:eek: I thought he was an asshole when I was assuming the wedding was going to be a 10-20 people affair.
Have you met this kid? Did you do something to piss him off? I understand your girlfriend wanting to respect his wishes, but if I were her I would at least tell him that the exclusion is rude and not appreciated.
I suppose, and I know that’s not very satifying. But what would be the point of objecting? Yeah, you get to voice your displeasure at being excluded and the hurt it causes his mother. But assuming the kid’s not doing it to be a dick, he already knows his decision is hurting his mother. Maybe he feels that seeing his parents there without their partners is worth it to him.
Girlfriend’s son is 24, and OP and girlfriend have been together 5 years, meaning the son was 19 when the OP came into his life. I can totally understand if he doesn’t feel close to the OP, regardless of what bank accounts or living arrangements he shares with his mother.
What’s the OP supposed to do? Personally, I would do as suggested earlier and be there in town to support my girlfriend but not crash the wedding. Maybe a week after the wedding, I’d politely inquire how the wedding was. But after that, I would let it go. If I am upset now because her son’s decision hurts my girlfriend’s feelings, how does thinking her son’s a jerk, criticizing him, embarrassing him about it later, etc. not hurt her further?
I like to think that in the coming years, OP and son will grow close, and the son will come to regret his decision to not invite him to his wedding. And maybe he’ll say so to the OP. None of that can happed if things turn ugly now.
And he should be willing to live with the rift he’s created between himself and his partners’ SOs. They don’t have to cause scenes, but they don’t have to be any more than polite, either.
I think the question there is, how serious is the OP’s SO about their relationship? And how long should the son carry resentment towards his parents’ partners? If he’s starting his own marriage, he ought to be willing to let bygones be bygones. I think if I were the bride, I’d be apprehensive about committing myself to someone who shows so little capacity for forgiveness. Unless there has been unfortunate behavior on the part of the OP or the dad’s SO, but in that case, that should be talked out as well.
It doesn’t have to turn ugly. I’m not suggesting that anyone crash the wedding, or even bring up the subject afterwards. But, for instance, say a couple years from now, the son and his wife need a loan or some kind of favor. I would see two choices: say no and say goodbye to the SO, because she’s set a pattern of siding with her son, or say yes and live with knowing that you did a favor for someone who hates your guts.
The son has created a barrier between himself and his parents’ SOs. They can and should accept it with calm grace. But accepting it means that they will make no attempts to breach that barrier. And if the son ends up regretting his decision, he’ll have to apologize (not just “say” that he regrets it) to them, before they can begin to grow close.
Absolutely.
Whoa, why does this have to change anything? Are you saying that for someone to be truly serious about their relationship, they need to take their SO’s side when things like this happen? I’d kinda think that if someone was with someone for 5 years and had bank accounts with them, they were serious. This treads a little too close to ultimatum territory.
Maybe there’s no resentment, but a desire to see his parents without their new SOs on this important day in his life.
I think you’re seeing way more than I intended or there is evidence for. Maybe the guy’s parents split, he never got close to his father’s or mother’s new SOs, and now on his wedding day he wants to see just his parents without the reminders that their marriage failed. I don’t think that’s unreasonable.
Well, gee, maybe the OP should just dump his girlfriend right now and save himself the stress and heartache.
I expect that in a couple of years from now, the OP and the son are a little bit past the stage they’re at now. Or maybe they won’t be. But why think about that now? If they wind up in that circumstance, then that sucks. But if that happens, it won’t be the son’s fault, or the OP’s fault, or the girlfriend’s fault-- it’ll be on all of them.
Again, I think you’re seeing a greater rift than we have evidence for so far. Yes, he’s saying to the OP, “I don’t want you at my wedding.” He’s not saying, “I don’t want you in my life.” The OP said specifically that there were no problems between the two of them up until now.
You can’t force anyone to be closer to someone, so of course they should “make no attempts to breach this barrier.” If the son and the OP grow close in time, then great. If not, well, that’s a shame, but it happens that families are families in name only.
As for the apology, if it happens, that’s between the OP, his girlfriend and the son.
Mmm, I think that holds true for when it comes to who’s actually showing up when you look at the names on the invitation, but for the matter of whom a bride and groom are inviting, then spouses, fiances, and long-term partners of the invitees should also come with. So it would be rude for the OP to crash the wedding, but it’s also terribly rude for the couple to not invite the OP.
Frankly, I do think it’s unreasonable. Would the couple be able to not invite any spouses in a couple where there was a divorce before? Mustn’t let bad divorce vibes rub off on the marriage ceremony, after all. What if his parents had both remarried? What if they’d divorced when younger, remarried, and had kids that the guy grew up with from an early age? Hell, maybe he shouldn’t invite the parents either, while he’s at it.
Sorry, but no. Unless some obvious wrongdoing has been done, he’s gone against proper etiquette and just plain common kindness here.
I absolutely agree w/ AudreyK. The OP’s attitude smacks of self centered pettiness. Maybe the son just doesn’t want to deal w/ the awkwardness of having the new partners present, or he may anticipate the possiblility of some animosity developing.
If I were in the OP’s position, I would support my SO and tell her that I understood the son’s desire and agreed w/ it. By objecting and seeing yourself as excluded, or that he is “disrespecting” his mother, you are only making the situation more difficult.
I’m getting married next year and I can not imagine the rudeness of doing that. There are people that get invited to every wedding that at least one of the bridal party isn’t thrilled about and there is uncomfortable feelings. That’s life. Just because it’s your wedding day doesn’t give you the right to rewrite the past to remove your parents’ divorce and the fact that they got on with their lives. The OP’s girlfriend is in a bad place, and there is no way she can win this. Go with her to the town and chill at the hotel while she’s a the wedding, so you can be there if she needs you.
It’s valid that they should have the final say, but probably not the only one. At the very least, it isn’t realistic to expect that those who pay (bride’s parents?) will have no say.
But it remains both wrong and foolish for bride or groom to make choices that are likely to cause resentment. The fact that they have the power to do so in no way means that people will not resent and remember selfish and inconsiderate actions.
Lots of talk about resentment and future bad feelings over this, I don’t see it. The OP isn’t the kids stepfather, he had very little or nothing to do w/ raising the kid, it doesn’t sound like he even knows the kid very well. The OP hasn’t married the kid’s mother, so I don’t see where he’s got much standing in family affairs. I think most of the posters are making mountains out of molehills. We only have one side of this story, we are left to speculate and my speculation is that the OP is thinking primarily about himself and not trying to consider the kid’s position.
Huh? Did you read the OP? I do support my SO and her feelings. I have not in any way said anything negative to her or him or anyone in our RL.
Like any parent her world revolves around her children. His actions are hurting her as she wants to believe she had not raised such a jerk and she wants to share his happiness with those close to her. There has been nothing between he and I to warrant this. All of the self centered pettiness is his.
I’m content let it go.
How does the OP and the real father get along? How does the GF and SO of real father get along? Are their problems there? Did any of these SO’s who are not invited have something to do with the breakup of the parents? Or at least the perception of having something to do with it? (such as starting to date within a week of divorce or something).
If there isn’t something you aren’t saying here, yes the son seems to be an asshole. One other possibility; are the bride’s parents/family/her religious and don’t want to be reminded of the heresy that is divorce? If so the son could be choosing to be the asshole in the hopes that it will be easier to forgive and forget with him then with her.
Don’t fight, kudos to you for taking the high road and making this bad situation as easy on your SO as possible. Hopefully there will be a chance in the future for you and your SO’s son to reconcile. Leave the door open, his feelings may soften with time. Good luck.
The groom is being rude in every sense of the word. He is being rude=asshole with that self-centered ‘this day is about us’ Groomzilla jive. And he is being rude=against etiquette, as well.
The standard etiquette on social invitations is clear – social units must be invited together. In today’s lexicon, married couples, engaged couples, and couples who are living together spousally are considered to be social units. Ask Miss Manners, ask Peggy Post, ask whoever is currently channeling Amy Vanderbilt – the etiquette on this question is clear.
Is etiquette enforcable? No. Do people have a ‘right’ to be rude? Well, yes, they do – at least insofar that there is no etiquette police force who will come and ‘make them’ be polite. And it is his wedding. He can, indeed, invite whomever he wants. But failing to invite half of an established couple is rude, rude, RUDE. This would be the case even if the couple he was stiffing was a neighbor or coworker. The fact that he is stiffing his mother makes him rude & mean, rude & mean, RUDE & MEAN.
But what can you do? Nothing. As the OP and his girlfriend very wisely see, there is nothing that can be done in this case, unless the girlfriend wants to ‘make a point’ by skipping her son’s wedding – and I certainly can’t blame her for not wanting to do that. I commend you, Don’t fight the hypothetical, for taking the high road.
I would view it as the groom-to-be being rude to his mother, rather than to the OP. While it is certainly his party (assuming he and his fiance are paying for it themselves, of course - if they’re not and their parents are chipping in, failing to invite the current SOs of the parents is well beyond merely rude) and he therefore has the right to invite anyone he so chooses, I read the OP as saying that he went out of his way to disinvite the parents of the groom’s new SOs. That creates an awkward situation for the groom’s mother (and father) and isn’t being courteous to her. As an additional bonus, it really only serves to create familial stress.
It’s my understanding that for established couples (married, engaged, living together), the assumption for formal social events is that if one is invited, the other is invited - the invitation is to the unit as opposed to the individual. (Please note that the unit does not include children or other members of the household unless specifically indicated, though.)
Is it possible that the GF’s son and fiancee just reallyreally dislike the father’s GF (perhaps they think she’ll behave badly and ruin the wedding?) and wish to exclude her, so to be fair, they’re doing the same with the mother’s BF? Still selfish, but more understandable.
These are my questions as well. If there’s no bad blood between the parents and the new SOs, I think as a parent I would approach the kid and ask him why he thought this would be the way to handle it. If there IS bad blood, well…I think the OP did the right thing by not stirring up the shit. But what a sad situation.
My fiance and I both strongly dislike our stepmothers, but we would never dream of excluding them from our wedding! I can’t even imagine how you get to that point. How on earth do you justify such cruelty?
Spouses, fiance(e)s, people in a spousal relationship, and long term partners should get invited. SO-of-the-month, not necessarily, but you’re not the SO-of-the-month.
Also, uninviting people is rude.
I have to agree with you. My thoughts are the groom probably doesn’t want the awkwardness of dealing with his parent’s SO if they aren’t committed to one another. Who should be in the pictures? Who should be dancing when the parents are supposed to dance? Am I going to end up with a photo album of ex lovers of my divorced parents?
Also, he most likely wants his parents to be a “couple” for his special day.
None of this means it is either appropriate or inappropriate. My point is just that I can see where he may be coming from.
Here’s a little secret for anyone fixin’ to get married. Your wedding day is NOT all about you. It is about your guests sharing and celebrating your happiness. If you want a wedding day that is all about you, then elope, don’t have a wedding with over a hundred guests and not invite your parents’ Sos.
My vote: rude prick.
Also: I can’t shake the feeling that when his parents get to the wedding, they’ll be told to act like they’re still married. Maybe I’ve seen too many bad movies.