Bad blood between family members

miranda1227

Basically, my fiancé's biological mother has done quite a few things to hurt him in various forms. She is not somebody that is easy to deal with, and I classify her as a toxic person. We refer to his best friend's mom as his mom, as she practically raised him through his teenage years and has been there for the both of us throughout our adult lives. My fiancé is an incredibly forgiving person and has been able to get past all of the things that his bio mother has done, and while I am still not able to forgive her, it is important to him that I at least put in a good effort to be cordial and polite, which I am fine with. 

The issue is that his "mom" wants to take care of planning my bridal shower. I would love for her to do that for me, and I'm already getting excited about it. However, I know that she will not want to invite any of my fiancé's bio family (his mother, his sisters, his grandmother....) and I'm a little worried about that causing some issues. I'm honored that she wants to do it, but I'm afraid that if I tell his mom that they really need to be invited she won't want to host the shower anymore. I have no idea what the right thing to do is, and I really need some advice. Thank you!

AddieCake

There's nothing wrong with her not inviting them to the shower since you really aren't close to them. If that part of the family wants to throw you a shower, then they can throw their own.

OliveOilsMom

miranda1227 said:

Basically, my fiancé's biological mother has done quite a few things to hurt him in various forms. She is not somebody that is easy to deal with, and I classify her as a toxic person. We refer to his best friend's mom as his mom, as she practically raised him through his teenage years and has been there for the both of us throughout our adult lives. My fiancé is an incredibly forgiving person and has been able to get past all of the things that his bio mother has done, and while I am still not able to forgive her, it is important to him that I at least put in a good effort to be cordial and polite, which I am fine with. 

The issue is that his "mom" wants to take care of planning my bridal shower. I would love for her to do that for me, and I'm already getting excited about it. However, I know that she will not want to invite any of my fiancé's bio family (his mother, his sisters, his grandmother....) and I'm a little worried about that causing some issues. I'm honored that she wants to do it, but I'm afraid that if I tell his mom that they really need to be invited she won't want to host the shower anymore. I have no idea what the right thing to do is, and I really need some advice. Thank you!

As the host of the event, your FI's "mom" can dictate the guest list.  So if that means she does not want to host your FI's bio family, that is her decision to make.   If she asks for a potential guest list, you can put those people on there and see what she says.

As Addie says, if FI's bio family wants to throw you a separate shower, they can do that.  Just make sure that shower guest lists don't overlap.  You could invite your mom, any siblings, and BP to both showers, but no other guests to both.

You could also decline the offer of a shower from her and wait to see if anyone else will host one for you.  That would potentially enable you to invite all your nearest and dearest to just one shower.  But you also run the risk of no one else offering to host a shower for you.  And it is against etiquette to ask someone to host a shower for you or to host a shower yourself.

Jen4948

I would let her make the decision as hostess as to whether or not she wants to host his bio relatives.  If she doesn't, then I'd let that decision stand.

If his bio relatives want to host a shower or other event for you, they can do so separately from his "mom's" shower.  It's okay to have multiple showers as long as there is no guest list overlap-that is, no one is invited to more than one shower for you.

MobKaz

I'm going to disagree with the PP's.  I think it is a common courtesy to always invite the MOB and the MOG to any showers being held.

Jen4948

MobKaz said:

I'm going to disagree with the PP's.  I think it is a common courtesy to always invite the MOB and the MOG to any showers being held.

Not in this case with regards to the biological MOG. The OP has indicated that for all practical purposes the hostess of this shower is the "M" OG.

And if she's been giving emotional and psychological care to the OP's FI that she knows his bio relatives should be giving him and aren't because of their own shit, it's definitely her right not to send them "courtesy" invitations when they haven't behaved courteously to the honorees.

Sorry, but not every case fits neatly into a "always send courtesy invitations" to the mothers.

MobKaz

Jen4948 said:

I'm going to disagree with the PP's.  I think it is a common courtesy to always invite the MOB and the MOG to any showers being held.

Not in this case with regards to the biological MOG. The OP has indicated that for all practical purposes the hostess of this shower is the "M" OG. And if she's been giving emotional and psychological care to the OP's FI that she knows his bio relatives should be giving him and aren't because of their own shit, it's definitely her right not to send them "courtesy" invitations when they haven't behaved courteously to the honorees. Sorry, but not every case fits neatly into a "always send courtesy invitations" to the mothers.

OP's post is unclear.  She says that the mom of FI's friend "practically raised him", but it does not state whether the FI lived with his biological mother.  "Mom" may not want to invite FI's mother, but the OP makes it clear that FI has gotten past whatever experiences occurred in his past.  It does not sound as if the FI would want to do anything to create waves or cause "issues", as OP states in her post.

It is possible that by not extending this courtesy invitation, this "MOG" sets up a bad tone for the remainder of the wedding events.  She is the hostess, and has a right to invite whomever she pleases.  However, I see this more in line with divorced or step parent issues, and would encourage adults to behave like adults and do the polite and mature thing.

If FI's bio mom becomes aware of the shower, think of all the potential misinformation and misunderstandings that could result from the lack of one courtesy invitation.  The MOG could interpret the lack of an invite to be a direct slap from her son or FDIL. 

AddieCake

OP isn't past the issues, though. I don't think you should have to have people at an intimate event that you are not comfortable being around. If her fiancé was going to be there, I might feel differently.

Jen4948

MobKaz said:

Jen4948 said:

MobKaz said:

I'm going to disagree with the PP's.  I think it is a common courtesy to always invite the MOB and the MOG to any showers being held.

Not in this case with regards to the biological MOG. The OP has indicated that for all practical purposes the hostess of this shower is the "M" OG.

And if she's been giving emotional and psychological care to the OP's FI that she knows his bio relatives should be giving him and aren't because of their own shit, it's definitely her right not to send them "courtesy" invitations when they haven't behaved courteously to the honorees.

Sorry, but not every case fits neatly into a "always send courtesy invitations" to the mothers.

OP's post is unclear.  She says that the mom of FI's friend "practically raised him", but it does not state whether the FI lived with his biological mother.  "Mom" may not want to invite FI's mother, but the OP makes it clear that FI has gotten past whatever experiences occurred in his past.  It does not sound as if the FI would want to do anything to create waves or cause "issues", as OP states in her post.

It is possible that by not extending this courtesy invitation, this "MOG" sets up a bad tone for the remainder of the wedding events.  She is the hostess, and has a right to invite whomever she pleases.  However, I see this more in line with divorced or step parent issues, and would encourage adults to behave like adults and do the polite and mature thing.

If FI's bio mom becomes aware of the shower, think of all the potential misinformation and misunderstandings that could result from the lack of one courtesy invitation.  The MOG could interpret the lack of an invite to be a direct slap from her son or FDIL. 


As I posted elsewhere, I do not buy into the idea that someone should be invited to anything because they have problems that will get worse if they don't. I think that it's a very good reason to leave them off guest lists. It sounds like the bios are like that and that's why the "mom" won't be willing to invite them. Actions have consequences, and if these people have been so toxic to the FI that he considers someone else his "mom" then the bios' not being invited is the consequences of their ugly actions, and they deserve to be omitted. I'm not sympathetic to the argument that it's a "slap in the face" to omit someone who deserves it as the consequences of their own behavior.

miranda1227

In response to posters saying that I am unclear, I don't understand why it matters if he actually lived with his "mom" or not. But for the record, yes he has lived with her a couple of different time since he was 14. My favorite instance was when he was 19, his bio mother would not allow him to use the car that his father had gotten for him to drive to his college classes because she was so angry with his father, and so his mom offered to let him come and stay with her so that he could use her car to go to school.

He is still hurt by everything that has happened between him and his bio mother, but he is able to forgive. He is a very calm and tolerant person, but I am not able to get over things as quickly as he is. He has asked that I "play nice" and so I do, and I personally would rather that if his bio mom wants to do anything like throw a shower for me that she host it herself, especially as there is even more history between the two mothers than there is between me and his bio mom. However, I wanted opinions on the etiquette of that situation.