Not invited to step-son's wedding

My fiance's son is getting married and I am clearly not invited nor wanted at the wedding. My fiance left his wife for me and there is a lot of hating going on still after 3yrs. My fiance and I have had vicious fights over it. He is respecting his son's wishes and not taking me. I feel it is disrespectful and very hurtful by his family and my fiance. Here's a good one too: his ex wife as well as all other guests get to bring whom ever they choose and the best part of the story his ex wife is dating her first cousin. No one seems to think that is disgusting, just the site of me being there. Please help.


Aug 08, 2011
Step-son's wedding
by: Kevin (Modern Manners and Etiquette)

Thank you for your question.

Let's be real honest from the start...there is nothing that I can write or say that will change this situation or their perception of you.

Divorce is an ugly thing and it complicates other situations in life. I think too many people use divorce to try and make a situation better and it just gets worse. This is a good example of what I mean.

If the family does not support your relationship with the fiance, there is not much that you can do to overcome that right now. Only time can heal some of those wounds and you have got to give them no reason to hate you or the situation will only worsen.

You must "kill them with kindness" in order to overcome their feelings, and it will take some time. This situation will not be rectified by the time of the wedding. So, you have to make a choice about whether you want to put up a fight about it (and give them a reason to dislike you) or respect their wishes (even though it hurts) and start working on creating relationships.

If it were me, I would do a targeted approach to winning over the family. I would identify the people that I thought would be the easiest to win over and start creating a relationship with those people first.

The whole thought here is that if those people like you and have a relationship with you, you now have people on the inside of the family that will stand up for you and spread the good word about you. From there, you move on to the next most likely target and so on until you have created those relationships.

The saying states that "respect is earned; not given." It is absolutely true and you must start the process of earning that respect. It will take time and effort, but it will be worth it in the end if you want their acceptance into the family.

I hope it all turns out for the best!

Nov 27, 2011
would you be like that if roles were reversed? Pending
by: Anonymous

you cant really expect them to be nice as you are the other woman.