Not invited to DSis big birthday

[50FreezeOut1]

My DSis turned 50 yesterday and I've found out today she had a birthday meal out with her friends, my siblings and our parents.

AIBU to be upset at not being invited?

Photos look to be about 10 friends plus DB (no partner at the moment) and DSis+DBIL. Plus DB's son and DSis daughter and son. Plus DM and DF. Plus DSis50 and DBIL and their DDs.

This came as a complete surprise. We caught up at May half term and hung out for a weekend, DSis50, her family and mine. A month or so ago I messaged my siblings to arrange a joint 50th gift which cost me a considerable amount of time and effort. No one mentioned it to me at all.

The reason I'm posting is because I'd like some advice about what I do next. The photos aren't attempting to hide the meal out. Of course I would see them. I'm seeing my DM on Monday to spend the first day of the school holidays together. Do I say something? What do I say to my siblings in our WhatsApp group? Anything? Nothing?

50FreezeOut1
I would have been so hurt as well. You sound like a lovely well-balanced person with a strong moral compass and your family's combined behaviour is shoddy and divisive to put it mildly. In your shoes I would be inclined to write collectively to them all and let them know how hurt you are but not enter into any more dialogue. And then step back from them all, DM included.

That said, you must do what feels right and comfortable for you. Whatever you do, I wish you well, you deserve so much better.

I am sorry you are going through this op, but I learnt the painful and degrading way. I couldn’t imagine why they would hurt me like this, like you I am a loving, caring person and thought that I was either misunderstanding things or that they were accidentally doing these awful things. I tried over the years, it didn’t occur to me my own family could be so cruel so I tried:

Chatting it through calmly and telling them how hurt I was -
Crying and telling them how hurt I was
I tried preempting the pain of another rejection and fawning
Arguing and getting cross
Going low contact
Talking to extended family to see if they could help
Writing to them
Texting them to say how painful it was
Pleading with my parents to stop
Going on holiday to avoid the shame and embarrassment
No social media whatsoever to avoid the photos
Going nuclear and going mc for a while
Hosting said events so I could be there! (This only made it worse when I wasn’t invited to the next thing)

None of it made any difference!
Not a stroke of difference.

They weaponised, mocked, gossiped and used all of the above to build the idea that I was the problem. I was the issue. Look Soul is upsetting mother again. Soul is causing problems. Etc. It was soul destroying.

It is a well known cycle of abuse op. There is only one way out.

I shouldn’t have had to fight to be invited or to be loved in the first place. Each rejection is like a death by a thousand cuts. As you know. It is uniquely painful.

You can not and will never win unless you disengage, put down the rope and walk calmly away.

That is your best course of action.

Zero expectation of them. Zero interest in what they are doing. Zero interest in meeting up any longer. That is protective.

They will still blame you - they will say where has op gone. She doesn’t visit any more or call. Bad op for neglecting her family. You won’t fully escape the bad mouthing, as that’s all they can do. But you won’t have to listen to it any longer. You won’t be accepting any more invites from them, so it won’t matter any longer what they do. Unfollow and don’t look at SM.

Focus on your own life, and filling it with good people, interests and fun. They will fade into background noise eventually, and you will wonder why you put up with it for as long as you did.

You will never win them over, they are not interested in healthy, happy people like you, or loving relationships - it’s far more entertaining to see you suffer quite frankly.

Use your wonderful caring nature to find others out there like you. Don’t stay small for them. Don’t let them crush you, blame you, gas light and harm you or your children. You can make a stand. You can walk away. Give up on the dream of happy families and say I’m done. The only happy family around here is the one I have created myself 💐💐💐

so sorry this has happened.
I'd def call your DS and say the pics looked lovely and you were really sad that you weren't there.
I've been there and it's horrible.dont play into their hands so that they can ever say you were difficult or nasty. be lovely but make sure she knows.
oh and then get yourself some nice friends and let them get on with it....

This sounds so hurtful but I feel there is more context to this!

Comment on the photos. Say something like glad you had a good birthday. Sorry we couldn't make it but you never invited us.

I feel like a lot of recent posters have not read the full thread.

OP is dealing with a narcissistic mother (and sister by the sounds of it). Calling them out, asking why, etc, doesn't solve anything. It gives them supply and feeds them the drama they crave. It gives them the satisfaction of knowing they hurt OP.

I know it's hard for people from loving families to understand, but this is sadly a fairly common dynamic and OP has done nothing to deserve it. It's just bad luck.

I am so sorry OP.
I am 50 in 2 weeks and know my work people won't get me a card and have no siblings.

You sound lovely.

Hangingonthere · Today 16:36

50FreezeOut1
I can't edit my post but I would include your father if you choose to contact the family. Sadly he is complicit if he chooses not to speak up on your behalf.

@knackredd dont hand them the bullets to shoot you with.

That is a real powerful reminder each and every time in future I consider engaging with them. Remind myself not to hand them the bullets.

Another poster reminded me of something middle Sis said. She was pregnant with her second and was due in a particular month which is my birth month. It's in between her and her eldest's and DH's birth months. I said oh was that planned? (in a nice way. My Sis is very 'planny') She said 'yes because no one else in the family has a birthday then'. I remember being shocked at the time that she no longer considered me part of her family.

Another example with my Bro this time. My youngest was rushed to hospital at just a few weeks old. The specialist hospital happened to be minutes from my Bro's house. I ask if he'd mind my eldest whilst we were going through the nerve-wracking first few hours. He said he didn't know my eldest well enough, despite them being 3.5 and him being the godfather! You have to ask yourself who's fault is it you don't know your own nephew well to feed him beans on toast and stick him in front of the TV! Especially when you've got your own toddler DS! Fortunately DM came to take him for me but I was really upset that in my few hours of need he couldn't step up.

It's just come to me that my siblings have been not thinking of me as a family member for well over a decade!

Then live your life!
so what if you end up offending ( or them pretending to be offended) .
You have absolutely nothing to lose.
Make your own life

Good advice and I've had a similar experience with family stuff @Focusispower

OP, you sound like you know exactly what you want out of life and let's face it, a lot less materialistic than they are. I felt for you when you said.
"my DM has been embarrassed about my comparative lack of boast-able success"
That sucks. It really does. And speaks volumes about what she values and also about her lack of judgement. I understand why you feel their behaviour is a big disappointment.

Its comforting that your DM's DSis recognised what was going on and didn't think much of their behaviour... it probably reassures you more than MN would that you weren't just imagining it ( although people do love to say, perhaps one has misinterpreted /over reacted.) Your DM's DSis saw it too.

I just don't know whether in your shoes I would go down the grey rock route with them but I also think that completely lets them off the hook. Excluding people is bullying... and queen bee ish. Why shouldn't they have to face that instead of being able to skull along sure of their perfection? If this incident is because they are critical of your behaviour in some way.. what about taking a closer look at their own behaviour. Whatever the reason for it, being involved with them is upsetting you and I'd put a lot of space between you.

But take a step back and recognise that despite not fitting into the ideal that your family seem to require, you have a lovely family unit of your own, you were wise enough to have a job you enjoy that allows you to enjoy your life, you value things that are more precious than wealth. And that you are already a much better parent to your children than your DM has been to you.

If they cannot see your worth. That is entirely their loss.
I hope you are able to work through this and have a lovely school holidays with your little family, who are after all a bigger priority than snobby siblings.

Wouldn’t confronting them just end up being a bit of dinner time chat amongst the group of “drama llama OP causing a fuss as per usual” kind of thing?

If they don’t wish to invite you and actually collide to keep it quiet from you, they’re hardly likely to be remotely bothered by the op confronting them

You're going out of your way to be nice to them and people like that will respect you less for being like that. They don't like you so why keep putting yourself through it? What does it achieve? You've probably already been cut out of your mum's will.

They've got their view of what you're like and nothing is going to change that. If you stop seeing them, one of them will probably become the scapegoat instead. I'd just leave them to it.

You might find that your DM is colouring people's view of you. I say that as someone from a narcissistic family. My DM isn't with us any longer and my family has imploded. I wasn't actually the scapegoat. From what I've seen, your DM cannot see you as a good person, because if she does, she has to accept that she has treated you badly. She's never going to do that so she will continue to poison everyone's minds. I saw how my mum controlled everyone's relationships by the way she spoke about each person and the little lies she told.

A really silly example was that because she didn't like dogs and I did, she would tell me that my DB didn't like dogs and he only got one because DSil wanted one. This was because my DM had to be right and she was always in competition with me. (Of course she would tell me almost every day that I always had to be right!) This meant that when my DB's dog died I wasn't as sympathetic as I should have been because I didn't realise how upset he was. It seems like a small thing but this type of thing poisons relationships within the family.

Anyway, sorry if I've waffled on. All narcissistic families are different. I wasn't the scapegoat because I was the little half sister and my mum was married to my dad. Our scapegoat was a narcissist herself...created or born that was I don't know.

They will love it, get off on it, gas-light her and derive pleasure from winding her up, seeing her squirm and somehow blaming her ....as well as generating the next installment of family gossip fodder for them all to feed off when she leaves the room - thats why they posted on SM.

If they were embarassed and didnt want her to find out they would not have posted on SM.

I am so sorry that you have been treated so appallingly OP. It doesn’t matter what differences you have, what you may have done in the past, where you live or who is the more favoured adult child - to exclude a single family member from a family celebration when everyone else was invited is inexcusable (unless you are estranged which you aren’t). Your family had plenty of opportunities to invite you yet not a single did - and I’m sorry to say this but that also includes your dad and all your in-laws.
i agree with pp that if you bring it up you will be scapegoated for ruining sisters special birthday. But aren’t you already the scapegoat anyway? It will be Christmas next and then you will be blamed for ruining Christmas if you bring it up then.
im glad you have your aunt - she sounds like the only decent one out of them.

My guess would be that it's more passive thoughtlessness than maliciously excluding you. You don't quite fit in in the ways you've described, you live further away, you (perhaps?) don't have as much chatty contact in between meet ups, and for all those reasons you don't really jump to mind when they have an impromptu gathering. Even a planned gathering requires somone to have remebered that you need inviting, so it doesnt always naturally happen if the organsining wasn't on the family group. It still hurts feeling on the peripherary in that way so I'm not saying it to diminish the significance of feeling pushed out. It sucks. Its just that's my guess to the reasoning behind it playing out in this way.

It sounds like you've made a much healthier paradigm for your own family, so congratulations there. That's hard to do when you come from something with a more dysfunctional vibe. Your own little family being more healthy also separates somewhat from them, meaning you actually can't play such a pivotal role in the big family dynamic. It's another reason there doesn't seem to be a place for you in the centre of it all, but I'd say that's a good thing. It's probably.not really possible to have a healthy marriage and relationship with you kids PLUS be a big part of a dysfunctional wider family.

I’m so sorry OP, I think you’re finally seeing the truth and it’s horrible, they’ve decided you’re not good enough for them. From everything you’ve said they sound incredibly shallow and superficial and you sound lovely.

At least now you’re seeing things clearly you can stop wasting any more of your precious time and energy on them. I agree with others about not saying anything about it to them, you’d just be giving them ammunition to use against you. Just quietly slip away and focus on better relationships. It’s often said that friends are the family you choose, and it sounds like you’re not short of friends.

Can you arrange to see your dad without your mum? That does sound like a relationship worth preserving. And you clearly already have a strong bond with your aunt. Just let the others go. You might find they try to reel you back in once they notice you’ve drifted away. Not that they’ll suddenly develop a new found respect for you, but that they want to keep you hanging around on the periphery to make them feel superior.

Well exactly

so all the suggestion to confront seem odd

They’ll end up chuckling amongst themselves at the next family bash to which the op hasn’t been invited to

Can you phone your sister and ask if they all had a nice time ?
I am so sorry this has happened, it is very unkind.

Glad you are coming to some important realisations and can protect yourself better from now on.

A

It’s brought it all back to me. I spent my life trying to make my parents proud of me. Waste of fucking time, she causes me of showing off if I try to share an accomplishment with her. It’s not you, it’s 100% them.

My mum slags me off to anyone and everyone so they’ve built an impression of me sometimes without even meeting me! No doubt your mum is doing the same.

You have to stop hoping they’ll love you. It’s so painful but it’s the only way to survive. Mines a double whammy because mine is from my adoptive family! I feel like an unwanted orphan times 2! (And yes, I know there were completely valid reasons my bm didn’t keep me, but that doesn’t change the facts).

@50FreezeOut1 can I just say that you sound absolutely lovely and that they are the ones missing out by not including you as part of the family. I’m sorry they’re treating you this way but it sounds like it’s definitely an issue with them, their personalities and their snobby attitudes, rather than you as a person.

My husband has 3 sisters and this thread has reminded me that they all went to the ceremony of his nieces wedding .
About a week before the ceremony we were sent an invite to the evening do only.We were hurt to not be invited to see them marry .
We didn't go.
When our son got married everyone was invited to the ceremony , wedding breakfast and evening party.

This made me laugh, I would do the same. 😆 🤣