Friend not invited to her daughters wedding

I’m afraid that I can only echo what others have said. I understand why your friend is upset that she didn’t get to see her daughter married, that is sad, but equally, really your friend seems to have brought this on herself. If she never even allows her SiL into her house, I can’t see how she could have expected to be invited to the wedding. Very sad situation all round really. There are no winners here.

So she wanted to go to the celebration of bed daughter marrying someone she dislikes and won't allow in her home. I find that rather strange. Also it would be rather two faced to send congratulations.

As ye sow, so shall ye reap. Maybe they just wanted happy faces at their wedding, not sour ones?

I agree sarahellen, this seems to be a case of a possibly natural first reaction to finding her daughter getting together with this particular man has gone too far. She really needs to make sure she keeps seeing her daughter and GC as much as possible. Has the friend felt her daughter was unhappy in any way? If not she should reconcile with her now SIL asap.

Unless the problem is ongoing criminality, did your friend not realise how she was hurting her daughter by banning her prospective husband? You don’t seem to be suggesting, unlike Purplepoppies’ sad situation, that the SIL is abusive to her daughter or grandchildren so she needs to put it all behind her and send her congratulations and sorrow that her past behaviour resulted in this impasse. Then invite them all for a celebration tea and go on from there.

I don’t like my SIL but I love to pieces my DD and GCs and so does he so we keep it civil for everyone’s sake.

My German parents in law (but mostly the MiL) refused to even meet me or our two grandchildren. They just hated me for being who I am (mixed race from South America). We had a small civil ceremony and of course the weren't invited. After my FiL died my husband got very ill and permanently ill/disabled. My MiL was forced to meet me as I was her son's carer, and I made every effort to be nice to her. She later came to like me very much. Sometimes these passionate hatreds are based on nothing more than rumour and hearsay and prejudice. They thought I was a poor immigrant after the inheritance.

Might it depend on why Sil was banned? We don't need to know details but leave it to Florence's common sense.

There is obviously something going on in this family that neither OP nor the rest of us have been told about or can guess at.

Frankly, I don't understand why this woman's daughter has bothered to keep up a relationship with her mother. I would not have done so, if my mother had behaved like that to my DH.

I understand very well why the daughter and SIL here didn't invite the bride's family to the wedding.

If OP's friend wants to try and improve the situation, she needs to apologise to her daughter for her previous behaviour and ask whether her daughter's husband is willing to meet her so they can try to get to know each other for his wife and children's sake. If he agrees, and it is a very big if, she really will need to watch her p's and q's, otherwise it will end with the young family marching out the door again and not coming back.

If the suspected criminal activity in SIL's family is not something he is actively involved in, it seems very unfair and unkind to blame him for behaviour he may not approve of himself.

I can't help wondering why the whole family want nothing to do with this man? Not just the mum.

Friend can't have it both ways. SiL banned by her and all her relatives, yet they all expect to be invited to the wedding. Assume the bride and children in question are the only people here to be accepted by both sides - the couple did not have much option.

What goes around comes around.

When my aunt married my grandfather was heard saying:”I feel like going to a funeral”. He was right my uncle is a “charming to the world” nasty wife and child beater a total controller. My grandfather never refused him but kept contact to a minimum.
The only reason I can see why someone would refuse to be with a family member is if they were abusive ie take away all self worth from another person.
I would be devastated if one of my children was with an abusive partner (mental or physical) and I could not pretend to like him or her. However, I would be glad to not be invited to the wedding as it would have save me from refusing the invitation.

Your friend is being very unreasonable. As said above it’s understandable why her daughter didn’t invite her. I upset my mother when I didn’t invite an uncle; I had good reason not to want him at my wedding.

My mother and father divorced and he lived with a new partner, one I had known for years. During one visit he announced that they had got married and brought out the photos chatting about all the people pictured and what a fantastic time they had had.

It never occured to either of them for a moment that I might be upset (putting it mildly) that I had not even had an invitation.

Families are rum.

If I was in your friends' shoes I would ask myself "what is more important? My dislike of my SiL or my love and support for my DD ??"

As for why the whole family and not just the mother have banned him, it’s also possible that the mother’s family have fallen in with her wishes about this if she expresses them freely. They won’t have wanted her drama at their weddings either.

MIL had me banned from all ‘her’ family events for many years until the wee ones were born. Even then I was barred from DH’s cousin’s wedding on a pretext that I would “make one of the tables an uneven number”

So yes, SIL might be awful, but OP’s pal might equally be the awful one here.

I feel sorry for the poor bride either way. Sorrier if its her mum that’s awful, as at least SIL was her own choice to become her family.

A lot of information is missing here.....What happened to cause the rift in the first place and how did events unfold after that?

Understandibly, mother is upset. On the other hand, SIL must have done something pretty awful.....How bad was it? What did he do? Did other family members (on either side) play a part, take sides or otherwise behave badly? Who paid/planned the wedding (decided the guest list)?

Without all the facts, there has to be a lot of guess work and it's hard to make constructive comments.

Strange, look after the grandkids but don`t let their dad into your home. Your friend is lucky they allow her to see the kids, but I would be horrified not to be invited to her wedding.

I don't understand why she is 'lucky to see her grandchildren' - for all we know DD and SIL let her do full time free childminding and yet despise her behind her back - we just don't have enough detail. Obviously there would be no wedding invitation if he was barred from the house though, that goes without saying.

One of my cousins got married without inviting his parents or any other members of his family as far as I know. We all thought it odd but could only speculate about the reasons. As we weren't close to that aunt and uncle we never inquired as to how they felt but I remember finding it quite shocking at the time.
There seems to be good reason for this situation in this case and I just think it very sad that families end up divided in this way. I'd be devastated if my daughter got married without me being there but then even if I didn't approve of her choice of partner I can't imagine banning him from my home unless there were very extreme circumstances. I hope the OP's friend can find a way to be reconciled or we'll likely be hearing of her being banned from seeing her DGC. A very sad situation all round!

There is so much missing information that probably can't be provided by the OP so we could all endlessly speculate about the possible reasons for the friend's intense dislike of the sil. The sil has not restricted contact with the grandchildren which is positive in the circumstances.

What grans have made pretty clear is that unless the friend has very, very good reasons for disliking and banning her sil from her home she shouldn't feel surprised or aggrieved that she wasn't invited to the wedding. As others have said there is a world of difference between not particularly liking an inlaw and an inlaw with a criminal history/connections or who is abusive or violent. The OPs friend has a lot of thinking to do especially if she values her relationship with her daughter and grandchildren.

Have a former friend who’s ostracised her daughter so much, she was not at her own daughter’s wedding. I was there. So sad that people can come to this..it was a lovely day. She missed it.

This is all very sad and could possibly be resolved by letting the past remain there and start building bridges quickly. How mum will ever get over missing out on the wedding is hard to see but at least the grandchildren are still in your friend's life (hopefully not just as a convenience)? That would be a real heart-breaker if that changed! Reminds me very much of a couple of books I read recently (The Belle Fields and sequel Ashes of Roses by Lora Adams) where little initial problems in families quickly turn into major crises and literally wreck what little was there in the first place. Perhaps some quick action on the mum's part and understanding why this has happened will save future grief??

Well normally I would think parents should be invited, if its a big wedding, but not if you have this bad relationship with son in law.
I do wonder though that no one seems to like her choice of partner. That would worry me.

Thank you so much for all your comments, I have printed them to give to my friend and have discussed the first dozen with her - haven’t spoken to her today, so will talk over the rest if she wants next week.

We don’t have enough information, as several people have said, to make very informed comments, but it does seem to me that my friend (not a very close friend but someone I met at a book group) has made a huge leap in banning her SiL because of the (alleged) criminality of his family.

I think that Muffinthemoo and Aruna make very cogent points about how they were treated by their MiLs. And Lumerais story does put another point of view.

I hope it works out well for everyone concerned. It’s certainly made me appreciate my own in laws who were always welcoming.

It’s been my first post, and am so pleased to have got all this experience and generous advice from so many people. ?