In-Laws are hard...

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I've been married for 20+ years. When the dot-com crash came down, we fled Silicon Valley and moved to the only other place in the country where we had family and could afford housing. Unfortunately, the family we moved to be near are my husband's relatives. Sigh. I have a difficult relationship with them, they are just sooo NT. Shudder.

So anyway, my sister-in-law, the youngest in the family, is getting married. She recently moved 3000 miles away and is having the wedding in her new city. All her relations live near us on the west coast, but they all have $$$ in the bank and can afford to go. We don't. We just narrowly avoided foreclosure LAST WEEK and are struggling to keep the utilities on. So, when his sister asked us to come to the wedding, my husband gave her a firm NO. I was super whiney, wanting to find a way to go, but he put his foot down, saying it would be completely irresponsible and ethically reprehensible to spend money on a trip when we can barely pay our bills. And since she only gave us 4 months notice and tax returns won't even be paid by then, there is really no foreseeable way we could pay for the trip. (We have 3 special needs kids btw, and no-one we could leave them with even if we could afford airfare for just the 2 of us.)

I really wanted to be a part of his sister's special day. I have very few friends and regret that I haven't been able to participate in many of the social "big deals" that most people do; like weddings, baby showers, etc. I don't like "parties," but I love formalized social gatherings; where everything from what you wear to who stands where is clearly defined. LOVE it. But... I respected my husband's decision and moved on.

Now, just a few days ago, my husband asks me how my day was... I told him; shopping, writing, chores, blah, blah. He tells me about his day, the exercise machine he put together at work, the tux he got measured for, what he had for lunch. .....

WHAT!?!

A tuxedo. Well, apparently his sisters and mother have been hounding him to come to the wedding and be a groomsman and have even collected enough money from the family & her church to pay for his travel expenses. WITHOUT ME. Without even consulting me. Without talking, texting, emailing, calling. NOTHING. It's like I don't even exist. And yes, before you ask, I have told them I'm an Aspie, and they have responded "Whew! So that's why you're so strange and difficult to talk to."

I am upset. All this behind the scenes wrangling and convincing happened, concerning my famously bad-at-organizing husband, and NOT ONE of them brought the problem to ME, the obsessive family event organizer, who can go on and on pedantically about the meaning and origins of modern social traditions.

What do I do? I'm very sad and hurt. I get nauseous at the idea of talking to them about it. I hate the idea of being "that" person. The one who makes a big drama-queen stink during someone else's spiritual event. I've had one of "those" people at every one of my baby showers and my wedding. My core values say the bride gets what the bride wants and we all smile and leave our problems for another forum. My core values also say respect my husband's decisions about his own life. But, but, but... Why are they so mean? Why did I get left out? Why didn't anyone consider that I might have feelings about the subject? Why don't these people ever give me even a tiny crumb of respect?

This is not the first time something like this has happened, but we're all grown ups and all have complicated lives and you just have to pick your battles, deal with your feelings, and let things slide. Conceal, don't feel. This time I can't, it just hurts too much.

I get it that NT's have crazy, annoying in-laws too. All in-law relationships are freaky and hard, it's just the nature of the beast. I imagine that I'm not the only Aspie with extreme difficulty figuring out how to handle conflicts with in-laws.

What do I do?

I think your husband is wrong to accept assistance and not include you, especially because he was the one who decided you both couldn't go due to finances.

I really have no experience in relationships but our family also is the same.

Our family was looked down on by the rest of the relatives because 1. My dad is the middle party Child. 2. I WAS a D scoring student with autism and 3. All of my mum's side had died before I was born. They all died about a Year after my parents wedding. So there was not a lot of time to get to know each other. Only my granddad survived and he keeped to him self a lot.

So when I got into high school I dicided I will try better with my new opportunitie to improve my popularity and results. And when I started getting A's and B's and subject awards. Everyone just started living me in my dad's family....


WTF guys as soon as I show I have skill and a purpose they just started loving me.

It pisses me off to this day.

As for your issue. If they have $$$ then so be it. What are you going to do. Your husband made a mistake, but look at it this way. If he is to still be loved in his family, he neededs to go to this event becouse they expected he should. It is sad but then if your husband loves you, if you love your kids then thats all that matters. You only over see your Outer family for 10% of your life.

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I'm pushing myself to be better. But what does that mean?

i've never know anyone like me ,so friendly PM's are always welcome .

Thank you. Yes, he was stupid to ignore my feelings and just go along with what they wanted without telling me, he admits that. He's mad at himself for being cowardly and his sister for being manipulating, not mad at me for being upset by it. I guess we do have a pretty functional marriage even though we are both in the neurodiverse tribe.

And thank you also for the reminder that in-laws are usually (hopefully) and in this case truly only involved in a small portion of our lives. It helps put things in perspective.

I do wonder what the in-laws expect of me? Am I supposed to be a super-WASP and smile and ignore it? Are they simply being supremely inconsiderate by disregarding how I might feel about the situation and the going behind my back thing? Are they just that clueless? Or do they think something else is going on, like I'm the evil mastermind behind him saying "no" to us going and they're trying to circumvent me? Sure, it's important to the bride to have her brother in the wedding party, but shouldn't it be AS important to the bride to have her sister by marriage for the last 20 years in the wedding party as well? Is there some sort of secret NT protocol that I'm not aware of? Is their behavior considered "normal" and "acceptable"?

It's so hard deciphering this stuff. These kind of uber-extraverted normos always confuse me. Why can't they say what they mean and mean what they say?

And why do we (aspies) fixate so much on material details. I'm hung up on the tuxedo. A solid, material representation of him being so very important to them that they're bringing him to the wedding hell or high water. The future is unwritten, there is the possibility he might get a better job and we could afford to go. She has her congregation praying that we will be able to come after all. So why haven't I been contacted by her with the details about the dresses for the wedding party? Huh? Huh? He's being badgered by them to get measured for his tux, why am I not being badgered to pick from her selection of matron-of-honor dresses? Honestly, after 25 years, do these people not know me at all?

NT's don't get how black and white, how pragmatic, yet lateral our thinking can be sometimes. We're a different operating system and they just don't get us.

The fault lies almost completely with his family. Your husband probably feels like his pride has been wounded having to accept money from his family, guilted and manipulated by his sister, and generally crummy. So don't hold this against him. He does deserve a smack on the shoulder for apparently forgetting to mention it to you, but not any lasting anger.

There is not much to do about his family in this situation but accept it, because it is their money. If this is the only time they exclude you, it may really be about nothing but money. If they continue to exclude you in the future, then you should sit down with your husband and talk to him about their behavior and what can be done to fix it.

Bloody hell, that's an awful business!

I think you guys need to have a plan in place for what to do if something like this happens again. I really don't like it that your husband made these plans without telling you.

In a way, it's totally ok for him to be the only one showing up, with finances being the way they are, but why the secrecy? Why didn't he just go to you first and say that his family are proposing this plan, what do you think? That's what worries me about this. Who knows, maybe his family assumed he would tell you at once - that's generally what people do, tell their spouses first. I mean, it wouldn't be natural for his mother or sister to make that call.