AIBU to expect acceptance when DH declines niece's wedding abroad?

[DestinationForOne]

Dh niece is getting married next year abroad.

MIL seems to be in charge of organising most of it and to be honest is acting like its mostly about her !
She keeps saying how she wants her dc all there as she needs them there etc.

MIL/FIL are offering to pay but only for dh flight and hotel as they want him there as their son and not a husband / father as want his focus ‘on the family for once’.
It’s a 5 day trip.

They don’t know but we have been ttc so we have no idea what next year might look like for us. Dh has declined going and this has cause ww3. We’ve never argued with them before and it’s quite upsetting . AIBU to think they should be more accepting of Dh declining to go?

How long have you been married? Is this the first time he’s not done what they have wanted him to?
Classic controlling family, I would hazard a guess
To be honest, I would reconsider having kids with them and run a mile. However, I’m a couple of decades ahead of you & Hindsight is a wonderful thing

You can’t make them be accepting of it. You can’t control anyone else’s reaction, only your own.

leave it to DH to deal with them.

If it’s all paid for, why has he chosen not to go? Not sure why ttc is particularly relevant at this stage, so what is the reason?

Yes we usually agree with most things and he’s pretty upset they are saying he needs to focus on the family as he regularly does !

The issue is that his sister is by far the favourite and her dd has an elevated position in the family so they think everyone should drop everything and be there to celebrate her.

We’ve been together 15 years married 10

Because if I’m pregnant or have a newborn (wedding is June)

Has he declined because they aren't paying for you? Or has he declined because you might be pregnant?

If it's the latter, then YABU. I dont see why you being pregnant should stop him going, even if you can't.

If it's the former, then just say so.

Yes, you're allowed to declined a wedding invitation. But MIL/FIL are also allowed to be disappointed that all her children won't be there.

Both really we feel they’ve been really rude excluding me and our 2 dc plus if I was pregnant I have high risk pregnancies so that’s why dh wouldn’t want to go abroad.

Are they excluding you or just not paying for you?

only dh is invited as they want him there in the capacity of his roles within their family so son/brother/uncle as if he attends with us he will prioritise his husband/father role and they want it to be ‘about family’ meaning them

Has he told them that this is the reason or has he just said he doesn't want to go? Is there an option of confirming at the beginning of the year or something?

Apparently his brothers partners / wives accept this (he has 3 brothers and 1 sister)

Why not just have a sensible conversation, explain the situation and then say he will book flights in the new year if you’re not pregnant?

MIL is being an arsehole to pay for DH but not you or the kids. Whatever anyone else says, she’s basically saying she doesn’t care if you’re there or not, which is hugely disrespectful when you’ve been in the family for 15 years.

PPs who say the TTC is irrelevant are just being obtuse. Of course your husband wouldn’t want to leave you for the wedding if you might be heavily pregnant or have a <6 month old baby as well as your two existing children.

Well we don’t know the backstory, so maybe there’s a long history here. But on the face of it I don’t think it’s unreasonable for them to want their son to be at a major family event, or for them to say they can afford to pay for his travel but not to cover everybody.

Obviously it’s not ok for them to have a massive strop about his decision, but again assume they don’t know that you’re TTC, so the decision will seem odd to them. It may just feel like a rejection of them and the wider family and they have no idea what’s behind it so are lashing out.

So assuming that overall they’re ok and you want to try and repair things - I’d suggest he tell them that for family reasons he’s not able to commit to going away at that time.

Refuse to be drawn on what those reasons might be - just say that’s personal, but that you won’t know until much nearer the time whether it’s possible. So if they need an answer now it’s a no, but if it gets closer to the time and he is able to go then he can discuss it with them then.

In a similar situation we said something that vaguely implied I was expecting to have treatment sometime to do with “women’s issues”, which they accepted without prying further.

The reason he gave was that he felt they were rude in how they set out the expectation of him putting them first and excluding me and the dc. We haven’t told them about ttc for #3. MIL seems to be almost be acting in a jealous manner about dh being a husband / father and was talking in such a way about the dc ‘well of course if THEY are there it’ll ruin it and you won’t have time for anyone else’ and things like that just rude

Very controlling!

Stick to your guns. They sound awful.

They are way out of line. Very controlling and pretty nasty if they are actually not inviting sibling partners and dc. what the hell? Stand firm.

I think the backstory is that we’ve always just done as MIL expected and now she can’t cope when she doesn’t get her way with us.

She told dh that he mustn’t pay for us to go as we are literally not invited!

Ah just read your updates, so I see it’s not that they’re offering the financial contribution they can afford, it’s actively that they don’t want you and your kids there! That is pretty unpleasant. I think in that case you
can reasonably be a lot firmer about just saying no it doesn’t suit your family so he won’t be going, and then honestly ignore any tantrums about it!

Don’t know why people are getting caught up on the ttc part, even if you don’t consider that a factor why would he want to go when his family are being excluded? How bloody weird are his parents! His children are surely as much a part of the family as the niece getting married is? Most people would consider you family as well. So strange! I don’t think he’s being unreasonable for not wanting to go.

So they’ve also excluded your 2 children (who are blood relatives too I presume) ? Wow that it odd. I would move to LC with them, they sound weird.

MIL keeps saying how ‘the other partners and wives understand!’ As if I’m in the wrong but they all have teen or older dc so maybe it’s different. She made mention of a past occasion when I’d gone with dh I did notice at the time I was the only wife there thought nothing more of it but that was supposedly meant to be ‘family only’ (a funeral)

Mil seems to have a two tier view of family. Priority family are direct members and then the rest of us who married in or our dc it seems except SIL who I think as she’s the only daughter gets special status with her dc!

OMG that is like something out of an unsettling film! Time to pull right back from this unpleasant family.

MIL/FIL are offering to pay but only for dh flight and hotel as they want him there as their son and not a husband / father as want his focus ‘on the family for once’

That’s just offensive, isn’t it? Good on him for declining.