My brother-in-law is getting married this coming January. He is my husband's younger half brother on his dad's side. Siblings get a little complicated in my husband's family, with all the half, step and former-step kids running around. In any case, he's also the brother of my sister-in-law who lives with us now (versus my husband's other sister, who is his half-sister on his mom's side... but I digress).
I'm completely weirded out right now because my BIL is not having my husband as a groomsman in his wedding. BIL's other brother (BIL's half brother on his mom's side - my husband and BIL share a dad, but different moms...) is in it, as well as a cousin from his mom's side, two of his old high school friends and his current "best friend" (I guess, aka drinking buddy) is his best man. His fiance has her sister, my SIL and three of her friends.
And, our son D is a ring bearer.
How do you have one brother in your wedding and not have the other? It isn't as if he's closer to his younger brother than he is to my husband; arguably he's closer to DH. Granted, my husband is quite a bit older (his younger brother is only about 4 years younger than my BIL), but still - my BIL and his fiance come up to hang out pretty often and he and my husband have both enjoyed creating a closer relationship as BIL has become an adult. I thought for sure my husband would be in the wedding. I seriously can't fathom why he wouldn't be.
Oh, and my BIL was a groomsman at our wedding when he was like 14.
Now, I don't think that you are required to reciprocate if you're in someone's wedding. But these guys are BROTHERS. Come on! I honestly do not understand. At first I thought maybe it's because he thought you're supposed to have single people in your wedding party, but two of his groomsmen (his high school friends) are married, so that can't be it. Then I thought maybe they already felt like they had too many people, but they only have five on each side - adding one more groomsman shouldn't be that big of a deal and I'm sure they could come up with another bridesmaid - a cousin, another friend, somebody. And besides, who is more important, the dude you like to throw back beers with, or your older brother? He has three friends in this wedding, and the cousin is more of a friend too.
And BIL's younger brother is in it!
I'm sorry, I've gotten to the point where I'm pretty upset. For a while I thought it was an oversight - that BIL assumed my husband knew he was in the wedding, so hadn't talked to him about it. But I asked his fiance who was in the wedding party and she listed everybody - five people on each side, and definitely didn't mention my husband.
Seriously, WTF?
And what do you say? My husband is fishing with him today (along with my FIL and D), but I have no idea if he's going to try to bring it up. I know he doesn't want to make his brother feel bad, but he's pretty hurt that he's being left out of such an important occassion.
I really, really hope it doesn't have anything to do with the big talk we had with him and his fiance last fall. She went through a big drama-fest where she got mad at FIL's wife and declared she wasn't going to go to their house anymore, even during the holidays. We tried to help her realize that if she's going to be a part of this family, she can't take a stance like that - the only person she's hurting is her fiance. It was a good discussion, I thought. We listened to her side, and told her how we feel (honestly, I probably did most of the talking); it was very nonconfrontational, I thought. But maybe she was just putting on a happy face for us and actually harbors a grudge about it. I wouldn't put it past her - but it seems like there would be more tension and weirdness since then if that were the case. I don't know. I just hope she didn't decide after that, that she didn't want my husband in her wedding anymore and convince BIL not to ask him. If she were mad enough, I wouldn't put something like that past her.
However, the more I think about it... she gets upset easily and blows things out of proportion, but she gets over it quickly too. The aforementioned incident with FIL's wife blew over and there weren't any issues when the holidays rolled around. She was there with the rest of us. So if she had harbored any resentment about the talk we had, it seems like it would have faded by now.
I'm at a loss. I wish there was a way I could find out why - did he just forget? Did he think my husband wouldn't want to? Does he have resentment or anger towards my husband that we don't know about? It's put a very sour taste in my mouth and at the very least, I just wish I knew why.
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2 comments:
I don't know for sure, obviously, but my money is on it being something along these lines:
I'll bet his future bride had specific ideas in mind with regard to who she wanted to stand up with her and if your dh was included she might have to give up her preconceived ideas of who would be on her side, assuming that if your dh was on the brother's side that you would have to be on her side and that would screw up her mental picture of how it should be.
(I think she'd be damn lucky to have both of you, but that's a whole other story, I know.)
I'll bet she just got all bridezilla on him and it screwed things up. He's trying not to rock the boat, and may end up not having things be the way HE wants in the process.
I hope your dh was able to ask him or will be able to ask him, even if it's just in the realm of "hey, just want to make sure there are no hard feelings here.."
I'd be upset too. Matter of fact, Tim's brother got married, had plans for his best friend to be his best man. Best friend didn't even SHOW for the wedding. SIL had her daughters stand up with her, but Tim's brother didn't have him stand with him.
Slightly odd. But, it was a very quickly planned wedding so we just chalked it up to that.
It could be something like that - who knows. I'm not sure if she'd assume I'd have to be in the wedding if he was though - BIL's best man is engaged to one of the other bridesmaids, but since she's not the maid of honor, she won't be paired with her fiance; she'll have to walk up the aisle with one of the other guys. So it isn't as if she'd assume couples have to be in the wedding party together.
My husband was also wondering if it might have something to do with his brother thinking the bridal party should be their peers, and DH is older, so not really part of that group.
I guess we're both grasping at straws since it's a fairly hurtful thing and it would be nice to think there aren't hurtful or negative intentions behind it.
They didn't talk about it when they went fishing. My husband doesn't want to bring it up and make his brother feel bad. He also doesn't want to be a last minute addition to the wedding party, just because he said he had his feelings hurt, you know? So I think unless BIL brings it up, or someone else is able to ask about it (like my SIL), it will probably just get swept under the rug.
I hate crap like this.
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