estranged siblings invited to son's wedding

[upsetandheartbroken]

My nephew has invited both of my enstranged siblings to his wedding. His parents and I have not spoken to our sisters in 6 years due to a huge family rift which did involve said nephew. We have absolutly nothing to do with them both as they betrayed and lied to us on numerous occassions and did unimaginable things after our mother's death. We are still ashamed, disgusted and embarrassed by their behaviour. I am heartbroken that they have, behind our backs, kept in touch with them and expect us to attend their wedding knowing the level of anguish this will cause my brother, his wife and I. We all feel betrayed by his actions and are seriously heartbroken that we have been put in this position. We really do not want to attend but it is his son's wedding. What was going to be a lovley day has now turned into a complete nightmare situation. Had he been upfront about his contact with them from the onset we would have been forewarned but to drop this a ten days before the wedding doesn't even give us time to get our head around the sisituation. The atmosphere will be toxic but they will revel in our uncomfortable situation. any suggestions? I am only going to support my brother as I seriously do not want to go.

The fact that the nephew has stayed in touch with them says to me that he doesn’t view the fallout the same as you do and that there is blame on both sides. Perhaps you behaved badly as well.

But on the other side of that. My mums estranged siblings, who I didn’t stop speaking to, were the greatest people to support me when mum died.

The nephew, like you, made their own decision to speak to their own family members. He may regret it in years to come he may not. Like I don’t.

If you go no contact with a family member, you can’t dictate everyone else does. That’s their decision to make. They also have to accept they made the decision they thought was best at the time, if they later regret it.

Unless it's something extremely significant like rape, murder or child abuse. I would say their wedding, their choice. I wouldn't say a word to your nephew. Hi and enjoy the wedding and ignore your siblings if you want.

It does depend on what other choices the nephew makes. If he somehow views himself as engineering a reconciliation, he might seat them all together for the meal or something. He might make reference to things in his speech and so on.

I think you might need to consider what kind of contact you are willing to have with your estranged siblings @upsetandheartbroken. And then risk assess attending based on that. You don’t have to go.

It does also sound like you’re still very hurt from it all. Have you had any counselling to try to come to terms with what happened?

Are you certain your brother wasn't aware that his estranged sisters were being invited? As the groom's dad, I find it hard to believe it would've have cropped up during all the wedding planning.

You have a choice. You can either throw your toys out of the pram and refuse to go, or suck it up and just avoid them. I suspect your nephew sees both sides and thinks you didn't cover yourself in glory throughout the bust-up either.

I mean hard to believe it wouldn't have cropped up during the wedding planning.

It's not about you.

Unless we're talking rape or murder or CA?