My Parents Ignored My Wedding Invitations; Now Our Family Is Shaming Them for Not Attending

She explained what happened.

So I have a younger brother, Mike. He is the definition of a man-child and a mama’s boy, always complaining, and always expecting others to bow to him. Just, overall, a jerk. Ever since he was born, my parents fussed over him for everything. He’s not special needs or had a traumatic birth or anything of the sort. He was just… born. And my parents completely discarded me. My mom especially. She went from a loving mother to one of those boy moms that people make fun of on the internet.

My father still showed me love and support, but he’s always been too much of a coward to stand up to my mother and let me win at least once. The only one who stood up for me was my grandpa (76M), who always called my parents out on their bullshit, and never liked my brother. I remind him of his late wife, my grandma, and we have a very special bond, but he lives on the other side of the country and I could never see him often.

Mike knows our mom prefers him, and loves to shove it in my face. Because of this and his behavior, we’ve always been at odds. He’s spoiled, a brat, and an awful human. I can’t remember how many times I ended up in trouble for things I did better than him or for things he framed me with. His only talent is his football skills. He won a scholarship to a nice college out of state. My parents didn’t spend a dime on my education because apparently my fund had been used to cover expenses after a fire, just for me to discover years later that said money was given to Mike to buy a car and a house.

It was at the public university that I met Lucas. He was the first person I was drawn to there. Of course, I met new people who are now my dearest friends, and thanks to them and Lucas, who was my best friend for years before we got together, I managed to move out of my parents’ house. Now both Lucas and I are well-known in our fields and have very good salaries.

Now, to the main issue. Lucas proposed to me a year ago. We’re very private people, so we didn’t post it on social media or anything, and when I told my parents they dismissed it with a “that’s nice” (I’m starting to think they downright didn’t listen to me at all). We decided that we wanted a nice but simple ceremony and reception with our friends and relatives.

Lucas convinced me to invite my parents and brother, but they never responded to the invite. Whenever I went to visit and began to talk about my wedding (without mentioning it was a wedding), my mom would always speak over me and about my brother’s accomplishments and wild adventures. At one point I got fed up with it and interrupted my mom to tell her that there was an event I was planning to organize, whose date was unmovable. She told me that they couldn’t attend because my brother was playing the last game of the season that very same day, and wanted them to be there.

Of course, this favoritism didn’t surprise me: they missed my ballets, shows, and both my high school and university graduation for things about him. At this point, I wanted to be petty. I told both my parents that it wasn’t a problem to miss this event, purposely omitted the fact that this event was my wedding, and didn’t insist further.

Flash forward to a few weeks ago, I got married. It was perfect. My family, Lucas’ family, and our friends were all there, and we had a blast. My grandpa was happy to give me away, and it was just perfect. My relatives asked me multiple times why my parents weren’t there with us. I was honest and simply said they had my brother’s game to attend, and couldn’t come. They gave me a few looks, and my grandpa was visibly angry for a while, but otherwise, nothing strange happened.

After the reception, Lucas and I left for our honeymoon and were phone-free for the whole duration of the trip. But once we got back, we discovered that a storm was welcoming us home. I turned my phone on and was unable to even unlock it before a storm of notifications popped up. Most of them were from my mother and brother. Mike called me all sorts of nasty names and insulted me because one of my paternal aunts posted the photos of the wedding on Facebook, and captioned it with a very obvious dig at my parents (especially my mom) for missing the wedding. The post went viral in my parents’ community, and they’ve been publicly shamed for their mistreatment of me.

It also turns out that my grandpa personally visited my parents to go on a tirade to shame my father, his son, to the point of tears. And this seemed to be my father’s breaking point, because he was so distraught for missing his only daughter’s wedding and for his father’s disapproval, that he finally rebelled against my mom and is threatening divorce unless she makes it up to me. I think that’s the reason why my mom has been spamming my phone with messages, at first insulting and threatening and then downright pitiful, full of begging and pity parties.

Now I’m at home with my husband, deciding how to approach the situation. Most of my relatives, even those I didn’t invite to the wedding, reached out to apologize for what I went through and to claim they had no idea this was happening at home (can’t blame any of my relatives, they all live with my grandpa on the other side of the country or in another state), but my mom’s sisters and friends are belittling me for not telling my mom about the wedding because now she’s inconsolable at the thought of having missed my wedding. Personally, I think she just claims that to save face, but I’m not sure.

The latest messages from my father and mother seem extremely saddened and hurt for missing my wedding. Now my family is divided on three fronts: the majority who is sticking by my side, my maternal aunts shaming me for hurting my mom’s feelings, and my maternal grandparents who are adamant that I forgive my mom in light of her “atonement.” My best friends are telling me not to listen to them.

People stood on her side.

• “Actions have consequences. Mike is the golden child to the point of things being dysfunctional. You have created your life accordingly based on what they have done (your mum controlling everything and your dad enabling her) and now they’re unhappy because they’ve been shamed for it. Too right! I am however pleased your dad might be waking up.” CityEvening / Reddit
• “They were invited, they gave a reason they weren’t attending. You accepted their non-participation.” RaddishSlaw / Reddit
• “They got the same wedding invite that everyone else did. Everyone else figured out that the event was a) important and b) your wedding.” somethingstrange87 / Reddit