Please do not try to bullshit your way out of situations in which it was entirely your fault. Didn’t feel like coming to my wedding? Fine. That’s 5 less meals that I have to pay for. Just don’t fucking make excuses about it.
I had a date set nine months before my wedding. Your sister (my aunt) began planning her own shower for me and our family about 1 month later. We were all talking about it at Christmas, so don’t fucking tell me you didn’t know.
First you weren’t coming to the wedding because you had a vacation planned (this was April), then your wife has to have ‘foot surgery’ the day before my wedding. Whatever. You’re telling me there’s no way that you or one of your 3 children (who are all able to drive) could of made it to at least the ceremony? You live 15 minutes away from the church!
Oh, and it just so happens that the shower that your sister planned for so long and was so excited about fell on the same day as one your daughter was throwing at her house and your other two kids and wife just couldn’t be torn away. They didn’t even bother to send a note. Don’t lie to me and say that it was last minute and that you received the invitation a week before the shower. This has been planned for months!
So when your card came a month and a half after my wedding, AFTER your mother found out that I hadn’t received even so much as a phone call from your family, I saw no reason to cash your check. I don’t need it, and I sure as hell don’t want a gift because your mommy told you to send one.
I thought everything was settled, but your stupid bitch of a wife had to bring it up at Christmas with my parents this year. Sorry I wasn’t there to partake in the wonderful tension that ensued, but I decided to spend time with my husband’s family, since they actually seem to give two shits about me. Then you drag your mother into it, who asks me why I didn’t cash the check, and then your wife calls me. She’s got all these great excuses about why you all didn’t do anything. Then, when I say that you could have at least called or SOMETHING and that it was only after your mother found out that you sent the damn card, she tells me ‘well maybe if you’d been nicer to our kids’. What the FUCK have I done to your precious children aside from talking to them at family functions? I’m sorry, next time I’ll be sure to follow them around to make sure the silver spoon doesn’t fall out of their ass.
Fuck you and your fucking family and keep your goddamn money.
This is not going to end well. I am sure you don’t mean to, but you come across as feeling rather entitled: your uncle isn’t obligated to love you or to care for you or to be careful of your feelings. Nor are any of his family. Making polite excuses is the sort of bare-bones courtesy one extends to someone one feels a vague connection to, which seems to be what is going on here. Apparently, he sent you money not to make you happy but to make his mom happy, which suggests that the gift was really about her, not you. Which is ok. He’s allowed to love his mom and not his niece. His wife seems to have called you for much the same reason: his mom was worried/concerned and so he called because he didn’t like seeing her upset. None of this is about you. There’s nothing between you and this man. That’s not an offense against you, it’s just the way it is.
I don’t know, Manda Jo. She’s at least entitled to a freakin’ RSVP saying that the uncle will not attend. That’s also a bare-bones polite courtesy whether you love the person who invited you or not. She is also under no obligation to cash the check the uncle sent, and doesn’t need to explain that decision to anyone. It seems like the uncle and his wife want to be able to be rude in ignoring her wedding AND to call her later and give her a hard time when she doesn’t go along with their guilt-induced belated gift tactic.
They did RSVP to the wedding. They gave two different excuses as to why they couldn’t come. It’s not clear about RSVPing to the shower, just that they didn’t send a note. If invites weren’t sent out until a week before hand, it doesn’t sound like the sort of formal thing your RSVP to.
As far as the gift goes, it’s passive aggressive in the extreme to just not cash a check or acknowledge it. If I sent someone a check and they didn’t cash it for some months, I would sure as hell make inquires because I would assume they never got it and I’d want to send another. That’s not rude, or giving someone a hard time. I can easily imagine that if I sent a belated wedding check to someone and they never cashed it, I’d NEVER think it was a statement. I’d ask after it, and if I then found out that it was a deliberate rebuff, I’d call and try to make peace for the sake of family harmony–for the sake of my mother in law, not my husband’s niece that I don’t give a damn about. If said niece then ripped me a new one for not calling, I might get defensive as I realized this person I barely knew has been harboring resentment against me for a year.
Yes, you are right, I was unclear. It was the shower to which the uncle’s wife did not RSVP. I maintain that is rude. I do wonder what the relationship was like with the uncle before this, that he made so many excuses to avoid this wedding. Were they close before? Is this always how it’s been? What is at the heart of this rupture?
She is under no obligation to cash it. If they called, which I agree is reasonable in case the check was lost, what should she say? She told them the truth, which is not passive-aggressive. Why did she need to be asked about it two times, by the grandmother and the aunt? I mean, fine, blow off her wedding if you want. Sending a gift months later out of guilt is pretty tacky, and then, siccing Grandma on her, and then also calling to continue to poke at the situation, tackier still.
You are right that the uncle and aunt have no obligation to attend their niece’s wedding or shower, or to send a gift, but it does seem to be rather flagrant neglect. I wonder what the reason is for all of it. Then, if you feel you must draw attention to the situation by sending a very late gift, leave it alone after that. Forget about the check and walk away-- otherwise you are tempting exactly the type of confrontation that ensued.
Would you still make this call if you knew damn well you sent the check months later, after your mother-in-law guilt-tripped you? I wouldn’t. I’d leave it alone for fear of getting ripped a new asshole, but then, I wouldn’t ever behave this way in the first place. Getting defensive is a natural reaction, but it seems misplaced to me. “Be nicer to our kids” sounds like classic reversal. Got called on bad behavior? Accuse the other person of bad behavior right back. Not very conciliatory.
I suppose it’s more polite to make up a reason you can’t go to an event than to say, “I don’t want to because I don’t like you very much.” So, you know, they make up an excuse and don’t come, you cash their check and write a thank you note you don’t mean, and these are the little lies we tell for the sake of politeness.
That was not my interpretation of the events. This is what I understood to happen:
Uncle and Aunt do not go to wedding or shower or send gift.
Grandmother is worried/upset about this.
Uncle sends check to mollify Grandmother (his mother)
Check is never cashed. OP tells grandmother why but doesn’t tell Uncle/Aunt
Some months later, at Xmas, Aunt idly asks if check was received and meets unexpected tension, because grandmother knows OP was upset/making a statement. Aunt has no idea until this moment. OP is not present.
Grandmother calls because she doesn’t like people to be upset with each other.
Aunt calls to apologize, mend fences, and gets attacks and overly defensive.
No one acted well, but the OP didn’t act any better than anyone else, and in the big scheme of things, blowing off a wedding and a gift are not things you should stay angry about for over a year.
You are right that the uncle and aunt have no obligation to attend their niece’s wedding or shower, or to send a gift, but it does seem to be rather flagrant neglect. I wonder what the reason is for all of it. Then, if you feel you must draw attention to the situation by sending a very late gift, leave it alone after that. Forget about the check and walk away-- otherwise you are tempting exactly the type of confrontation that ensued.
I would make the call if up until that moment I thought the whole thing was resolved only to discover my niece was still very upset with me a year later.
I don’t think she was feeling white hot rage until she got a confronting phone call from the aunt. If you knew you sent a very late guilt-gift because your mother-in-law made you, would you have the nerve to call and ask after it? I mean, really. That’s nervy.
Why are you assuming the aunt thought it was resolved? I think things have been bad here for a while, and maybe she thought her belated guilt-gift was sufficient, but it wasn’t. At least now it’s all out in the open.
I’m not saying the OP is handling this well. I’d have written these people off and damn well cashed their check, but if she wants to have it out with them, now she has.
Sorry the relationship with your uncle is so fraught with tension, basoonatic, and that it’s making such an uncomfortable situation for your grandmother.
An easier option would be to have mailed the uncashed check back and say “I’m sorry, but I just can’t accept this. Thank you.” and nothing more about it.
Auntie doesn’t worry that it’s lost in the mail, but you can remain morally pure by not accepting it. If Auntie calls demanding to know why, either you can let her have it with both barrels, or do the Miss Manners “I’m sorry, I just can’t accept it.” (repeated over and over until Auntie gives up–this is actually the better option–it’ll drive Auntie nuts–she’ll kinda-sorta know why it was returned, but she won’t be certain so she can’t be a pain about it.).
The other option would to cash it and then give it to charity–you could even tell Granny “Hey, guilt-tripping Auntie into sending me a gift worked, but I didn’t feel I could accept it so I gave it to the home for unwed dogs.”
Just to throw it out there, the gift is technically not late at all. Traditionally, gifts can be given up to one year after the wedding. If the aunt is an Emily Post-type person, sending a gift a few months after the wedding would seem completely normal to her and not at all indicative of any sleight.
There is one practical problem which the uncle may run into if basoonatic doesn’t cash the check and doesn’t tell him about it. Doing that will foul up his financial record keeping. If the uncle’s living close to the margins, having a check which hasn’t been cashed or otherwise accounted for means he has to allow for the possibility that check could be cashed at any time and budget accordingly. Even if he isn’t living close to the edge, it makes balancing his checkbook that much harder. Worse, every time he balances his checkbook, it reminds him of the current unpleasantness. Under the circumstances, do you you blame the aunt and uncle for asking his mother about the check?
OK, fine. The OP doesn’t want the check, doesn’t need the money, and wants nothing to do with her uncle and aunt. If she doesn’t want to keep inflicting stress on them, she could donate the amount of the check to a charity. I suppose if she wants to be rude about it, she could donate it to a cause which her aunt and uncle oppose and tell them about it, but what would be the point, other than making her dislike of them even more clear?
bassoonatic, I’m sorry things are so tense in your family. I know weddings do bring out the worst in people sometimes, and I really am sorry you’re going through it. Letting things go on as they are, and by that I mean hanging on to the check without cashing it, isn’t going to make things any better for you or your uncle. I suggest you cash the check or return it, let it go, and enjoy the family you married into. After all, is your uncle really worth the hassle and the stress?
Edit: Fenris, old wolf, you beat me to it with the suggestion about donating it to charity!
You are being a drama queen. I don’t know how old you are, but a married woman is grown enough to not do this. Either cash the check or don’t, donate it or send it back, whatever, but suck up your emotions and put on your big girl panties and learn to deal with people. There will be assholes. Some of them will be in your family, some of them will be your coworkers, some of them will be your neighbors. You can’t write a letter like this every time you get butthurt. Write the letter, if you need to, then throw it away. Learn to deal with family members without being a little punkass crybaby.
Oh, grow up. Your uncle and his family could have behaved better, but refusing to cash a check is petty and passive-aggressive. As others have said, if you don’t want to accept the gift, which may have been sent partially as a peace offering, give it to charity.
Just chiming in to say, despite my sympathy for the OP’s feelings of anger, I do think she could have handled the check issue better. Donating it to charity is a good idea and an ideal solution. You could even have send a thank you note to that effect.
I still think there is more to this story with the aunt and uncle. Maybe the OP will come back and give more detail.
There’s got to be more to this story. Seems like a lot of hostility and weirdness to come out of the blue.