Good point Foxy40, who wants to show their wedding album a few years from now and have to tell someone that those two people were my mother’s and dad’s live in lovers once upon a time.
I think the OP was worded to get validation, not to solicit contrary opinions. It would be interesting to hear the other side of this situation.
Yep - just what I was going to say.
Yes, the groom can do whatever the hell he wants. But this particular move makes him a rude asshole. Sorry, you’re 24, your parents got divorced and have moved on with their lives. Not inviting their respective SOs makes you a petulant, snotty little shit, not mature enough to get married, IMHO.
To the OP - you’re doing the right thing. I agree you should travel with your SO and just go golfing or something on wedding day. You are a couple - if your SO is very upset about this (as it sounds like she is) it would be a nice show of support for her if you travel with her.
Good for you for taking the high road.
Well, but why not tell people that the guy in the pictures was mom’s live-in lover? They’ve been living together for five years, no matter what happens in the future, he will always be a part of the groom’s mother’s past. Its too late to erase him.
Exactly. And this is the part that bothers me. I cannot imagine not taking my own mother’s feelings into account in matters like these and trying to force her to couple up with the man that left her for another woman (who he is still with). Of course I respect my mother.
She’s over it and friendly towards him, just doesn’t want to be a couple with him in any situation and I think it is cruel that the son might be trying to force that upon her.
I agree that the son is being a bit jerkish here.
However, I also know that divorce can leave bizarre and tricky dynamics. My folks divorced when I was 21, very amicably. Since then my dad doesn’t talk with my mom. There’s just some weird stuff going on, and honestly I dread the idea of having to witness that awkwardness at my wedding, if I have one, or my sister’s wedding.
Never have I seen two people so obviously share their scorn/discomfort for each other in public as many divorced couples do. Not to make a judgment on the OP’s girlfriend, but I could see the son doing this in an effort to minimize the general awkwardness of the situation. It’s not that the wedding day is about him and his bride, but that it’s not about his parents specifically, or their SOs specifically. He could be trying to avoid them inadvertantly (or intentionaly) making the day about them.
However, as I said, he is doing it wrongly, IMHO. As much as I honestly do worry about what I’ll do in that situation, there’s no way in hell I would tell my dad to not bring his wife to my wedding. Both because she likes me and would want to be there, and because she’d want to be there for my dad, and it would be important for both of them.
Ah, and I think I see the problem.
So one of the SO DID have something to do with the divorce?
I believe this was done as a “fair” thing, in that the groom (or bride) did not want that homewrecker there. You got caught in the crossfire.
A rather stupid decision IMO, but I suppose I can sort of understand it. However, if it was me, and I didn’t want HER there, I would just say so, and let you come, but YMMV.
Hard to know for sure but it doesn’t really seem to be the case. There have been situations where we have all 4 been together with the kids, such as school functions etc, and everyone behaved just fine.
We have no evidence the OP was uninvited. He said, “[the son] requested that I not attend.” This could mean the OP was either was not named on the invitation, or the invitation was verbal and extended only to his girlfriend. I think the OP should clarify this point, though.
If that’s what they wanted. They could address their wedding invitations to only the person they wanted to attend. But I think it’s obvious that their parents would be much more important to them than any other family member, so they’d be more likely to care about with whom their parents attended their wedding.
What if his parents were circus clowns and could provide free entertainment? Does it matter what hypothetical variation could change things? Not really. As it is, the groom doesn’t feel close enough to the OP to want him at his wedding.
Who says he’s rewriting history? The son is probably completely aware that once the wedding is done, his mom and dad are going home to their SOs. He’s not scheming to get them back together or trying to maintain his denial that they’re not in love anymore. Maybe he just wants his mom and dad there, without the SOs he doesn’t consider to be parental figures.
Agreed. If either the OP, his girlfriend, the son’s father, or his father’s girlfriend are paying for the wedding, then they all should be invited. And the son will have to face the consequences of his request, such as his mother’s hurt, the OP’s anger, and future embarrassment over why the OP wasn’t invited.
Which is why I absolutely loathe etiquette. I’ll probably be getting married in a year or so, and I hate the idea that I must invite anyone. If this makes me immature and selfish, so be it. As far as I can tell, you get drama whether you invite everyone you feel obligation to invite or invite only the people you want anyway.
What’s the difference between an SO and a child? Why is it acceptable to assume one is invited but not the other? IMO, an unnamed person is an unnamed person and should not be assumed to be invited, regardless of their relationship.
If anything, shouldn’t the child to be the automatic assumed invitee, given that one’s child more closely related to the invitee and likelier to need supervision?
For the record, I would not leave my parents’ SOs out of my wedding. Even if I didn’t like their new partners, I’d invite them because not inviting them would bring the complications the OP is dealing with. But I understand why someone would decide to deal with the complications to have the wedding they want to.
I’d like to offer another viewpoint on your girlfriend’s son’s behavior. He is dealing with his fiancee and his future in-laws. He may have hooked-up with a bridezilla and just not want to rock the boat.
Just one possibility: These people may have old-fashioned or conservative ideas. He is trying to fit in and adapt to this new family and may not want to call attention to his family’s “lack of perfection.” Sad as it is, he might be feeling ashamed. Perhaps he figures (or hopes) that his own family will love him anyway and understand. You could almost see it as a back-handed compliment–I trust you enough to ask you to stay away and still love my mom and perhaps still accept me with all my flaws.
For my oldest daughter, this in-law issue was a real problem in planning her wedding. Her future in-laws still considered divorce sinful and no one in their family had a “broken marriage.” They really struggled with my father and mother (divorced), both re-married and divorced, and then remarried again, with children from all the couplings. Now all of us get along just fine, all the half-siblings and semi-half siblings and unrelated kids who still consider themselves sort of cousins. But my daughter’s future in-laws were totally shocked. My daughter tried to bend over backwards to fit ino her new family, causing a few hurt feelings on the home front from “extended aunts and uncles.” She had always considered us to be “normal” and it really shattered her world when her future in-laws were so judgemental.
All was talked through–but it was difficult. We solved the big dilemma by having an extended “as_u_wish siblings’ celebration” separate from the regular wedding. All of my myriad relations celebrated the strangeness of our extended though broken family and how it made us tolerant.
I think travelling with your girlfriend but graciously skipping the ceremony and reception is an excellent choice. Make the trip a mini-vaction with a stop off for the (uptight) wedding. You could also (if you and your girlfriend think it worthwhile), open a discussion with her son on how you can best offer your support and congratulations to the new couple–perhaps taking them out privately to dinner if their pre-wedding or honeymoon plans permit it.
Of course, feeling evil, you could also photo-shop yourself into the wedding picture and have it framed at your house when he and his wife come to visit. Always nice to get in a jab at the new daughter-in-law. 
The established SO can’t be assumed to be invited, either. The difference is the host is being rude if the established SO isn’t invited by name , because married couples have always been treated by etiquette as a social unit and this has been extended to include engaged, live-in and similarly established couples.
find out how much his wedding cost, (per person/plate amount)…
leave him exactly that amount in your will. Donate the rest to the “international Society for teh Preservation of Clown Based Compost Factories” or something
Until you die, make every assurance of being “OK” with his choice
Pay extra to have embalmer create a smirk on your face when you die…
regards
FML
Oooo… now that has possibilities.
I think it is rude, but probably not intentionally so.
Possibly he thinks that people will be gawping at the four of you, he is not that long out of the school yard/college romance era. Possibly his and his lass’s friends would gawp at the four of you.
If you normally get on Ok with him, then I would just forget it.
Driving your lass down makes sense, in the evening the four of you could get together and laugh it off.
When he gets older he’ll find that it is not unusual for divorced people to get along pretty well with each other and their SOs.
I certainly would not worry about it.
It’s nothing to do with the closeness of the relationship. It’s to do with a couple being a standard social unit. doreen’s response above was exactly right from an etiquette perspective.
Etiquette provides guidelines, but as I said before, they aren’t enforcable by law. You can do whatever you like. But if you disregard standard social norms, then you’re going to be considered rude, and people (your friends and family, presumably) might very well be offended. If you can live with that, I certainly can. Personally, I’ve found that sticking with the social conventions usually provides me with much less drama in my life than flauting them. YMMV
It seems to me that the point of a wedding is to establish that the couple IS a social unit. Whether or not “living together” counts is a trickier issue that reasonable people can disagree on–though I personally would see “living together” couples as a social unit–but once you are married, wouldn’t it sting if anyone invited your husband to an event–a family wedding, Christmas dinner, whatever–and didn’t invite you? When you say not inviting someone brings “complications” you seem to be (and correct me if I am wrong) implying that it’s unreasonable for people to get upset about being excluded from these sorts of events. The reason weddings are a big deal is because it is a big deal to publically establish that you and this other person are now family, are now a unit. To have that ignored is going to sting. Inviting the other person has nothing to do with etiquette and everything to do with simply being kind.
You can do what you want
Other people are free to think you are a selfish twit for doing it
Etiquette is there so the fewest people possible believe you are a selfish twit. (You can’t please everyone).
Don’t fight the hypothetical, you are in the right, he’s in the wrong. He’s 24…and obviously a very ‘young’ (read: immature) 24. I hope he handles his marriage better than this, or it won’t last long.
I agree with prior posters: Make the trip, hold your GF’s hand til its time for her to go to the ceremony and be on call to pick her up from the reception. Make it a Spa day for yourself (with cellphone On, of course).
The important thing is that you are there for your GF before & after, so that she’s not isolated by these spiteful creatures and stressed out. From your end, you miss a stuffy ceremony, rubber chicken, dressing in a Tux-costume, and ‘the electric slide’. Afterwards, you’ll have her in your life and get to live happily ever after, which I’d be willing to bet is two things the groom won’t get as wedding presents.