Woman Is Shocked by Sister-In Law’s Grudge Over a Wedding and a Funeral
“If you feel you have no reason to forgive someone,
Consider this one – forgive because you deserve peace of mind.
Holding a grudge is like making your worst enemy the center of your life,
Don’t give such authority to anyone,
A grudge only hurts you,so what’s the point of holding it?
Its like holding a really sharp edged knife hoping it’ll slice your enemys fingers when in the actual sense its slicing your own.
We all wish grudges could hurt the ones we hold them against but sadly they only hurt us.” — from the poem The Truth about Holding a Grudge by Tapiwa Individualist
Who would think that someone would hold a grudge for two years just because of a wedding and a baby?
And who would expect to be spat at with awful bitterness just after someone died because of what happened two years ago?
Yes, it’s been two years since this Original Poster with the username HuxleyDog published about her dilemma on Mumsnet. At that time, she shared details about her brother and his bride, whose wedding had to be cancelled twice due to financial problems and the COVID-19 pandemic.
In contrast, OP wedded the love of her life before the unexpected global health crisis. Their careers were also stable and they had a healthy boy despite the many challenges that confronted the world.
With the painful ordeals that everyone was going through, a wedding between OP’s brother and his bride would be a good reason to celebrate. OP was filled with enthusiasm about it because, just like her new family, her brother deserved to be happy too.
However, in that first post a couple of years ago, she wrote: “I could tell when I told him on Zoom there was an issue. He came into the garden a week ago and said that the baby wasn’t invited. I was devastated. He spoke about unfortunate timing. My mother told him and future SIL the reality of having a new born and how we can’t be separated and how if there were issues the baby would be taken out. My brother apparently looked embarrassed, but future SIL said baby would be a distraction from the wedding with aunts and cousins naturally wanting to see him.”
Yet, that was not the worst. OP’s brother and bride decided not to invite OP’s husband too. OP was already willing to go alone to the wedding while her husband would be looking after their baby at home. But they had agreed that OP’s husband would come to the reception to get a chance to greet the newlyweds. Instead, the bride and groom opined that OP’s husband would be just another distraction like their baby, and so it would be best for him not to come at all.
At the time of her first post, OP was really heartbroken.
But then, something happened that was unknown to OP. She and her husband, along with their baby, were finally invited to the wedding! What’s more, when her family seated themselves at the back so there would be no distraction in case their son cried, OP’s dad made them join the entire family in front. Fortunately, OP’s baby just slept throughout the ceremony.
That was two years ago. OP and her family have since then living peacefully, unaware of any conflict between them and her brother’s own family. She did admit that her relationship with her sister-in-law has changed, with OP also refraining to ask her brother about his wife because something about the question always embarrassed the latter.
And then, OP and her mom learned that her SIL’s father died. They immediately went to her home to console her, but she was out with her mother, and so they waited. But what happened next surprised them both.
OP wrote in her current post, “When she came in, she screamed at us to get out, saying it wasn’t about us and we’d ruined her wedding. She claimed that we didn’t care for her father but we should be happy we had saved money on the band. We had no idea what she was talking about.”
It was only then that OP found out the reason for her SIL’s grudge. She continued to relate in her post, “It turned out my father, who is divorced from my mother, had withdrawn funding from their wedding when he found out my husband and baby were banned from wedding. When we were invited and my dad tried to pay, sister-in-law’s dad wouldn’t take the money. None of us knew this. My mother swears she knew nothing.”
OP tried texting her SIL to apologize and say they didn’t know anything about what happened two years ago. But her SIL has already blocked her number. When she talked about it with her brother, he advised OP to simply let go of the matter. On the other hand, their dad became upset upon learning about his daughter-in-law’s grudge, but he felt he didn’t do anything wrong, especially since OP’s baby didn’t cause any trouble at all during the wedding.
Is there something else she could do about the situation, OP was asking other parents on Mumsnet?
Based on a few comments, it’s best for babies and children not to be invited to weddings because they often cause distraction to the ceremony. (But none of them offered any justification for having OP’s husband uninvited as well — with the bride the only one who was fearing that he would “steal” attention away from her wedding too.)
A few tried to accuse OP’s father of being manipulative as well, for making his financial contribution to the wedding conditional.
Yet, the majority of the commenters were in favor of traditional family values as expressed below:
From QueenSmartypants: “Didn’t read the responses when I looked at your old thread, but fairly certain this all comes from your sister-in-law. Jealousy and resentment. You’ve done all you can, and she isn’t prepared to let it go. I think you need to come to terms with it and stop apologising to her now. Maintain kind and civil behaviour – as I think you have done – but also keep your own boundaries and distance yourself emotionally from both of them. This way you protect yourself and your relationship with your brother while giving her no grounds for complaint (although she will anyway). She is not going to forgive. Good on your parents for standing up for you – I don’t often see that, and I’m sorry, because I know it hurts.”
From MatildaTheCat: “Someone so unreasonable is very unlikely to become reasonable after a major bereavement. Leave her to it and maintain your relationship with your DB as best you can.”
FrustatedAgain: “I don’t think what your dad did was entirely unreasonable. When you accept monies from parents towards a wedding, I believe they are within their rights to have some input into that day. I don’t think your brother and SIL should expect him to give them money when his daughter, grandchild, and son-in-law were being excluded from the day. If you want your wedding 100% on your terms, you need to fund it 100% yourself. Your SIL is never going to let this go; she sounds like she is just generally an unreasonable character. I’d just be guided by your brother here; he seems to want to be able to maintain contact with you, so just let him do so.”
