It's hard not to experience the present based on past events. I could fill pages of the stuff my H's kids have done over 20 years. A lot of it is pretty ugly, so I have formed some opinions. Those opinions are not going to magically disappear because the skid invited my H and I to a concert. Maybe he is trying to make amends. If so, talking through his dad and inviting me through his dad isn't really changing much. And some important details were left out. I did not know it was going to be a foursome. I did not know he had purchased the tickets. I assumed the three of us would attend the concert and that we each would pay for our own ticket. That's the way things have always been, so I think it is fair of me to make these assumptions even though they were wrong. At any rate, he did not give these details to my H, I did not know them, so I can't be held responsible for facts I did not know.

Also, my decision not to go was based on several things. Lack of information was one of them, and, as I mentioned, H and I would have had nowhere to take our dog. Somebody had to stay with her, and I figured H and the son could have a nice time together. I had absolutely no reason to believe his son would be disappointed if I didn't go. Based on his past behavior, I thought he would like spending time alone with his dad. Heck, I thought I was being gregarious to bow out.

The thing is, the skid was just here a couple weeks ago. He stayed with us, ate meals with us, walked around the touristy places with us, etc., for 2 days, and he only spoke to his dad. He had absoultely nothing to say to me. Nothing at all. Not even hello or good-bye. That's the way things have been for 20 years. Additionally, he brought his dad his X-mas present, which the two of them messed around with for a couple hours. There was no X-mas present for me. I don't really want a present from him, but I don't consider going to visit a couple, and giving a gift to only one person in that couple civil or polite.

I've written posts on StepTalk about relational aggression, and ingnoring people (his visit here) and purposefully leaving people out of things (the X-mas present and playing with said present) qualify as indirect aggression. Just because there is an appearance of everything being hunky dory, does not mean they are. I imagine anyone seeing us walking around the touristy areas would think everything was just great. Just because this one time it appears he did something nice, does not mean everything has changed, his intentions were pure, and the aggression has come to an end. That's what makes indirect or relational aggression so dificult to deal with. The people who do it are never held responsible and the people who are targeted begin to distrust anything the aggressor does. That's not looking for for a way to make this kid a bad guy. It's logic.

And so, what would it have been like if I had gone to the concert? Would I have been ignored the entire evening? Would my husband not notice or pretend to not notice while I sat around with my thumb up my ass? Most likely. Being ignored feels terrible. I've experienced it over and over again for a very long time, and I know how awful it feels, so I'm not going to take that chance.

Then, when H comes home and informs me that the evening was not in fact the two of them, father and son, but a foursome and that his kid brought his girlfriend and a female friend of his for his dad to talk to while he and his girlfriend enjoyed time together, well, I hope you'll excuse me if I find that a littlebe hard to take. Please excuse me if I have doubts about the kid's intentions. This isn't me looking for a problem. The problem already exists and has been there for a long long time.

I don't think I'm looking to make this kid a bad guy. I said it looked like a dick move. Big difference.

Thanks everyone for your comments. This discussion has certainly helped me gain some perspective.

As far as me asking H if he knew about the foursome, I did ask and H did not know. The son said nothing about it to him and he said he was surprised to see the son's girlfriend and a female friend there. So there's that.

Also I want to be clear that I am not ranting and raving about this and pressing any kind of case that the son is a horrible person. When H told me about the evening, I just said, "Hmm. That's weird." I posted to see if anyone else thought it was weird and possibly a "gotcha" move, or a dick move as I called it.

Because there is such a long history of crap with the skids, I don't really trust anything they do anymore. I know this about myself and that it's probably not very healthy, and that's why I posted -- to solicit some other perspectives.

As far as trying to guess another person's motivations for doing something being a worthless use of my time, I agree completely. It can be hard to avoid, though, when presented with a situation that seems so strange. You ask yourself "why did so-an-so do that?" You think about it, ask a few freinds, and then, hopefully, move on. That's what I intend to do, and it helps me to move on if I can hear a few other opinions about the situation.

After hearing from all of you, I can see that this really isn't that important and I should get over it. Gotcha. Will do. Still, I do believe that this whole deal was strange from the get-go. I don't know what the kid was up to, if anything, but I just can't see this as normal behavior. That's his problem, not mine. I get that.

Kayro, I didn't say I thought this situation was a blind date for my H. I said I thought the situation, as it turned out, gave the appearance of a blind date, and perhaps that was what the skid wanted. Perhaps the skid wanted to put it out there for me to hear about and be kinda embarrased about. Perhaps it was totally innocent, but just like I don't know that he did it purposefully, I also don't know that it was totally innocent. I can't say either way. What I can say is that to my mind, the series of events is odd, and I'll have to just leave it at that.

Also Kayro, the skid was way beyond 15 when I married H. Not sure where you got that. He was out of college and supposedly and adult when I first met him.

And I understand that you would not be particularly interested in your SM's life. I don't expect my H's kids to be interested in my life either. What I do expect though, is some level of social and interpersonal politeness -- the same kind of social and interpersonal politeness that you would give to any other adult. I was raised to speak to people respectfully, and that having a conversation with someone who is clearly new to the social situation is good manners. Asking other people about who they are and what they do is conversation. That is what you do when you meet someone. It's like a verbal handshake. It's what grown-ups do. H's kids never did it, never have, and never will.

And that's what I find so incredible -- that they would hang on to that for 20 years. That, after 20 years, my H's kids, sisters, parents, all of them, have no friggin' idea of who I am or what I do. I find it incredible that after 20 years, not one of them was able to break from the group and extend a friendly hand of conversation to me. I was toast from the very beginning. It's just so unbelievable to me that grown-up people would do that. I don't think I will ever understand it.

And one last thing, and maybe this is the thing that I'm really getting at, which is that disengaging -- giving your H and his kids that "alone" time the kids seem to want so badly, bowing out of family gatherings because you've stopped trying to be part of the family, is STILL NOT ENOUGH for these people. It's still not enough for them to drop the BS and the games.

As I said, I can't know if the son's whole concert deal was a game. Maybe it wasn't. I can accept that. And if he was truly trying to make amends and be friendly, I should have gone. But as one SM said in Wednesday Martin's book Stepmonster, sometimes it's just too little too late.