it hurts 18 Jul 06
Posted by רות in Misc.trackback
Israel, my heart is with you.
. . .
Many of my husband’s relatives and neighbors have married in the past couple of years.
We were invited to ONE wedding out of, say 15, opportunities (a.k.a. my husband’s parents were invited and attended).
I am not sure why, but it hurts. I see some of these people in shops and such and they walk by me as if I don’t exist.
Even my inlaws claimed surprise that invitations were not extended to include us. I’m convinced it’s me. What am I doing wrong?
Right. That’s helping lots of things.
יהושע בן פרחיה וניתאי הארבלי קיבלו מהם יהושע בן פרחיה אומר עשה לך רב וקנה לך חבר והוי דן את כל האדם לכף זכות
. . .
Choose yourself a mentor;
Acquire yourself a friend;
And make it your habit to judge every person favorably.
~Yehoshua ben Perachia (pirkei avos 1:6)
I am trying. I am trying.
I find that sometimes, as well. I try to excuse them by saying, maybe they wanted to keep the event small (I can believe that one if my parents are invited), sometimes I think maybe it’s the infertility thing, and they’re trying to be nice by not subjecting us to lots of kids. We recently got a bar mitzvah invitation. It had been mailed a few days after I heard the mother discussing the bar mitzvah with someone else. I was close enough to politely include myself in the conversation, so I joined in. From the conversation, it was obvious the invitations had already been mailed.
So, it would seem this woman failed to invite my & Hubby initially. Did she invite us, then, because she felt guilty since I had been part of the conversation? Did she think we wouldn’t want to come, but from our convo changed her mind? Did she honestly forget us because we don’t have kids in that age group, but was reminded when she saw me?
Maybe this isn’t worthwhile, but perhaps your in-laws could discreetly ask around – maybe there is a perception that you wouldn’t be interested? I’m just thinking out loud, but I know how distressing this can be, so I hope something changes, somehow, soon.
I am sorry to hear that you felt hurt, but don’t get into the “maybe it is me” cycle, talk to you husband and to your inlaws about it, go to other kinds of gatherings and make sure everyone knows that you are a social person, and that you like events like weddings..etc.
My older sister got married and we didn’t bother inviting certain people we thought they wouldn’t come (They had to travel..etc)
We didn’t realise how stupid it was until they called my mom on the phone and told her they were hurt! And we are glad they did!
I hope that you try to get to know people around you, and if they don’t greet you, greet them, make a little talk, get to know them, once, twice, three times…they will end up realising how nice you are!
b’hatzlacha!
I recently got an invitation to a cousin’s wedding, and when I did, it occurred to me that I hadn’t been even invited to his two older sister’s weddings, and my parents were invited to at least one of those. All of them were invited to my wedding.
It’s possible that they drew a line at a certain distance of relative. My parents are closer relations to most of my relatives than I am, and there have been several weddings I wasn’t invited to because they weren’t inviting the cousins, only the Aunts and Uncles, or only the first cousins, but I was a second cousin, or they weren’t inviting “kids” and they were used to thinking of me as one of the “kids” even though I was married, etc.
Please don’t take it personally. (And I truly hope it wasn’t meant personally!)