FI's stepmother is a piece of work, I'm told. I haven't actually ever MET the woman, because she can't be bothered to fit a family gathering with FI into her busy schedule and seems to have no interest in meeting me. She has adult children of her own and definitely favors them over FI. From my vantage point, she seems to have a little bit of Evil Stepmother syndrome going on - FI's dad has to sneak out of the house to see him, or wait until she's out of town, and she regularly tries to cause drama or criticize FI (to his own father). Every time FI attempts to make nice with her, she feigns ignorance and tells him he's the only one with a problem and the only person he's hurting is his father. FI's father has suggested he talk to her and try to repair things, but refuses to stand up to her when she starts in with the manipulative behavior. There have been a number of 'episodes' in the time FI and I have been together, and in that time I've not seen or heard her say one cordial thing to him.
Regardless, for some reason it got passed along the grapevine (FSMIL to FI's dad, FI to me) that she was heavily criticizing the way I addressed the invitations, and that theirs should have been addressed to "Mr. and Mrs. HisFirstname Lastname" and what poor etiquette that was to do it any other way, and that there was no inner envelope and it just looked sloppy. Now, I'm all for admitting mistakes, but she's NOT "Mrs. HisFirstname Lastname", she kept her maiden name and we addressed the invitation accordingly. She filled out the RSVP as "Mr. and Mrs. HisFirstname Lastname", and I'm sure will have something to say about the fact that we aren't assigning seats or setting out place cards.
This woman is supposedly coming to the wedding, which is in just a few weeks. We were originally concerned with FI's parents having to coexist, as they don't really get along...but this woman has sort of elbowed her way into the limelight and FI is pretty sure she will try to be an AW and cause some sort of scene.
OK, so I'm not sure there is really a question here. Kind of a vent. We're getting down to the wire and dammit, I don't need this biiitch's drama! Anyone else have an evil FSMIL? Maybe you can placate me with stories of weddings that have happened succesfully with evil FSMIL's in attendance? Ways to detain the AW'ing evil FSMIL?
I'm secretly hoping she will have some important business meeting to attend that week.