Updates: “Not Invited to the Wedding” Responds
It’s time again for “Dear Wendy Updates,” a feature where people I’ve given advice to in the past let us know whether they followed the advice and how they’re doing now. Today we hear from “Not Invited to the Wedding” who wasn’t invited to her boyfriend’s daughter’s wedding despite having lived with her boyfriend for two years. “The wedding is this weekend and I haven’t even decided if I should bother with the long car trip there and back since I don’t know if I’ll be ignored.” Keep reading to see whether she decided to make the long car trip to the wedding she wasn’t invited to or not.
The last comment in the original post (from RMc) was spot on as to what initially happened, but my boyfriend decided to take the high road, escort her down the aisle, and leave early. Still, his family expected that Susie owned the entire state that the wedding took place in and especially the 10-square-mile venue. One of her uncles came to our hotel to yell at me after I visited another part of the PUBLIC venue during the rehearsal.
We’re going to wait until we get a genuine invitation to spend time with the family, but my boyfriend has made it clear that he plans to have a thorough discussion with the controlling family members before that or before he chooses to spend time with them again. If anything good has come out of this, it’s that he’s finally determined to get the uber control issues of his family of origin and his daughter laid out, as he sees it.
I wonder if it was “classy” enough for you that we purchased 8-place settings of fine china as a wedding gift — Noritake, not just something that comes in a jumbo pack at Costco (not that I don’t love Costco) — plus serving pieces? I do paper arts and spent 4 hours purchasing materials and wrapping the gift and then more time making the card, directed specifically at the family, and then hand-delivered it to the venue so my partner wouldn’t have to carry it beforehand. I intended to provide a memento of the wedding by rooting a plant used in his boutonniere, but we sadly killed it on the way home.
Are they my family now? Not until they can behave with courtesy.
By the way, you’re in the vast minority of people who have responded to this. About 90% believed Susie was a turd and did the wrong thing by not inviting me regardless of whether or not I went. A shocking number of people thought I should “crash” the wedding – yes, many “classy” people and even people involved in the wedding industry.
Etiquette exists for a reason, especially surrounding weddings and family events. By the way, my boyfriend has *always* maintained that a wedding is for the family. Why do you think some families get so upset when their offspring elope? Etiquette exists to guide behavior and prepare people for social situations.
I enjoy your blog, but don’t provide any identifying characteristics about me whatsoever. My boyfriend would like to plan the intervention without any chance at all that it will be happening.
So, you would never crash a wedding, but you showed up at the wedding venue, uninvited, to hand-deliver a gift and, I guess, hang out on some its 10-square miles close enough that family members saw you, and you think you’re in a position to lecture anyone on etiquette, courtesy, classiness, and proper behavior in social situations? Mmmkay.
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If you’re someone I’ve given advice to in the past, I’d love to hear from you, too. Email me at [email protected] with a link to the original post, and let me know whether you followed the advice and how you’re doing now.
Man, I have no idea why the family didn’t want you there.
Eh, this letter is hilarious in that it so fully illustrates just how the most self absorbed somehow always have no clear concept of not only what they are TRULY like — but also, how the rest of the world sees them.
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PS — It’s never a very pretty picture either.
I’m pretty sure that the dollar amount spent on a gift has no impact on “classiness”…
Miss Classy High-Road believes it does!! This one definitely has some hubris.
Man, why did you insist on going if she made it clear that she didn’t want you there? It was her wedding, you should have respected that. No matter how insulted you were, you contributed to making more drama during one of the most important days of her life. Oh, but I guess spending 4 hours choosing materials solves years of resentment towards you…
You needed to take the high road and expect to try solve things in another time, not her wedding. Also, why treating her like a bitch when you are being waaay bitchier?
Who else thinks that “spot-on” comment by “RMc” is actually from the LW?
Yup, I was just thinking that. The comment also came a week after the original letter was published online.
Oh without a doubt.
I had to go back and look at it and it absolutely is the LW. There’s no way it isn’t.
I went back and read it. If she thinks wanting to punch the groom in the face is appropriate she has no sense of classy.
Yep, totally. Especially since the comment seems to be targeted to the LW’s boyfriend, and not the LW. It is along the same nonsensical vein of this Updates’s last paragraph, which doesnt make sense without more info. (Not personal info, LW, I didnt mean that.)
I can see why her bf’s family doesn’t like her. She’s pushy, delusional, controlling, entitled, manipulative, and annoying. I mean really, does anyone really care that she spent 4 hours gift-wrapping? 4 hours! Gift-wrapping boxes, with easy edges and flat surfaces. Getting an expensive gift and then spending that much time wrapping the box/boxes, was all on them, and had nothing to do with the bride.
I’m pretty sure she ventured out to the “public” space during the rehearsal on purpose. And I’m also sure that most of the family doesn’t like her because I’m sure their probable affair and subsequent living arrangement wasn’t exactly private.
The LW and the girlfriend of the guy who left his Russian wife and two kids should meet up. But it already feels like all her friends are as delusional and entitled as she is.
I wonder how many people LW polled! I mean to arrive at 90%… here alone there were a ton of comments, all against her going.
I was wondering the same thing. She would need to poll at least 10 people and I can’t imagine 9 out of 10 agreeing that she should crash a wedding. Maybe they work for her and had no choice but to agree because she’s so nasty they didn’t want the retaliation that was sure to follow if they spoke the truth.
You just go onto facebook and post some vague status about how his family is so mean, then all your crazy friends (because people like this only have crazy friends) respond back saying his family is horrible and she is awesome. I have a few cousins like this, I am facebook friends with them to provide some amusement to my otherwise sane days.
Maybe she should have attached a note telling the bride and groom that she spent four hours wrapping the gift, how else would they know and appreciate her classy effort.
I love that LW didn’t clarify the timeline, after so many of us asked about it in the original comments.
I also love that the card was “directed specifically” at the family. Who else was it going to be directed to????
The part about them “sadly killing” the plant on the way home was also wonderful.
I don’t understand the last paragraph. Like at all.
And LW, classy people don’t generally go around calling people turds and bitches.
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I do comment art. It took me 6 hours to write this. 😛
I laughed out loud at your last sentence 🙂
😉
I’d also like to know exactly what the”trap” was? It was made perfectly clear you weren’t wanted at the wedding.
I was trying to figure out how often Wendy gives out personal information about the LWs as well. Although the comment before about an intervention had me confused too. Is that in regards to the controlling behavior?
AhahAHAaaaaa!
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As I read it, I thought “origami” and I just kept going, but I’m quit befuddled by that. Pinata-making maybe she means? I dunno. Also, why couldn’t bf carry the wrapped present, err art work?
Um, you just called Susie a bitch and a turd. Big surprise that she didn’t want you at her wedding…
Oh God, no wonder the LW and the family don’t like you. You’re a piece of work. Who lurks around the “public” venue of the wedding they’re not invited to, a crazy person. I’m sure the family “intervention” you mentioned will go over swimmingly with everyone.
Yeah, I am with everyone else here. You are a shit stirrer. You were at the venue the night of the rehearsal – it doesn’t matter that it was the PUBLIC part of the venue. You were there. Then, you have the audacity to show up to the venue the day of the wedding? It is not a requirement that you bring the gift to the actual wedding. Since you claim you want to make this relationship better in the future, you could have simply held onto the gift – a gift that you so artfully packaged and wrapped – and given it to the bride and groom at a later time when you were building that bridge. Instead, you selfishly went against the bride’s wishes.
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And people that say weddings are for “the family” are assholes. Weddings are for the two people committing themselves to one another. If they decide they want to do so surrounded by family and friends, it’s their right to choose whom to include in such an intimate and personal setting.
Yeah, that comment was unbelievable. Well, not so much in the context of the original letter + update maybe, but in the grand scheme.
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To answer your question, LW, about why ppl get so mad when others elope- because they are *ssholes. Like you. Ugh. If you have EVER thought that someone else eloped AT YOU, you’re a jerk.
Intervention? Oh, yeah, an intervention is definitely needed……Just not the one you are thinking about.
I can’t believe this girl’s father left the wedding early for you. I mean, this is his daughter’s “big day” and you somehow convinced him to leave early. Talk about control issues… they’re all coming from you, not him. Furthermore, by showing up at the “public” part of the venue, you most certainly crashed the rehearsal and by dropping off the gift, you most certainly crashed the wedding. If I wasn’t invited to an out of town or state wedding that my significant other was invited to, I might tag along if it’s a cool place I’ve never been, but I would do fun things on my own away from the venue. Spa day comes to mind. Sitting at a bar at a great restaurant and enjoying local food also comes to mind. Hiking. Yoga class. Sitting outside reading. Museum. Possibilities are endless.
Can we just start listing things the LW should have done instead of creeping on the wedding venue? Nature walk. Decoupage. Shopping. Gift wrapping more gifts. Learning the art of napkin folding.
Volunteer at a soup kitchen. Watch paint dry. Intensive therapy sessions (that would be my vote). But most importantly, STAY HOME
LOL
Therapy, but not at the venue.
Bake muffins.
Learn how to wrap presents properly.
Read an etiquette book.
Interpretive dance.
Actually it should be like this. Hiking, but not at the venue. Yoga class, but not at the venue. Sitting outside reading, but not at the venue. Spa day, but not at the venue. She seems to have particular trouble with the not at the venue part.
Ooh, you’re right. I amend my previous statement to this. I also take out the sitting at a bar and having a nice dinner because who know how much the crazy is amped with a few drinks in the LW.
Of course you just *had* to hand-deliver the gift to the wedding so that your BF didn’t have to carry it! Why did you even travel to a wedding that you were not invited to and that is in another state? WTH. I feel sorry for poor Susie. It’s a good thing she has family members like her Uncle who are willing to stand up to you since *her father* is completely unconcerned with her feelings.
There is no way the LW has direct access to classy people. Classy people don’t tell somebody to crash a wedding, of a bitchy turd of a bride. But she crashed it anyways. I love how she thinks that since the wedding is on public property that it is ok for her to watch from 10 feet away like a little creepy, no doubt she got off on it. I bet she also got off on the fact that she bought a “classy” gift to try to be the better person, and made a nice handmade card for the family…gag me. It is terrible that you have your boyfriend eating your bullshit, and he had to leave his daughters wedding, because you’re a terrible person. You can always tell the trashy/non-classy LW’s because they write back attacking everyone once they don’t get the advice they want. News Flash your friends only tell you want you want to hear not what you need to hear, that’s what Wendy is for.
She was staring at the classy people when she showed up at the public part of the venue, but unfortunately for her, they are too classy to speak to her because they were wanting to avoid the fight that she was trying to cause.
I generally find that when anyone identifies “classy,” they almost always mean “someone who I agree with but who I see as being in MY class.” With apologies to Rodney Dangerfield, it’s pretty rare for anyone to see themselves as having no class, unless they mean it the way I do, politically, as in I am neither part of the working class nor the upper class, but aspire to a classless society. Which by the way is just as much BS as any other way of viewing or trying to deny class. A buddy of mine has always identified my class as “first up against the wall when the revolution comes.”
Damn, this LW is going to have to wait a LONG time before she gets a genuine invitation to hang out with the family! And an intervention?! Whatever chance she had to be a part of that family she ruined by showing her ass at this wedding.
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I also feel really bad for Susie. She knew LW was going to stir up trouble. Too bad she couldn’t count on her dad to have even an ounce of sense.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this drives a huge wedge between Susie and her father. Because if I were Susie and my dad left my wedding early, barring an illness, it would take me an extremely long time to forgive him. That was probably the LW’s plan all along actually. Get the daughter out of the picture.
Oh, for sure! I have a pretty strained relationship with my dad, and I admit that I have some resentment toward his wife because she has never, ever encouraged or supported our relationship, even though she’s never really done anything too outrageous. If she actively tried to come between us, though? I would be done with the both of them so fast their heads would spin.
I think so too, she was trying to keep a wedge between her boyfriend and his daughter. The idea of the daughter and her new husband coming to visit was probably too much so she had to do something to stop it all.
I agree. This LW has all sorts of shades of my dad’s horrible ex and she would pull all this sort of passive aggressive ‘oh but I’m just trying to be part of the faaaaaaamily’ nonsense constantly. In reality she wanted us out of the picture and by forcing her way in inappropriately she stirred up enough ill will that people got annoyed with her, she got to play the victim and created an ‘us against the world’ mentality with dad. It’s a game as old as time, it’s just twice as pathetic when it’s played by middle aged people who should bloody well know better.
Oh, there it is
Noooo my previous comment got eaten! Anyway the gist (with additions) was this:
I believe it is 100% a ploy to get the family out of the picture. If she did have an affair with the dad she knows nobody is going to like her and what better way to not have to deal with social discomfort than by getting them out of the way?
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My dad’s horrible ex was a genius at this move. She’d cry ‘but I’m just trying to be part of the faaaaaaamily’ but she was in reality super possessive of my dad, shoving herself into the dynamic inappropriately and pissing everyone off. Finally someone would get jack of her and then she’d go into victim mode, using it as an opportunity to create an ‘us against the world’ mentality with my dad. It’s a game as old as time but it’s twice as pathetic when it’s played by middle agers who should bloody well know better.
I’m dying laughing at the thought of someone in the wedding industry recommending crashing a wedding! I mean, unless you were talking to a producer of that “My Big Redneck Wedding” TV show.
Nah, it was the staff at Big Bertha’s Bridal Boutique. You know, near the Stop N Go in the strip mall besides Jose’s Taco stand — formerly a Pizza Hut.
The formerly a pizza hut line cracked me up. Thank you.
You can always tell when something was a Pizza Hut in a previous life.
Hey hey, I ate at a very classy Thai restaurant that was a former Long John Silvers.
Longtime lurker here. But this makes me come out of the woodwork to guess Tuptim 🙂
OMG YES! Internet high five! It was my favorite Thai place in the Ann Arbor area, but I haven’t been back for years.
Class isn’t a word in your vocabulary, LW. Class would have been to stay at home while your boyfriend walked his daughter down the aisle. His daughter doesn’t owe you anything, you aren’t even her stepmother. Who cares what gift and card you got her? I guarantee you purchased a nice gift to make a passive aggressive statement. The right thing again, would have been to mail the fine china and stay at home. And you wonder why the family doesn’t like you. Sheesh.
If you want to only hear that your every thought, feeling, decisions and so forth are right. Then stick to talking to yourself. Don’t go onto a place to get advice from different people and then get pissed when it isn’t what you want to hear. Simple as that.
Hahahaha, this update made my day. That’s all.
I wonder why people like this even ask for advice in the first place. It must be because they are just looking for someone to agree with them. Kudos to Wendy for not posting a whole “can you believe this @$$#ole?” section or a wall of shame and taking these people seriously.
This LW has been nothing but rude, dismissive and down right mean, especially to her new daughter-in-law
Not even her new DIL, she’s not even married to the bf after all those years.
Very true, I completely missed the fact she’s the Dad’s GF amongst all of the entitlement. Thanks BlueKate!
THAT IS SUCH A GOOD POINT! We are all evaluating her conduct as if she was the WIFE of the father. where she should have taken the “high road” and gracefully accepted the wishes of the bride despite “proper etiquette”, where it is assumed that a wife is invited to all events that her spouse is. Girlfriends need to be invited!
And it’s not like the LW indicated that they had no intention of ever getting married, using GF/BF as slightly less stilted language than “partner,” but signaling the same level of permanent commitment as marriage. Or that they are “engaged” (though, to be fair, some people use that term in a way that totally blows my mind).
Two years, in the world of people with adult children, who can be married for decades, is not the all-access pass that the LW is asserting.
The LW has never indicated that her boyfriend and his wife have gotten a divorce. Even though people asked her to clarify that point in the original letter. If they aren’t divorced then she is the mistress and if you asked 100 people if a man’s mistress should be invited to his daughter’s wedding most people would say no. Well over 90% would say no. Even if the bride’s parents are divorced and the LW is the girlfriend of the bride’s father there is no requirement to invite a girlfriend as a guest. The LW is trying to force or demand respect and acceptance but what she has done has alienated everyone from her and her boyfriend and drastically reduced any chances of developing a relationship with her boyfriend’s daughter. Actions have consequences, she seems to have trouble thinking through the consequences to see if they will help or hurt her and her boyfriend. Or, she realized this would create a bigger rift and that was her intent all along.
I generally agree that long-term/serious gfs/bfs need to be invited to such events. However, this was out of state, this woman is demanding to be treated as part of a family that she most likely helped to break up, and not only that but she’s demanding such treatment at another person’s wedding. She is not the bride’s step mother, she was/is the mistress, and when it’s very obvious that the family doesn’t want her there, especially when the bride doesn’t want her there, then she doesn’t get invited.
If this was my wedding and I had a wanna be evil step mother who knowingly contributed to the demise of my parents’ marriage, I sure as hell wouldn’t want her at my wedding day, where I want to celebrate my commitment to my future husband. Nothing like having your cheating dad along with his mistress around at your wedding to tell you just how sacred weddings are.
AHHHHHHHH!!! Huge Misunderstanding!!!
I meant “girlfriends ‘need’ to be invited” in that, they aren’t automatically invited! like, there needs to be an affirmative action inviting them!! which the daughter didn’t do! in fact, she did the opposite!! Which I wholeheartedly support!
I’m in total agreement with both of you! I just worded it really badly. Sorry for the confusion (and boy was my point probably really confusing).
Wow. Not only did you cause all sorts of drama, but you just further drove a wedge between your boyfriend and his daughter. Good for you! Very classy. You weren’t invited. The daughter hasn’t even seen you since you helped break her parents up….hmmm. I wonder why she hasn’t wanted to see you or invite you to her wedding. If truly 90% of the people you asked told you to crash a wedding, that should directly tell you exactly how classy you and your friends are. I don’t know if I’ve ever read a more self entitled letter before this one. Good luck in your fantasy world where everything revolves around you and your delusional victim complex. You are a peach.
You nailed it!
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Makes me wonder if the LW makes her bf hand over his dick when he leaves the house.
I think you were trying to use the wedding as the opportunity to flaunt your relationship with your boyfriend, or maybe validate it. Whatever, you were using her wedding for your own means and unless your intention was to further alienate him from his family than he already was you failed. If the intention was to alienate him from his family, because you don’t want to share him, and don’t want the looks they give you, then you were highly successful.
You’ve made no point to say that you are anything but the mistress. You don’t say that they are divorced. All you can say is that you are the girlfriend. Guess what, it is tradition to not invite a mistress to a wedding, especially the wedding of the man’s child. It is appropriate to have the parents at the wedding but you aren’t a parent. Anyone who would tell you otherwise is giving bad advice.
The cost of the present doesn’t make you classy. Showing up without an invitation does make you classless, like a stalker who won’t stay away. This wedding had nothing to do with you and you should have been classy enough to realize that.
Good gracious. This is an impressive example of being self involved, hypocritical, and playing the victim!
Let me ask- if weddings are all about the family, if for some godforsaken reason your boyfriend decides to marry you, will you let his family have a big say in YOUR wedding??
Ooh, I bet you’ll let Susie pick out the invitations 🙂
Mrs. Jones would like to announce the wedding of her elusive father,
Mr. Cheating Insensitive Creep
to
Ms. Manipulative Homewrecker
The ceremony will start at noon,
on the X anniversary of my father’s divorce,
at the Entrance to Limbo.
Reception to be held in the X’s circle of Hell.
May the bride and groom burn for all eternity, with love, and paper crafts.
I hear Sweden is beautiful this time of year. Enjoy.
So…I was pretty sympathetic to you in my original post, but you’ve made me change my mind. Who cares if a venue is “public” or not? You knew your presence (fair or not; etiquettely correct or not) was not wanted, and you should up anywyays. Twice, at the rehearsal and on the day of. And you made your presence known. How could you not, if one of the uncles found out and confronted you. It’s not like this was a huge hotel or something and you were way on the other end at a place wedding guests weren’t going. They knew you were there. Like come on lady, you knew what you were doing. You were stirring shit up. Maybe it’s not right for the family to acknowledge the role you play in your boyfriend’s life, but you at best are being childish, provoking a reaction and making the situation worse. The family is definitely not going to come around to you now.
And you know you can’t buy affection right? Like, it’s generous you spent so much on a gift, but it was not required and it does not entitle you to being fast tracked into the family’s affections.
It wasn’t even her that bought the gift though! “We purchased”. I should imagine it is customary for the father of the bride to gift something expensive!!!!
Holy fuck. The fact that you consider a father leaving his daughter’s wedding early as the “high road” is really pathetic. You both sound like horrible, selfish people. You tried to use someone’s wedding day as a time to cement your status in your boyfriend’s life. From the previous letter it sounds like you were involved with him when he was still married, so it’s entirely understandable half the family would not want you at the wedding. Especially since you’re just the girlfriend. You are in no way family, and these people do not owe you anything. The people you polled are either just as delusional and vapid as you or terrified to tell you to your face that you’re acting like a total bitch.
LW you may as well understand now, rather than later, that you can’t choose how people react to you. They can’t choose whether he lives with you and stays with you and they couldn’t choose whether he had an affair with you. You can’t choose whether they like you or accept you or respect you. Your boyfriend can give an ultimatum that says if people want to spend time with him they will at least tolerate your presence. They are free to say that they don’t want to see him that badly and leave him isolated.
The two of you chose to start your relationship as an affair and an affair is how many people will continue to see it, even if he gets divorced, even if the two of you get married, even if you give an expensive gift. This is par for the course you chose. Some people will accept what you’ve done and accept the two of you as a couple and some won’t. It sounds like his family doesn’t. Get to used to it.
Dear, I’m pretty sure you’ve never met anyone who actually has class, because you have some pretty bizarre ideas about how people with class behave. Hint: exactly the opposite of what you’ve been doing.
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Congratulations, you managed to get the attention you craved by crashing the wedding, and you got your boyfriend to choose you over his daughter. Which was clearly the point of this whole exercise.
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You’ve also given the wedding party a hilarious story which will live on, much longer than your relationship with your BF does. “Remember when that bitchy girlfriend of the bride’s father showed up? OMG, that was funny. Whatever happened to her, anyway?”
I almost want to troll reddit or theknot or something for the bride’s side of this story.
Wow LW. Just wow. I love that you think what you did wasn’t crashing the wedding. You involved everyone when you crossed every boundary that Susie’s attempted to set. You specifically visited the venue during the rehearsal when you knew they were all there. Twice. Anyone who told you that you should do what you did even up to crashing the wedding who works in the wedding industry should be fired and I’m pretty sure no one but you called Susie “a turd.”
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How disgusting that your boyfriend left his daughter’s wedding early. I’d be real hard pressed to forgive him. He’s going to stage an intervention? He must be as delusional as you are.
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You think she has the control issues? And that his family are the ones who aren’t courteous? Stop harassing them with the name calling, boundary crossing, rudeness.
I’m sure the couple loved dragging those 8 perfectly wrapped packages home after the longest day of their lives.
So, you refer to the daughter as a turd and convinced her dad to leave her wedding early? Good luck ever getting her to like you. Classiness isn’t about buying fancy gifts and showing up uninvited to hand them over; it’s about not trash-talking people who expect to treat you like family.
Don’t provide any identifying characteristics about me / I do paper arts.
This LW is so freaking entitled, and completely self-absorbed. I’m assuming Susie didn’t want her there because there was some overlap between her parents’ marriage and this new relationship. Of COURSE she doesn’t like the LW. The classy thing to do would be to understand why the daughter doesn’t like her, and doesn’t want her at the wedding, where, presumably, the mother and mother’s family will also be in attendance. She should have kissed her SO, told him have a good time, and amused herself for several days until he got back. Instead she marches all over the venue, hand delivers a gift (who does that?? why was that necessary? haven’t you ever heard of shipping it to the bride’s home straight from the registry?). Ugh, I have no words. LW, you are a piece of work. If I were your SOs daughter, I wouldn’t want anything to do with you either.
How much do you want to bet that those “not something that comes in a jumbo pack at Costco” dishes were off-registry?
But of course!!!! Susie’s taste could NEVER be as classy as LWs!!!
But they were THOUGHTFUL! And she spent a lot of TIME on them! Appreciate them you thoughtless b*tch!
Susie is such an unappreciative turd.
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I love when you can just tell some phrases/people are going to stay in the DW lexicón.
Maybe the unappreciative turd && pantless Ramona should get together && form a club.
So, remember when you were a kid, and you used to get in fights with your sibling in the car. And your parent would draw an imaginary line down the middle of the car and tell you not to cross it to give your sibling some space. Then you’d put your hand on the line and slowly inch over just to bug them, then jerk your hand back any time your parent turned around and you’d swear that you weren’t over the line? I think that this LW is doing the adult version of this.
I would DIE to get Susie’s side of the story.
I think we know how that’ll go. The LW can’t even hide her ridiculousness.
I haven’t commented in a long time, but I’m finding it hard to stay silent on this one. It seems to me that the LW felt hurt by having been excluded, but got the bride a nice gift anyway. That is commendable. Maybe the BF could’ve delivered it. As for the public venue she was at, maybe it could’ve been the beach?
All that aside, the tone of the comments is disturbing. This is why I rarely join online forums anymore. I got bullied very badly on one about a year ago with comments that sounded like the ones above. And I hate to see it happen to anyone else.
I guess the LW’s defensive tone put others on the defensive, but let’s try to express our opinions in a respectful manner, shall we?
Alright, I’ll only call the LW a turd seeing as she seems to think that’s an ok term to bandy about. I’ll refrain from encouraging physical violence like she has, that’s a bridge too far even for me.
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I’m sorry you got bullied though, if you’d just been going about your business and it came out of nowhere that sucks. However if you posted anything like this gal…. well….
I do love reading the comments, and often I agree with them! But you’re right, they do get out of hand sometimes. It happened to me when I wrote in! I asked a perfectly honest question and ended up getting dragged for a silly reason. I didn’t even get any good advice because everyone was caught up in being mean and silly. So I can’t see how an actual LW would even get so far down the comments page without crying
On the original letter people did give her good advice, actual advice. She just didn’t like what it said. Her response was just as mean and silly as the responses here. People commenting write their comments based on the tone and content of the letter. They have nothing else to go off of. Different people pick up on different things based on their own experiences and how they interpret the situation. It’s just what you sign up for when you open up questions to public comment on the internet. I think this particular LW wanted to hear something specific, that she was right, and got ticked when she didn’t hear it. Which is the other thing about asking for advice, if you don’t want to actually hear advice (other than what you think is right), you’re probably not ready to ask other people for advice.
A LOT of times when people write in, they think they are asking about how to solve a specific issue when in fact that’s not really the issue they need to solve.
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How many times have we read letters from LWs asking about X when the problem isn’t really X but rather A-W & some Y,Z. They are choosing to focus on X because it seems like the easier thing to fix instead of having to face the real issues.
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In this LW’s case, it wasn’t an issue that the family didn’t want her to come to the wedding but a WHOLE heap of other issues such as she was complicit in ending the BF marriage (if it’s even ended), that she just expects that everyone in the family is going to willingly embrace her cause she’s living with the dad, and honestly, she doesn’t understand boundaries. I mean, that kind of self absorption really requires a HUGE dose of reality from an outside perspective.
(whoops, it posted my comment twice! sorry)
She probably thought that if she hung out at the public part of the venue, where people could see her, but didn’t go on to the wedding, then everyone would think badly of the bride and groom because it would be obvious that she wasn’t invited. The same for delivering the gifts to the wedding then leaving. She was trying to make the bride and groom look bad but in reality, since the guests love the bride and groom and know that she was the other woman who broke up the brides family, the people who saw her thought the LW was the rude one. It was a public show to play the victim but it only served to make the bride and groom look like the victims of dad’s evil girlfriend. That’s why the uncle showed up to have a word with the LW. Her plan flopped, big time.
You totally screwed the pooch on this one, LW. And I’m pretty sympathetic to LW’s, usually looking at their actions in the best possible light.
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Etiquette is so NOT on your side in this one. The live-in girlfriend of 2 years who was involved in the split up of a marriage was not really on Emily Post’s radar! We are all making up the rules regarding that as we go! (Don’t get me wrong: I agree that in a normal situation, a live-in gf of 2 years should be invited to a wedding that her bf is invited to). But LW cannot pretend it is a universally-held hard and fast etiquette rule. If it were, Wendy would get way fewer questions about where to draw plus-one lines in invitations.
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Plus, etiquette is a DEFAULT setting to guide society’s behavior, not a final decree — there are exception and modifications to be made to etiquette based on specific situations. Etiquette says that men should stand when a lady gets up from the table, but men in wheelchairs aren’t breaching etiquette by not standing in those situations. Because, of course they aren’t! Exceptions based on circumstance! You don’t get to ignore what people actually do (like ask you not to come) even if “etiquette” is on your side!
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You had the perfect model for what to do based on @callmehobo’s comments to your original question. She laid on the situation in detail from the daughter’s point of view, and gave you the perfect game plan: Do not go to the wedding; send a genuine gesture of goodwill to the bride/daughter; take advantage of the offer to meet and visit in a less emotionally-fraught setting. (And I think she was the dad’s new WIFE). I know nothing about @callmehobo’s dad’s wife other than what she told us, and my impression of her is that she’s a class act.
You had the change to be that person, to be the winner in everyone’s gossip (“Did you hear that Susie didn’t invite Linda to her wedding? “Oh wow, what happened?” “Susie’s sister told me that Linda sent her 8 sets of china, beautifully wrapped, and a card addressed to the whole family, saying Linda wished her all the happiness in the world on her wedding day and was looking forward to seeing her after she got back from her honeymoon.” “That’s so sweet!” “I know! Maybe Linda isn’t so bad after all…”)
Way to blow it.
If the LW’s boyfriend is still married to his wife etiquette says that they are a social unit. If he is still married the only appropriate partner for him to attend the wedding with is his wife.
Yeah- my dad and his girlfriend started dating a few months before the divorce finalized, but the divorce had only finalized about a month and a half before the actual ceremony date.
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In my opinion, this woman isn’t interested in becoming a part of her bf’s family- she wants to be his ONLY family. She’s doing a classic abuser moves. “I’m doing so much nice shit for your family, and how do they repay us?!? If they can’t accept us as a couple, then we don’t need to associate with them…” She’s doing textbook isolation tactics.
Ding ding ding, we have a winner.
“My boyfriend would like to plan the intervention without any chance at all that it will be happening.”
Is there any chance that I can get a translation for this? Why would there be an intervention? What would the LW and the Boyfriend intervene upon? Does this make sense to anyone else?
Honestly, I did not fully understand the whole update, but agree with you that the last paragraph makes zero sense.
I read it as an intervention for his “controlling” family members.
I think it’s the righteous indignation intervention, where they try to bully the family into accepting LW as his partner. I mean, how dare they not invite her, and in fact tell them that they’ll be escorted out if she shows up (because they knew she’s such a classy person that she’ll show up – and she did).
I do really like that aspect of the letter: “I can’t believe you think that I would crash the wedding! Because that’s exactly what I did.”
[Vague explanation, ambiguous statement, hazy declaration, unclear report, blah, blah, blah]…BUT details, details, details about basically stalking the rehearsal (which is what she WAS doing–stalking), how much money was spent on “CLASSY” china, how much time was spent on wrapping (4 hours!!!?), how she hand-delivered the gift as a “convenience” for her partner (ummm, why didn’t you have it delivered to their home?) and just how wonderfully classy she is and how she follows etiquette. Puh-leeze! Pin that scarlet “V” to your chest to make sure EVERYONE knows you’re a VICTIM and done been wronged. Gahhhh….