My (29F) SIL (30F) didn’t include me in the family portrait at her wedding. I’m deeply hurt and don’t know how to let bygones be bygones.

Hi there. The event occurred this past August and it’s eating away at me.

Here’s the event: my husband and I were married this past May. Both he and I grew up flipping through our family’s wedding albums and thus the after-ceremony posed family pictures are important to us. When we took the immediate family picture, we made sure that his sister’s fiancé was standing by her side. Fast forward three months to SIL’s and fiancé’s wedding: they did the important family pictures at a local dock + park before the ceremony. My husband and I were invited to come along. When it came time for the immediate family to take their picture, I started to walk up to join them. In front of all assembled, SIL shook her head “No” at me. I backed away like a dog with its tail between its legs, while my in-laws said and did nothing. My husband was flustered and looked at me with concern, but then straightened up and took the portrait. It took every ounce of willpower and Miss Manners upbringing in me to not storm off and find an overpriced coffee shop in which to escape.

It’s now more than five months after the fact and I finally told my husband that my being explicitly excluded from the picture was humiliating and deeply painful. According to him, when he spoke to his mom about it, she said that she and SIL had talked about it beforehand. She didn’t say anything because “It’s SIL’s wedding and she can do what she wants.”

Now, I agree that for the most part a bride and groom can and should have wide latitude when it comes to their wedding. However, by this point I’d been this bride’s sister-in-law for three months and I’m both stunned and pained that I had been intentionally excluded from this picture, along with the fact that my in-laws knew beforehand that I was going to be excluded. I’m trying to give my in-laws the benefit of the doubt, but I’m struggling to do so: what does it say about them that they knew I’d be excluded and they went along with it?

As for my SIL’s decision, my husband and I have talked at length about possible reasons as to why she chose this. He arrived at three options, none of them good: she doesn’t think we’ll last and didn’t want a potential ex-wife in the picture, she straight up doesn’t like me, or she just wanted a blood relative photo.

Much as I would be tempted to write her off, that is next to impossible: my husband is quite close with his family and holidays/big events are family bonanzas. Avoiding her entirely is not an option.

How do I move on from this slight? How can I maintain a good relationship with my husband’s family after this?

TL;DR: my SIL excluded me from family wedding pictures even though I’d been married to her brother for three months and his family let it happen.

Submitted January 25, 2020 at 06:18AM by TBoguS301 https://ift.tt/2sXNFox