of reference in which to discuss it because there are no shared memories of what was a significant event in his life.

I don’t think DD and her dad had any option but to comply with the demands if DD wanted these people at her wedding. And l think OP recognises that. But it doesn’t change the fact that her feelings were the last consideration, or that potentially it will keep happening at other family events.

I would hope that at some point in the near future her DP will let his brother and sister in law know exactly what he thinks of them for so cynically using his daughter’s wedding to express their displeasure at him daring to move on with his life, and for causing so much damage as a result. I would also hope that he has the balls to stand up to them if they try to cut OP out of future family events. Because if not, the relationship is doomed. OP can’t live her life being hidden away simply because they don’t want to acknowledge her existence.