Left out of family get together

[AIBUfamilydrama]

Name changed for this as very outing but I need to know if I’m BU and over sensitive about this please.

I found out after the fact that my Mum and 2x siblings went out for breakfast together last weekend with partners and families. I asked why I hadn’t been invited and they said it was last minute, I did say to my Mum I found it a bit hurtful that I hadn’t been invited and she said it was because it was last minute, and that it wasn’t her fault because it was arranged between my siblings.

Then my Mum accidentally put on our family group chat some messages to my siblings saying she was annoyed that I was annoyed, my sibling must not have realised that it was the group chat either and replied saying “nothing to be annoyed about. It was last minute. End of.” My Mum replied and said “what am I supposed to say to her if I found out my family didn’t want me there I’d be devastated”.

I’m so upset about it. We ended up having a big argument/discussion and it turns out it just wasn’t a completely last minute plan (arranged the evening before, so plenty of time to let me know), that my Mum had asked my other sibling if they were going to invite me and they said no.

I asked why they didn’t want me to go but they wouldn’t say. They haven’t apologised, they just said that we are all adults and they are allowed to do things as a group but without me if they want, my Mum said that we should agree that in future not to leave just 1 sibling out, but they said no they wanted the option to be able to do that. I asked why they would want to be able to not invite me but they wouldn’t answer.

I can’t understand that mindset at all, to me I would never leave just one sibling out. It would always be the more the merrier. If it was just a one on one occasion, or if one of us couldn’t make it for whatever reason, then fine. But I feel like, even though yes we are adults, it’s still cruel to leave just one person out.

For context, we don’t see each other as a group loads, I think just once so far this year since Christmas, it can be hard with work hours and individual family commitments etc but we all talk every day and I thought we were close. I considered the sibling who said no to inviting me to be one of my best friends. I just can’t wrap my head around it all.

I’m trying to let it all just blow over and they’re acting like everything’s normal but AIBU to still be upset by this?

@LoveWine123 ’s post was very thoughtful

you do get distance, you need to be prepared for that distance to be permanent. If you stay offended and reduce interaction, it is very likely they will just move on and let things be that way. I think you need to consider if that’s what you want in the long run.

ime, the distance acts as self care and protection, dynamics like this are seldom isolated, and I know if I had inadvertently upset someone close to me, and it had hurt them, I’d be very focused on making it up to them, not sending silly move along, nothing more to see here jokes and memes.

let’s put ourselves in the place as the sister who has engineered this exclusion, what head space would we have to be in to purposely do that to our sister? And when challenged- as it appears she may have been prior to the DM reference- doubled down and insisted.

now it’s all fingers in ears and la la la

our family are supposed to have our backs, family is supposed to treat family better than non-family.

@AIBUfamilydrama will never know the truth of this, they’re all in deep denial, deflect etc. blame will possibly come next.

in my experience, it’s not about holding on to being offended, it’s putting up a wall, a force field of protection to not allow that hurtful situation to happen again.

cos it will if it’s completely covered up and brushed under the carpet.

this probably wasn’t the first time either, just the first time @AIBUfamilydrama has found out about it. They’ve over egged the pudding this time, it’s in your face and they’re not contrite or apologetic.

I don’t really understand all this. Sometimes family members are closer to others and would rather just see them. Dhs parents are closer to his brother as they are more similar. One of my sisters with my parents likewise. They holiday together etc and see more of each other. We have no problem at all
with it and love to see them when we do see them.

Melodramatic much?🙄

I'm not trying to make her responsible for anything and I agree it was her family that's in the wrong. But due to my personal experience I'm of the mind that the OP needs to consider the bigger picture here.

Yes self-care, but what if the self-care then leads to a bigger issue that will see OP isolating herself from her family long term. It's ok to get some distance for a bit while you process but all I'm saying is that it may have bigger implications than intended by the OP if she doesn't move on from it.

Will we end up with lots of isolated elderly people because their family and friends just cannot live up to their high standards set.

By standing to this encourages self respect and self worth.
This leads to happier people , with many , better / happier friends.
This is good for society.
It’s the miserable, nasty ones who end up alone.

Just to had that anyone can change their ways and choose to be nice.

I don’t think it’s as simple as that. That’s quite a childlike view of the world. Adult relationships are more nuanced.

How so?

They are gaslighting you with the 'adults can choose who they socialise with' thing. Diverting attention from the issue by trying to frame it as you being immature. Of course people can choose, but when those choices represent a break with expected norms and cause hurt, the person left out is not in the wrong for being upset.
Clearly your one sibling has developed a problem with you and hadn't got the decency or courage to own it and tell you what's wrong. Instead they are engineering things to avoid you, and your weak mother and other sibling appear to be going along with them as the path of least resistance.
Your options are either to try again directly with sibling who didn't want you there to find out what the problem is, or accept the relationship with them has broken down and make your own plans with your mother and/or other sibling.

Is the one who excluded you a competitive type? I have a competitive sibling and it’s exhausting. It extends to competition for parental attention even at 40+ years old.

Reasons we leave my sister out:
She's chronically late and thinks it's funny,
There's no communication from her, which we need, because she's been two hours late.
It's stress when she comes. Last time I met up with her we were going to see my GC in their Church show. She came without reading glasses (which she didn't need for the show) made a fuss, took herself off etc. The show was finishing at 3pm and we were going for food were she ran off to, to buy the glasses.
She has to spoon Gaza into everything, she's a middle class wanker, who jumps on bandwagons.
She has to find fault. Last time it was because we all wasn't on our feet, overly cheering at the end of the Church show, apparently clapping wasn't enough.

She acts as though she's doing us a favour turning up.
She's sometimes inappropriate and brings up conversations no-one wants.
She bothers other people/acts a bit odd, especially at all you can eat buffets, then complains that she hasn't had time to eat.
she makes choosing venue/ordering food as difficult as possible.

She tuts when you try to move drinks out of her way and when we don't she sends them flying.
We don't hate her, we don't scapegoat her, there's just times that we can do without her.
There's a reason why they can't be honest with the OP. However I'd want answers. We are honest with my sister.

Yawn. You are clearly out of your depth here sweetie. Why not stick to a board you know a little about?

“We don't hate her, we don't scapegoat her, there's just times that we can do without her”

zIt really does sound as if you hate her!

Well her behaviour is pretty shitty! Do you think it should be indulged?

"Last minute" is such an outrageously poor excuse.
With a family Whatsapp group they really have no excuse not to have invited you. They chose not to.

I'd be very hurt too.

Learn from it and don't let them be able to hurt you anymore.

Only you know if it's a one off or a pattern. It sucks being the family scapegoat. If that's the case i would focus your energy elsewhere.
They sound really unkind.

Bluntly, OP, you've created this melodrama. You say you have had a fairly unproblematic and close relationship with your family. Why is it so difficult to accept that this one time they didn't invite you to a breakfast? That it's not compulsory to invite all the family all the time? That there probably was not any secret reason?

But honestly, OP, your posts about this, and the fact that you see it as some kind of insurmountable big deal, suggest there's something else going on that's made you so over-sensitive to not being invited to breakfast one time. In your shoes, I'd be asking myself what that is.

Your posts are all vile and you are so clearly on the wind up. You've made your views clear. Maybe you could just stop rehashing them just to turn the thumbscrews a bit more.

You've obviously never experienced someone who turns up hours late for a meal. On a good day, she's around thirty minutes late, but doesn't answer her phone, so we don't know what to do for the best, start eating etc. We are eating as a family with children who need feeding. She has the easiest life out if all of us and we can do without the stress. You can love a relative, but acknowledge how difficult and occasionally selfish, they are.

I'm not in the least on the windup. I don't understand why the OP is making such a big deal about not being invited to one breakfast by her siblings when they have a generally good relationship. I wouldn't think twice if both my sisters and my mother went out for breakfast and didn't invite me, despite getting on well with everyone involved. Sometimes you want a particular combination of people, not because you have anything against the uninvited person, but just the way you sometimes choose the soup over a sandwich. It isn't that the OP keeps being left out of family events, and it isn't that this is the last straw in a series of exclusions. It's simply one thing she wasn't invited to. There's no reason at all for all this fuss and soul-searching, unless, as I've suggested, it's activating something else in her which is causing this violent sense of hurt and humiliation.

I can see the fuss that some people cause as being a reason why you don’t want them with you when you just want an easy life. Ds makes a fuss but I’ve said to him - you do this it make us feel like that - I need you to stop doing it or we need you to stay at home because we want a chill evening without drama - but why couldn’t you say that to someone?

She’s right though.

And let’s be honest, mumsnet loves nothing more than to encourage people to distance themselves, “go NC” with family members, to convince them that they’re unloved and unwanted and the wronged party just so they can destroy a relationship.

This was one breakfast.

Have you never just wanted to spend some time with someone without other members of a party present?

This idea that all family should do things together all the time really isn’t healthy, and neither is getting so worked up about one breakfast, but posters on this thread are just making it easier for the OP to be convinced how unwanted she is.

one breakfast..

That is all.

I agree with @LoveWine123 that if I don’t get over it that they will move on without me, which is why I’m trying to let it go and move on and I know this sounds dramatic but I just don’t know how to not be hurt by it, it’s really affecting me. I’m laying awake at night going over it all, what they’ve said and what I could have done, other times I’ve felt left out, bringing things up from when i was young etc

it’s just a mess, the sister who was the one to say no to me has been kinder since than the other sister, and I feel like is at least trying to be normal again and the other sister has been worse in how she’s responded to me, really cold about it all and it was her that said they didnt have to invite me every time. My Mum has barely said anything about it, she’s not taken any sides and I get it in a way but I feel like if it was one of my sisters who was upset she’d handle it differently but she’s being normal with me too.