Am I being an absolute baby over this? Need some advice please

[SweetBabyCheesus]

Apologies, prepare yourselves, this is a long one!

I'm 54, & my brother is 45. We are really close, and I would consider him one of my best friends, and I thought he thought the same.

My brother is getting married abroad later in the year. His fiancée is from the country that they are marrying in, although she lives with him in the UK. They have been together for about 12 years, I think. We all get on great.

A few weeks ago, midweek, my stepdad sent me a pic of my mum all dressed up. I sent my mum a message asking where she was going looking so glam - and she replied that she was going to my brother's wedding in London. Then said that it was just a formality and they had to do this to enable the wedding in the autumn abroad. My mum and stepdad were there, my sister was there as she can't go to the 'proper' wedding, and my brother's fiancée (wife!)'s parents and brother were there (from their home country).

I was at this point really confused, because despite having spoken to my brother in the last couple of weeks - NOBODY has mentioned this to me at all. Not a word. I speak to my mum at least once a week too.

Then they all started sending me pics, of the wedding at the registry office, pics on the steps of the happy couple, and pics of the meal that they all went to afterwards - and now I'm really starting to feel hurt.

Later in the evening, my brother sent me a pic of them signing the register, saying something along the lines of "just the formal bit before the actual wedding!"

I replied "Congratulations!! Looks like you've all had a lovely day!! ❤️❤️ xxx"
He replied back "Have I done something? That sounded a little clipped"
I messaged him back saying I was absolutely gutted that I knew nothing about this, and that I wasn't invited, and that I really didn't want to spoil his day, so could we speak another time?
I am still waiting for a response, almost 3 weeks later.

I need some opinions. I'm not one for conflict, but I also won't walk away from confrontation if needed. I am beyond hurt. Everyone else in my close family was there apart from me. Her parents flew in from another country, and I wasn't even invited.

My brother is quite a difficult person, but we understand each other and accept each other warts and all. I love him dearly, and he knows that - and trust me, if I had done this to him, he would never forgive me.

I cannot understand in what world, ANY of them couldn't have thought that this would hurt me. My mum thinks that he just 'forgot' to tell me because it wasn't a big deal - but it was enough of a big deal for everyone to dress up, all go out for dinner, and take loads of pictures... Without me.

The point also needs to be made that the message I sent to my brother was in no way "clipped". His message to me smacks of a guilty conscience. So why didn't he invite me?

I'm stuck in this awful limbo of wanting to get this sorted out, but at the same time, I'm sick of smoothing things over to the detriment of my own feelings. Why should I message him again? Why should I fork out thousands of pounds that I honestly don't have, to go to a wedding of someone that apparently cares so little about me?

Am I being unreasonable to be so hurt? Am I being a massive drama queen? Am I making it all about me?

I'm just gutted.

To be fair to the brother, the message was slightly niggly. It wasn't
"Looks like you've had a lovely day!!"
or "Looks like you've both had a lovely day!!"
It was "Looks like you've all had a lovely day without me!!"

To avoid the 'feud' situation, it might be best to say that you can't go to the "reenactment pageant" (great phrase, Betty) because of costs. Not because you are sulking, but because finances have tightened since you originally replied. It saves everybody's face and allows people to mend fences at some stage (if they want to).
Who was invited, btw? Just you and DP or were DC invited, too (that really would be expensive!)

How about her brother actually contacting his sister?. AFAIK OP is still waiting for a response from her brother three weeks later. And her second message was measured too.

What does OP have to apologise for?. From what OP writes her brother's wedding day was planned well in advance and with people flying in from overseas. OP was deliberately excluded by him.

"Looks like you've all had a lovely day without me!!"

I'm afraid that if I were the only sibling excluded I would be writing something like this. It's obvious she is hurt... why doesn't the brother contact her then?

This was meant to humiliate you and they have succeeded. For some reason your brother and family think you need putting in your place. A power play. Nasty. Unforgivable. How can you, a superior person react to this? Difficult. Keep your cool but ask him why he wanted to humiliate you. OK so he’ll pooh pooh that, just look him steadily in the eye and say that you have lost all respect for him and you will not be going to the marital celebration because there is nothing to celebrate as their betrayal has left you no choice. Then leave. They don’t deserve you they are punching well above their weight and they need to know.

This is from the OPs initial post:

"I replied "Congratulations!! Looks like you've all had a lovely day!! ❤️❤️ xxx"
He replied back "Have I done something? That sounded a little clipped"
I messaged him back saying I was absolutely gutted that I knew nothing about this, and that I wasn't invited, and that I really didn't want to spoil his day, so could we speak another time?"

Her brother has caused an estrangement by his choice to keep his sister away from his wedding day. How can anyone presume this to be as slightly niggly is beyond me. Also senua you omitted the first word that OP used which was congratulations.

OP has nothing to apologise for. There aren't two messages on the thread. The OP included the summary of the message and in a later post, OP included the full text. Both the full message and the summary included the basic facts that OP was gutted that she wasn't invited and that she didn't even know about it and she didn't want to spoil his day by discussing it there and then. She wasn't even going to mention anything until her brother asked her a direct question about whether he had done something wrong. As he obviously knew that he had, that question was just provocative.

'I messaged him back saying I was absolutely gutted that I knew nothing about this, and that I wasn't invited, and that I really didn't want to spoil his day, so could we speak another time'

'I'm absolutely gutted that I didn't know about it, and that I wasn't invited. I have done everything I can to avoid all of you since I found out this morning, because I am trying so hard not to to spoil your day. Can we talk about it another day please?'

This thread might fill up and I won't get another chance to say thanks to you all

I appreciate all of your opinions and the stories that you have shared. I have even more thinking to do, and I've set myself a limit that if he hasn't answered by Monday (my day off), then I will contact him, one way or another.

I will let you know what happens in the end, I promise.

Thank you all, you lovely bunch x

Her brother has caused an estrangement by his choice to keep his sister away from his wedding day.
Totally agree.
How can anyone presume this to be as slightly niggly is beyond me.
The brother (in his guilt) may have spun it that way.
Also senua you omitted the first word that OP used which was congratulations.
I admit it, but that was because it would have been the same in all three sentences.

I'm TeamCheesus all the way but I'm trying to think of a way she and all the family can get past this. I presume that she wants to be heard without totally burning bridges.

Please start a new thread and update us @SweetBabyCheesus . Your posts have moved me to tears at the sheer unfairness of it all. I hope you feel validated by all of the responses.

If I were you, if you don’t get the response you deserve from your family, I would share a link to this thread so they can understand just how unreasonable and cruel their behaviour has been.

Good luck.

She has never been heard in her family senua, she is the scapegoat. There is no getting past it and it is they who have caused this to happen, not OP herself. OP is certainly owed answers but I sadly doubt very much these will be at all forthcoming.

I really agree with this.
This is what nasty ugly people do to put/keep someone in their place.
To make them feel unseen, unheard, like they don't matter and don't deserve to hear things firsthand from their own family.

My friend had that for years from her parents as her brother and his family were all that matter.
She heard things from neighbours and relatives and not from her family, to keep her in her place.
Her brothers job were moving him away and her parents were devastated and she heard from a neighbour that her parents would need her now.

It was the final push she needed. She applied for a transfer, put her house in storage and up for sale.
Suddenly she was being bombarded with calls that she didn't answer.
She gave them such a dose of being asked things in the town that they lived in that they had no answer to.

When she did visit for the shortest of visits her mother was hysterical at her leaving them.
She didn't visit again for another 6 months and her house sold.
Her brother tried to guilt her as he was very quickly fed up of his parents hysteria at being left.

Within 3 years she met and married such a nice colleague and her small wedding didn't include her parents, they had to hear about it, just like the news she was pregnant and had twins.

My friend is such a lovely woman, so genuinely kind, but something broke inside her that day she met that neighbour.

She was done being treated as less than.
She barely sees her parents once a year, they are in their 80's now.
They know absolutely nothing about her life since she left 20 years ago.

Her mother tried to complain about it when she left and she told her straight out that we are a family that doesn't share news, I have heard mine from neighbours and relatives for ever.

Moving away from her family to the city was the single best thing she ever did for herself.
She said the feeling of being less than left her, as did the dread of never knowing when she would be humiliated byrunning into a neighbour or a relative with another piece of family news she had not known.

Absolutely no way a parent who loved you would do this.

I replied "Congratulations!! Looks like you've all had a lovely day!! ❤️❤️ xxx"
He replied back "Have I done something? That sounded a little clipped"

that didnt sound clipped

Good luck op I hope you get answers to your questions xx

All too often, someone behaves badly, then the recipient of this behaviour complains. Which somehow turns them into the villain of the piece, just because they had the temerity to complain.

My friend did this. They had the "business" wedding. Where the do the legalities. It was just their parents and people that couldn'tske it to the "real" one

I understand you're hurt but if they invited people then it becomes the proper wedding

Speak to him. This is silly. It's just signing a register before the big wedding

Rubbish - as others have said. Your situation is not the OP's and you're minimising her hurt feelings which are totally understandable to me. Could it be that you realise your own wedding caused hurt feelings but don't want to admit it?

Yes! It's called "reactive abuse", abusing someone for their natural reaction to being treated badly.

Happens a lot . And it makes the recipient very confused and doubting their own judgement and even doubting if they're a good person or not.

Absolute headfuck, to be blunt. Especially when it happens from childhood.

That's why I keep a journal. You doubt yourself less if you've got the facts there in black and white.

I don't consider it a 'business' wedding just because it's at a registry office. My DD had one in the smallest registry office ever. It was parents both sides, siblings and their partners both sides. That's it.
It was lovely, the Registrar really said some lovely words and afterwards we had photos by the river and then went to a great restaurant where we were all sat round a square table reminiscing, there was a lot of laughter. It was all very special.
I am just imagining one of my children not being invited....

No one knows about mine so no one can be hurt. I’ve said multiple times that it’s not the same and that I completely get why she’s upset. I was just trying to offer an explanation which showed that family, while unfair, could have been making those decisions with motivations other than just to meanly exclude OP. OP already had considered that, she didn’t care that it was unintentional. Which is her decision obviously. But while loads of others are keen for her to cut her family off, when otherwise she said they are close, I thought that will just lead to many years of heartbreak for OP. So I’m not minimising her hurt. I think she’s been treated awfully but as someone who had a secret registry I was offering a perspective that I thought might be helpful. It wasn’t, that’s fine

It's all very sad and I feel for the OP. But everyone is different. Some people don't think ahead much, don't imagine how others might see our actions, have different priorities. DH and I have no siblings so it's not something we will ever experience. Our two DDs are good pals even though 200 miles away. On the few occasions that we have fallen out it has been quickly rectified by one of us making the first move, but then none of us has ever done anything so crass.

Maybe your brother thought someone else had told you the party would be limited and is now kicking himself for not doing it himself. But is not confident enough to word an apology. Maybe he thinks he mentioned it in passing some time ago and is surprised by your upset (but your message to him didn't imply to me that you were upset). This would accord with the fact that those attending are passing you photos of the happy party and assuming you would be fine with that. People can often get it wrong - what might seem obvious to one person is not always obvious to others.

Despite all the advice from others telling you what to do, I feel that would be fine if you were all exceptionally strong or unfeeling, but you don't come across like that at all. You are definitely hurt - and so would most people be.

I would be wary of doing anything that effectively cuts off your nose to spite your face. Your DB could go on to have children - how would you feel if the rift prevented you from ever knowing your nephews and nieces?

I would suggest you try to be the bigger person, for your own future. Yes, you are entitled to make him realise his mistake, entitled to be angry/hurt/want him to apologise etc, but being so might not result in a pleasant outcome for you. Sometimes we just have to swallow the hurt and move forwards, for our own sakes.

Good luck with it all. The only comfort I can really give you is that you seem to be a caring lady, and your feeling are more than justified, but try to think of the bigger picture for your own good.

So what could be the motivations that they had then for excluding her?

Why flaunt all the photos afterwards? It's weird.

Why not talk directly to the OP, recognise her hurt and deal with it, instead of evading all the time?

Incredibly hurtful, and incomprehensible that your mum didn't question it or even tell you she was going. What close family acts like that? None that I know.

Edited for a typo.

Well my theory was that they naturally were inviting their parents as witnesses (maybe both mums were signing certificate) and then as other sister couldn’t come to actual wedding they invited her too. Can’t account for fiancés decisions obviously. OP can go to what I’m sure they view as the real wedding and so didn’t invite her. BUT I would say that could have been the motivation but anyone with any social skills would see that would mean OP is the only one not invited and that is horrible. If they didn’t notice, then when OP pointed it out they should have apologised. Now there’s been a fallout and sounds like in other posts there’s more history there so who knows why they excluded OP, and ultimately it doesn’t matter as now there’s been a fallout and no apology

Except the mum's didn't sign the certificate, the sister did.

I think OP is sick of always being the 'bigger person'. Why is it the responsibility of the person who has been wronged rather than the person who caused the hurt to reach out?

OP has said that she constantly provides emotional support for her mum and she is the only person that does this as her siblings aren't capable of taking on this role. Did this constant support for her mum mean that her mum had her back when her brother didn't invite her to his wedding? It absolutely did not. Her mum, who normally tells OP every small detail about what's going on in her life, didn't ever mention the wedding that all the family were invited to apart from OP.

OP isn't going nuclear. She is thinking things through but she is tired of being taken for granted by the whole family.

She has her own family with adult children who are supporting her in this. If OP pulls away, her mum and siblings will be the ones to lose out on a relationship with their lovely supportive sister.