Not Invited - Should I be offended?
Hi,
I would like some advice.
My BM and SD had a family reunion last year for SD's side of the family and my family was not invited. My half brother's (their son) family was. I have known SD's family longer than my younger HB. Should we be offended?
This year, my other HB & SIL invite us for Easter brunch along with my BD & SM and SM's extended family. Then they send us an email to cancel one week before because SM's extended family is busy. We find out they are still having BD & SM over. Should we be offended?
Here is a little background.
I am 46 years old, married to my beautiful wife for 21 years. and have two wonderful boys ages 9 and 11. We own a home in a nice suburb and live your typical middle class American family lifestyle - church, family, friends, job, school, sports, vacations, pets, etc.
I am also a SS. My parents divorced when i was one year old. I grew up living with my Mom and saw my Dad every other weekend. My BD remarried when I was 6. My BM remarried when I was 11. When I was 15, BM and SD sent me to live with BD & SM. BD & SM sent me back one year later. Then BM & SD kicked me out of the house for good on my 18th birthday. I have two half brothers, one from BD & SM (40 married with 3 kids), and one from BM & SD (33 married with 2 kids)
I went through similar drama/bs with my BM & SD and BD & SM as I read in some of the stories on this site.
Thanks for any advice. Happy Easter!
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Comments
Try not to get too caught up
Try not to get too caught up in these things. However have you expressed to your family that you would like to be there? They may think that since you have grown up and moved into your own life that you may be busy or something. Maybe talk to your Halfbrother and let him know what it would mean to you o be invited?
Step families are a tricky
Step families are a tricky thing. My Dad and Mom divorced when I was young. I am 46 now. There were 4 of us. My dad went on to have a second family. He adopted step moms child and then had two more children. So now I have 2 half sisters younger tham my own children and a adopted step sister that does not even have the same family as me. ( she still sees her biological dad ?) I have met him once.
My Step moms parents were nver close to the original 4 kids and so we were just those "other kids " so were not realy invited to family stuff on the step side. The part that got me upset was when we stopped bing invited to holidays and my dad only brought the new family. Years later we do not have much of a relationship in fact the whole thing is just downright confusing. So we consider ourselves the original 4 family members plus our biological mother, and we have get togethers all of the time. My dads kids have their own family things and then we invite each other for the big things like weddings etc..
The problem is with the new " family" structure no one even knows what the etiquite is so I guess we just have to tell eachother what we need to feel part of whatever family we belong to....