Not good enough /Excluded from events

[Beryl48]

My husband and I are late 50s - We have worked hard raised our family been together for 40years .

We have done ok in life , never caused anyone any grief .

The last couple of years the issue of being excluded and " Looked down on us " has become obvious to us . This "Vibe" comes from both sides of our families, the family members are really nice people etc .
It's all come to a head in recent weeks when my husband was excluded from his Aunties 80th Birthday event , even though his sister and more distant relatives were invited.
My husband was terribly hurt and reached out to his Aunty to wish her Happy Birthday and mentioned he would liked to have been invited, response was "I have lots of friends and had to cut numbers " The event was a casual affair at a pub

Has anyone else dealt with this ?

[white knight]

Hi, welcome

Yes, it leaves a bitter taste when excluded and even worse when rejected when you could have thought you were innocently lef tout.

Well done in your husband raising the topic though and getting the answer he got, best to do that directly to find out why.

The only thing that has occured a little similar is about 15 years ago my Aunite, one that I was close to when young, her husband died (my blood uncle) and when I visited for the funeral interstate I greeted her by name without the tag of "auntie". A few minutes later she approached me in front of about 25 relatives and dressed me down for not calling her auntie. I apologised.

Cutting a long story short out relationship never recovered. I wrote nice letters, even my heart felt poems to her...nothing. Now I have guessed my mother whom I'm estranged from has something to do with it, but I really dont know.

Needless to say I've had to get on with my life but it is still hard after all these years to think of her and not feel sad. So part of my strategy is

• No longer try to remedy a situation that I have no control over
• Find close friends that one day might be closer than family members
• Have celebrations with family that you know will be grateful for an invite. Those that you both are unsure would come- ring them and ask directly if they would consider it and if so "I'll send you an invite". You can decide if you want his auntie to come (that way you are not treating her the same as yo are treated) or not invite her and you are "moving on"
• Subtly ask other relatives close to you if they know of any reason this is occuring.

I really dont have any other ideas, I hope others do.

 https://www.beyondblue.org.au/get-support/online-forums/staying-well/rejection---it's-hard-to-swallo...

TonyWK

[geoff]

Hello Beryl, I'm really sorry that you have been ostracised, being excluded from family events because it reduces your feeling of belonging to those people that you once felt aligned to and have celebrated on many occasions before, it just isn't understandable.

Sometimes it can be only one or even two people who have the dominance to make this decision simply because of previous consequences that have happened not to agree with them.

There are a couple of ways to overcome this which you may want to do or not, if you feel as though you want to actually do this and just call into the pub, saying that you were just passing by and wanted to wish her a happy 80th birthday and then leave, or you may even be asked to stay.

The other option and only if you want to is to invite her out on another day, but this maybe difficult for you to do which I can understand and feel very sorry for you.

This has, unfortunately, happened to me in the past and it does leave us in a situation we wish we weren't in.

Take care.

Geoff.