Woman Says She Will No Longer Participate in Her Boyfriend's Family Events After Several Slights: ‘I Don't Feel Welcome'
A woman shared on Reddit that she and her boyfriend have been kept at a distance by his family
The woman was upset that her boyfriend's sister-in-law didn't postpone her pregnancy announcement for a few days so that the couple could be present
The woman now refuses to attend any family events due to feeling slightedA woman claims her boyfriend's family has kept her at a distance — and now she doesn't want to have anything to do with them.
In a post on Reddit's "Am I the A------" forum, the 31-year-old woman detailed her fractured relationship with her boyfriend's family. The couple has been together for almost three years, and in the beginning, his family members 'were kind and really put in effort to get to know me," the OP (original poster) said.
"His sister (27F) and his sister-in-law (29F) would text me to plan dinner together, we'd work out together, etc. The feeling was mutual," she continued.
But then things began to change. 'Slowly, I've noticed them both distancing themselves from me with no apparent reason to my knowledge,' she wrote.
According to the OP, her boyfriend's brother once reached out to ask if the couple wanted to go to Hawaii with him and his wife. The OP and her boyfriend took a few hours to consider and then said yes.
'His brother responds back saying 'never mind, we decided to go with a smaller group' essentially just removing us since everyone else was still going,' she claimed. 'They went on their trip and blocked me and my bf from seeing their social media stories (to this day we're still blocked but haven't spoken up about it to them). There was never an apology or an attempt to communicate what happened, it was just swept under the rug.'
The OP also mentioned another incident in which the family had texted them to come over on a Thursday night. She and her boyfriend couldn't attend, but told the family they would see them that Sunday, which was Father's Day.
'The sister texts us a video that night that the SIL/brother are announcing their first pregnancy and that we missed it," she wrote. "There was no attempt to reschedule the announcement so that we could all be present for it. They could've easily said the news on Father's Day, just days later.'
Feeling upset and slighted, the woman had a conversation with her boyfriend and expressed her 'concerns that his family is making it clear they don't value our presence."
"Whenever we go over to the family home, it feels like everyone goes quiet and dilutes their personality until we leave," she noted.
The conversation ended with the OP telling her boyfriend that she will no longer attend his family's events, nor will she congratulate the sister-in-law on her pregnancy due to her "standoffish" behavior.
'I will not go where I don't feel welcome. Today he went to the family home alone and I stayed at home," the OP finished her post, asking fellow Redditors, "AITA [am I the a------]?"
For many users, the answer was a resounding yes. Some suggested that she was wrongly perceiving certain situations as slights.
'You can't expect someone to postpone their pregnancy announcement — they invited you, and they shared the video afterwards," one person wrote. "They are allowed to keep that separate from Father's Day, and to share the information with people separately. And refusing to congratulate his SIL is just churlish. It is almost always better to build bridges than burn them."
Others questioned whether the woman was leaving facts out of her post to explain why there is a perceived distance between her and the boyfriend's family.
'This sounds a bit like a situation where there are missing reasons somewhere,' a reader said. 'The expectation that they postpone pregnancy announcement is too much."
The same reader suspected that the family 'slowly distanced themselves for some reasons you are choosing to not analyze.'
However, other commenters sympathized with the OP — particularly regarding the Hawaii invite that was rescinded — and encouraged a direct conversation.
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'I'd want closure, and if I have to make family dinner awkward for everyone to get that closure, I will,' one person wrote. 'Then let them know that since they don't see you as family, that you will not be treating them as such and simply cut them off.'
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