To be hurt children were excluded from a family day out this weekend?

[ladyrushford]

Hello. So - bit of a thing this. I married the oldest son of five siblings (4 boys, 1 girls)!and three of the siblings have children of their own. My DH and I have 3 - DS1 (13), DD (11) and DS2 (4). Two of my husband’s brothers have two kids a piece so there are 8 cousins in total. Our DD gets on really well with one of her cousins, a girl who is 9. Our oldest son has severe cognitive delays and tends to keep to himself. He is also the oldest of all the cousins (there are 8) but he loves his family and loves seeing his cousins, just expresses it differently.

Anyway, my SIL invited my daughter over for a sleepover with two of her cousins. There was no invitation for my two sons, which I put down to age and perhaps need as well. My oldest son was quite upset he wasn’t invited but I tried not make a big thing of it and said it was likely he was a lot older than the others. But it didn’t sit well with me. My DH shrugged it off as he doesn’t like conflict or confrontation of any kind.

My BIL actually collected our DD on Saturday (off his own back). We live an hour away, the majority of the family are relatively close to one another. I am not very close to my IL’s though I tried for years to get on better terms with my SILs (wives of my husband’s brothers) but all invitations/suggestions were always politely rebuffed. I am not invited to a lot of events - baby showers, engagement parties etc. i find out after the fact. It stings but what can I do? We’ve never fallen out but something is rotten.

DD goes for the sleepover. On Sunday I see a big host of photos on WhatsApp. Two of the brothers and their families were in the pictures with all their kids. Only myself, DH and two sons were excluded. They didn’t even hide it - but took photos as if to brag about what a lovely day they were having?? I can’t think why they thought this would be ok and for the first time my DH is quite shocked by the behaviour towards us and also can’t understand why this would happen? I feel like it comes back to their dislike of me (without making it all about me) because what possible reason would they have to exclude their nephews? I do wonder if they just don’t want my older, complex needs son around which would make me very, very angry. I can’t work out why they don’t care about my 4 year old?

My daughter had a great time but I realise now we can’t let this happen again as we’re essentially allowing the exclusion of two of our kids. I don’t need to be best mates with everyone but I’ve never had a problem with my SILs (I do now though, the fucking bitches). I collected her from their house on Sunday and spent the entire drive rehearsing what would I say, then bottled it, purely out of respect for my husband. They even asked after my sons, and I said, ‘they would have loved to have come to the pumpkin picking thing’ but it was completely ignored.

Would I AIBU to just wash my hands of them all, and cut contact? I never feel welcome and only see them at my PILs house and honestly, they aren’t my biggest fans either. It’s exhausting but I keep the peace for my husband and for kids? So they have a big loving family (I don’t have cousins, or aunts or uncles or anything like that). But I’ve had enough of this and feel it will just hurt all my kids in the long run, even though my daughter adores her cousins so much.

So…AIBU to just never see them again??

Op I don’t think you have realised how UR you are given each post update.

2/5 siblings got together
you live an HOUR away
the two siblings/parents have a much closer relationship
it was probably planned at the last minute(you can do these things when you live close)
their kids are much closer so that makes it easier to plan last minute things.
you expect a 13yo who doesn’t interact with the family to be included

but yes they are all mean to you right?

well what about the sibling who lives here and doesn’t have kids? Are they being left out because of no kids and taking it personally? Probably not because not everyone makes a deal of everything.

@Hardhatsi agree. Op doesn’t have siblings or cousins so she doesn’t seem to understand how these dynamics work

Family dynamics are not linear and all or none. We personally have a small family on my DH side but a larger one on my side and we often do things with some and not all of my family and sometimes we don’t do the things they do. There is no issue.

Personally, the times we all get together are better when we are not doing an outing and rather just having a meal at someone’s house or something more casual…. There is something hectic and stressful about that many adults and children attending an organized thing together. I always feel like I’m herding cats.

Your situation would be completely normal in my family.

It is likely they didn’t invite you along to the pumpkin element as they didn’t want your boys to be sad not to be staying for the sleepover part at the end. I would have done the same. It wouldn’t have been fair to your children to have to come home when everyone else was staying.

Also op you and your dc are used to your eldest, and how he is. But it is entirely possible the cousins are afraid, stressed or uncomfortable with managing the situation alone. A thirteen year old with a mental age of 8 will be difficult for them to play with or relate to, and maybe intimidating given his size etc. Or the fact he won’t join in.

I think this is having a greater impact on relations than you care to admit. It is a sore point because you believe they should be bending over backwards to accommodate him. Should they ignore the needs of their own children?

It sounds like the two sils are closer for lots of reasons, distance, age, dc etc. Out of interest is the sibling without children invited to hen parties and showers etc?

Sounds like the other SIL live closer so have become friends.
The 2 families probably hang out together regularly but you only know about this time because your DD was invited.

I'm surprised how many think you are not being unreasonable when Mumsnet would be the first to tell you that you shouldn't have to socialise with people you're not compatible with.

Hang on - your DP is one of 5 siblings and the oldest - of I’m reading it right there are 2 siblings who have met up with their kids.

TBH I think you’re making a bit more out of this than necessary - there are a further 2 siblings who also weren’t invited. Also I’m wondering if the other siblings who have met up are closer in age or just closer in general

My DP is one of 4 - his sisters see each other regularly and he’s probably the one who sees the others less. Funnily enough he doesn’t kick off when they meet up - they have just been away for the weekend together and we didn’t know about it until they posted photos of themself together at the airport.

Just because you want to meet up with one sibling, doesn’t mean you have to meet up with all of them. Do you invite your ENTIRE family over just when you want to see one of them? Maybe they didn’t communicate everything fully to you but they don’t have to.

I think there is probably a rationale. For example I too live an hour away from family and was horrified one year they’d had a new year Eve party without me - in fact they hadn’t meant to, it had all
just gradually escalated last minute and made perfect sense when they explained

in reverse I only invited one of my daughters many cousins for a sleepover because my eldest and school friend staying and my youngest felt left out but was too young to have anyone other than family staying over. My other sister was annoyed but I couldn’t accommodate them both wasn’t malicious and I shouldn’t have to feel I need to invite every cousin to every sleepover.

in short cutting them out isn’t fair to you kids if this is a one off. I’d let it slide

Surely not everyone could go unless you hire a double decker bus to go everywhere by the sounds of the family. One extra kid you might fit in a car but three? Sounds like a numbers/logistics/dynamics thing to me.

Finally - l thought it was just me , had lost the ability to count or something. Yes where is cousin no. 8 OP ?

OP has said that sibling who lives abroad has a baby,

Going pumpkin picking isn’t a big thing you know - it’s more likely that one of the Ils mentioned to the others that morning that they were going and the other said they’ll join them.
BTW, referring to women as ‘fucking bitches’ is grim.

Very much this. @2021x is coming from the perspective of your Dd, who at her age will be very aware of your upset at her brothers not being included in the activities she's invited to, and would really hope she doesn't think she can't do anything without them.

"I do wonder if they just don’t want my older, complex needs son around which would make me very, very angry. I can’t work out why they don’t care about my 4 year old?" What a stupid comment.

Anyone can not want to be around your complex needs son, and you can get as angry as you like, but they will still make their own decisions based on their own children and their own needs, not your wants or enraged demands. In fact, the more you get "very very angry" about people making their own decisions the more you and your complex needs son will be avoided.

Not wanting to be around a 4 year old is completely normal depending on the age group of the kids.

A few weeks ago there was a thread here by a very stupid woman who has destroyed her relationship with her adult daughter. Like the OP, she tried to force her daughter to be the unpaid support person for her son and like the OP would not allow her daughter to have a life, friends and interests without him.

After decades of this abusive behaviour that OP then shrieked viciously at her adult daughter because she would not leave a celebratory weekend with her adult friends and run to visit her brother, per her mother's demands.

The OP there wouldn't listen just as the OP here won't.

This is a well recognised dynamic, where parents of disabled/high needs children try to cram them into their other children's lives.

Your children are not his parents. You are. And only you and your husband are responsible for him.

Life is tough and EVERYONE has their struggles. Your son is his parent's responsiblity and you cannot force others - not even family - to want him around.

If you keep this nonsense up, your daughter and your four year old will lose out. You will not be able to force anybody to include our son, unless they choose to, though you may manage to ruin lots of get togethers, outings and opportunities for your other children along the way.

And once they grow up and realise that their mother tried to force everyone to include their complex needs brother in everything rather than letting them have their own lives and friends, your other children will walk away from you.

You have three children, not one, and no matter your own personal feelings, your complex needs son does not rank more highly than the other two in terms of rights. They are not a blob. They are not his carers. They are individuals. Treat them as such.

Maybe they just thought it'd be nice for your DD to have some time with them without her brothers around?
I mean you have a 4 year old who no doubt takes up a lot of your time and a teenager with complex needs.
Either that or you're correct and they just don't want to be around you.
You say you don't understand but you've said you don't really get along and called them fucking bitches so you can't be that surprised?
They're obviously friends, they don't have to invite the entire family every time they meet up and if you've never gotten along then it would just make the whole day awkward, this is why they only see you at PIL, they have a buffer.

Sleepovers are usually the requested friends of a specific child, that's why your DD was invited, and it was considerate of them to collect her given the distance.

Two of five sibling families went on an outing together and shared photos afterwards with friends and family. That's nice too. It's not as if it was once in a lifetime extended family gathering, and you were the only people not there. No need to come over all 13th fairy about it.

Ultimately, you can't make people like you, or force them to include you, and why would you want to? You should be raising your kids to value genuine friendship, to understand and be able to cope with likes and dislikes, their own and other peoples. To be kind, but also honest and realistic.

First you need to understand it yourself. If you fancied a day out, why didn't you head out and do something with your other kids, meet up with your own friends? That's your goal. Make friends, arrange fun outings, create a life where that's normal for you, if that's what you want.

I think your hurt runs much deeper than your posts and now you are oversensitive to perceived unfairness.

as you have said for loads of reasons it’s not about the sleepover more the family activity. The family activity doesn’t sound like a family activity 50% of the siblings in the UK went. The two siblings that possibly have the most in common and live in the easiest locations to meet up.

Where there is 3 or more siblings it can be really hard if several of them group together though shared interests, live nearby and your the odd one out on a limb.
If your part of a group, it's nice being able to call the shots around social events.- pick and choose who and when you include others.
I'm sorry OP, I wonder what your DH parents did around sibling dynamics.
In our family the other siblings moved 3 hours away near each other, then the parents moved away from near us to be near them. We've always been on the back foot with this relationship and expected simply to join in with whatever they've decided to do with us or not.
Some of harsher responses you've had I wonder if these people have never been the excluded ones in family dynamics. Therapy is helping now to heal this for us and to be able to live happily as our family.

I think it would be unfair to your daughter to cut her off from her cousins out of pique. Frankly, I wouldn't want a 13 year old with complex needs and a four year old at a sleepover either.

The lack of encouragement from your SILs must grate over time. It sounds like you have been trying hard to build good relationships, without getting reciprocation. However, I would hold back from cutting off ties with them. It's really about the children here. Close cousin relationships are so precious, something that will run through your children's lives, independently of their parents once they are grown. So whatever you can do to help them spend time together and build those bonds is a good thing.

I wonder what your DH's take on this is. Maybe he is in a better position to negotiate these matters with his siblings.

I think this is a big part of it. You know why they don’t like you - you’ve said it in this post.

The issue is that you think the fact you were young and daft means it all needs to be brushed away and forgotten as you’ve now matured and grown up. The problem is that you can’t control what other people think of you, what they remember and how that impacts their opinion of you. There’s a poster further on who mentions this and her SIL - who they can’t forgive and move on with despite her apologies. It may be that the brothers really dislike you because of this behaviour and then in parallel their future wives just happened to really click, which has exacerbated the difference. If the second part hadn’t happened, the first wouldn’t be so obvious.

As an aside, I think you need to reframe this. They don’t like you and don’t want to spend time with you - that part you can’t control or change. So I’d be focusing on the positive - which is thank goodness your daughter is only one of the 2 girls and they’re a similar age, because against the difficulties she faces with an older brother with complex needs and a far younger brother who by virtue of age/stage/needs will also get the lion’s share of remaining attention, she has a close cousin and extended family relationship that she probably wouldn’t have otherwise had. Because ultimately it’s not how lovely your daughter is that has driven the relationship, it’s the fact she’s the only one which makes her ‘useful’ to the other cousin. You can be sure that if there was a third girl of similar age, yours wouldn’t have got a look in because it’s natural that the children from the closer families would have been the one’s socialising and building their relationship. So honestly, I’d be thinking ‘ every cloud’ and be glad that at least your daughter benefits from the situation. Her not going wouldn’t make the others include you, it would just remove her escape from the complexities of home.

I'm from a big Irish family (five siblings) and we have definite preferences over who hangs out with who. Not all family get on equally. I prefer the children of my siblings I like more. I see the same with my cousins - some family members just don't gel as much.

Such is life!

Good idea. Would it be doable to host DN at yours OP? If so I'd see about arranging that.

I think people are missing the key point. It’s not the sleepover but the whole-family pumpkin picking you feel your sons were excluded from. And that fits within a context of you and your sons not being included in the wider family. I have been in a similar situation (without the daughter bridging the gap) and it’s shit, frankly. It says so much about who they are and they obviously rub your nose in it by excluding you from the adult family side. It’s down to DH to sort it out but for now I’d stop with the invitations.

No, I get it. The original plan was fair: just your DD to have a sleepover at her cousin's because your sons are wrong ages and have different needs - all good.

Then you find out that the sleepover was added to a full family day out, with all the relevant adults (in laws) there. An event all your kids would have loved. Pumpkin picking in half term is unlikely to be spontaneous because these events usually require tickets and get booked up. It also seems like they tried to ensure you couldn't tag along by going 2 hours return journey out of their way to pick up your DD.

In my opinion either they really don't like you and your sons but want to keep the only other girl cousin (so a deliberate exclusion) or they're just a bit spineless and couldn't tell you that while it would be OK to all go Pumpkin picking, they only wanted to invite DD for the sleepover

I think you are being over sensitive. For a start your daughter was invited to the sleepover. Your youngest son is too young for sleepovers and your eldest was too old for this one. It would be inappropriate for a teenage boy to be included in a children’s sleepover. The rest of it is just what it is. Not everyone has to be included in everything. It is hard organising activities for big groups and the more people involved the harder it gets. As children get older it gets harder to control the group anyway as they all have their own ideas about who they want to spend time with. Just because you are in-laws doesn’t mean you get along (quite the opposite if mumsnet is anything to go by) so you can’t force it by always making sure everyone does everything together.