Do you just accept or decline invitations from family or do you ask if you can bring someone or have a conversation about occasion?

[demesneDame]

I am genuinely interested in how families roll with this.

If your child/sibling invited you to their house, not necessarily for an occasion but a Bank Holiday or around Christmas or Easter do you just simply accept or decline?

Or would you say for example Granny will be with us.
Or can I bring my partner?
Or can my partner bring their child?
Or simply ring asking if they can help with something/bring something?

Remember this is your child/sibling so someone you are close to.

I'm somewhere in between. I can't imagine printed invitations to family unless a wedding, christening or formal event and it sounds like they have a very unwelcoming attitude, eg to step children, but that is their choice.

I wouldn't ever ask if I could bring someone else, but neither would I 'just decline'. For close family I would explain, sorry we have X staying with us then. Then they have the option to open the invitation to the extra, or just accept the decline. Much less awkward than asking.

The d of e thing sounds mean, and I'm sure I'd welcome him, but if you'd said he wasn't coming, it is weird for him then to turn up expecting food.

So it's a bit of both I think. I find having guests quite stressful and am not the sort if person who can always rustle up an extra meal etc, so I wouldn't like extra guests on the whole. But their attitude seems too extreme.

And if really don't get the problem with you asking if you can contribute something - isn't that polite? Although I'd text not bother them with a call on the day.

However, none of it justifies how rudely she was speaking about you to other family members, and it must have been very upsetting for your mum. I would lower how much time I spend with them i think, you clearly aren't really welcome!

I think it’s rude not to include a sister’s partner and his child I think it is extremely not to invite a child that lives most of the time with your brother.

Given they are not invited I can understand that you might ask a sibling if they could be invited but accept asking on the day isn’t acceptable.

It would appear (but remember I haven’t heard directly) that SiL also objects to people like me ringing to see if I can bring something. I think she just wants an acceptance or a straight decline no asking if partner or child is invited. If a name isn’t on that invitation you are not invited and I don’t want a conversation. This is our close family, my own brother and sister-in-law.

I’ve been to events which on the surface of it were big, the more the merrier type. However the hostess had prepared a lovely bag for each DC with colouring snacks and age appropriate toys. Had an extra arrived, she wouldn’t have been prepared. Similarly where a small gift has been given to each child, so they weren’t upset by the huge pile of gifts for their child.

It’s not something I’d ever thought to do but it was lovely. Sometimes people are detail oriented and don’t want to change their envisioned event to suit your situation with extra people.

And if she always says no, why do you keep asking? That’s really irritating. You know she says no. Why keep pushing?

When did you ask if you could bring anything to help out? The correct time to do this is when you receive the invitation or very soon after.

I think you have confused everybody by the way you tried to be cryptic in your opening post.

I also think you've confused most of us (or your SiL has) with the concept of anyone typing/ printing out a formal invitation to go round for a meal at their house. That is beyond odd.

Like others have said on this thread, if my SiL or Sis or DB or DBiL wants to invite us for a meal or drinks or BBQ or anything else, they will message us on WhatsApp. They will say "Do you both want to come round for..." or they will say "Do you and the dc want to come round for....." If there were ever any slight ambiguity dh or I would say "Do you mean us 2 or the kids as well?"
If we had been planning to see Gran that day, we'd have said "We're planning to see Gran that day - shall we bring her or do you want to get together a different day?" and either answer would be fine.

Unless we were hosting a £100 a head meal at a wedding, or other very formal occasion, then newish partners, stepchildren etc would all obviously be included to an informal do such as a meal at our house or a buffet after a christening. What difference would it make ? How else would they begin to get to know us, and us them ?

Re the 'collecting your ds from DoE' - that is a perfectly normal situation with a normal family. You'd been clear he wouldn't be there for the meal, but what kind of weird behaviour is it to begrudge a starving teen something at that point ? I just can't imagine resenting feeding my nephew something on toast or a sarnie in those circumstances.

Your SiL sounds absolutely batshit.

Y are definitely NBU, but I suspect lots of people replying before you added the later information / examples wouldn't have been clear what you were saying.

Your SIL is obviously very rigid in her hosting, that's obvious from the named invites. I can understand asking once or twice if other people could be included, but I don't understand why you would keep asking when she kept saying no. It sounds like she finds it stressful that people keep asking her. It's not clear when you offer to bring things if this offer is made at the last minute or not? If it is I can understand that might feel disorganised and chaotic. If you're doing it soon after receiving the invite she's just being odd. I do agree that it's out of order that the step child doesn't get invited. I think that whole family should just make a point of declining the invitations.

What does your brother say about all this? Presumably he’s in charge of the invites too? Does he know you were all called ‘fuckers’?

Yes, it’s very clear that an invite is something to be accepted or declined, it’s not the beginning stage of negotiations. If you think it’s rude, then decline.

It doesn’t matter what you think she ‘should‘ be okay with as a close family member. It doesn’t change the fact that she isn’t okay with it.

It’s also her home, not just ‘your brother’s home’. It isn’t something you’re entitled to access on the basis of your sibling also owning it.

@demesneDame

What you think should be acceptable isn't relevant. If SiL and presumably your DB think that only the people named on the invite should attend, period end of discussion, then that is their prerogative. As is who they consider 'family', right or wrong. And if you know this (and if nothing else, you do now) it would be rude to call about or show up with 'extras'. The only 'fault' I can find with SiL/DB is that they didn't find some way to make this clear early on.

If you want to issue invites and then happily get calls about add ons, that's fine too.

Would I call one of my DSs or my siblings and ask for 'extras'? Yes to a certain extent, because that is the relationship we have. But also, I know them well enough to pretty much know what their answer would be and I wouldn't ask if I wasn't 100% sure it'd be OK.

So you know who is and isn’t invited. You should accept or decline on that basis.

Really you are being a CF here.

When I got a boyfriend my mother still did not want to invite him for the third year we were together, and I just said I can't make it to Christmas then- she was very angry and tried to use it as leverage to try and get me to marry (she was married 5 times and was absolutely obssessed with it) I said no if we can't have Christmas as a couple here, we will have Christmas as a couple elsewhere.
She had had long enough to come to terms with it, plus a few years previously she had had her boyfriend of only a few weeks with us for Christmas, two Christmases apart was more than enough.

if a sibling is in an established relationship with a partner who has children, of course they should be invited as a family unit. Perhaps your mistake has been not picking up on the clues your mean spirited SIL thinks differently. Is that the reason for typing out invitations with names on?

if the choices are accept or decline at least everyone knows what to do going forward.

The sandwich request would be tricky for me only because I wouldn’t have the right food in outside the meal I had planned - it would have been my work lunch the next day! I’d probably have still given it to him but admit I’d be annoyed about that.

Are you doing research for a PHD or something? What a boring subject to be interested in.

The plot thickens.

It’s clear what you meant by formal printed invitations stating the names of those invited.

The point is that this type of formal invitation makes it very clear who is and isn’t invited. It also sets the tone that the event is formal not a drop in open house.

You have ignored the clear boundaries a formal invite sets and treated it as a drop in open house and invited others - that is where the issue is.

A word processor is a specific type of application.

From Microsoft: “What is a word processor?
A word processor is a device or software program capable of creating, storing, and printing text documents. It allows users to write and modify text, display it on a screen, save it electronically, and print it out.”

Yes. They were very innovative back in the day. They replaced a lot of typewriters before computers were commonplace.

Back in the 80’s I was part of a team coding a word processor for a computer. Sadly, it no longer exists.

They were amazing though. Having WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) for creating documents was so much easier than the markup language we used prior to that where you had to start and end each paragraph, header, etc. with a code.

Yes, it’s very clear that an invite is something to be accepted or declined, it’s not the beginning stage of negotiations. If you think it’s rude, then decline.

I would agree with this, if this were an invitation to a wedding or something, but surely you must see that going to a sibling's house for a meal doesn't really fall into that category ?
The OP is talking about her SiL inviting them for a meal.

Surely we can't be the only family where that means a WhatsApp saying "Do you fancy coming round for a BBQ on Sunday?" or "I'm happy to host a meal for Easter - does the Saturday or Sunday work better for you?" It is a completely different scenario from a formal invitation. I am so surprised that more people aren't questioning that (including the written / printed invitation from SiL). Do others really think that is normal ???

I mean, I'm old, we would have invited each other by making telephone calls when I was a young adult, and naturally, you'd clarify any queries during that call.

I wouldn’t consider bringing your son or the step child as inviting extras but outside of that, it’s pretty rude to ask can you bring extras at the last minute.

I guess that is why they have started issuing formal invitations. TBH, I don’t understand the confusion with the term word processing here. I’m sure most people on here have used MS Word or Google Docs, both of which are word processors.

It absolutely does fall into that category for the SIL, on the occasions where formal invites are issued. She’s made that apparent. Whether that’s normal or not depends, I imagine, on your social circle.

My family have informal gatherings, but we also have formal ones. Even with the informal gatherings though we don’t start trying to add people on the day, or just turn up with them.

You are the one that persists when you KNOW she doesn't want extra people. If she really is printing out invitations, it is clear who is invited over 🤷‍♀️

Despite this always being her 'way', good or bad and for whatever reason, it sounds like you constantly push against her wishes/boundaries/whatever this is. That does make your family difficult because it really is an accept or decline situation. Which experience already has told you.

Aye, sounds like the SIL has been fighting a quiet battle with her MIL and SIL's trying to organise things their way for years.
Eavesdroppers never hear good of themselves. #team SIL

If a sibling invites me to a family 'thing' I am assuming its me DH and DFS, our DS would probably be invited separate to us as they are a family unit. I wouldnt ask ud just reply yes we will all be there.
If we had previous fc coming over I would check it was OK to bring them along because its an extra body to feed.
There has been occasions its been a 'female ' do, hen afternoon tea, smellies/make up parties ( long ago) where it was clear it was just for the women to attend.

I agree it's a strong boundary but given that they have form, you trying to repeatedly override it is probably very irritating to them. But slagging you off as she did is just wrong. Are you planning on raising it with your brother?

I 100% would clarify an invite / explain we can only come if x who is with us can come too. Etc. no issue either way if x can’t come. Also this happens in reverse. Family even say, can you feed me on y day because. It’s family. All very odd to have an issue with this.