We all know that weddings can bring out family drama, but sometimes there are stories that still shock us with the sheer level of audacity that some parents have. There is something about weddings that seem to make some people believe that they have some unchanging right to be invited, no matter how poorly they've treated the couple getting married. A wedding invitation is an honor, not an obligation, but some people sure do get salty when they don't get invited. And oh man, does the family of a recent writer to the Dear Prudence column have some REAL NERVE to be salty in this circumstance.
The letter writer, who we'll call "Disowned," gave a little back story to provide some perspective.
"When my parents found out about my boyfriend when I was 15, they disowned me and kicked me out the house," he wrote.
Full disclosure: We were already on Disowned's side before even hearing the rest of the story. A parent who disowns and kicks out a 15-year-old because they are gay should never know peace again, let alone expect ANYTHING from that kid ever again.
Disowned struggled for years after that, sharing that he "ended up on the streets and in a youth homeless shelter." He tried to get help from other family members, including some who had been vocally supportive of gay rights, but "they said no because they didn’t want to 'pick sides' in mine and my parents’ 'fight.'"
After being rejected by his whole family, the letter writer had to make a life for himself.
Disowned even had a cousin who "was instructed to stop speaking to me and act like she didn’t recognize me when they passed where I was sleeping on a park bench on more than one occasion," he shared.
Thankfully for Disowned, he worked hard to make it on his own after he "adjusted to the idea of myself as someone without a family and managed, through huge effort and the dedication of some social workers, to get back on my feet and make a life for myself."
The bright spot in this story is that Disowned found "a wonderful guy" and recently married him in a ceremony "with close friends and his family in attendance. No one from my family was invited or informed about the wedding until after the event."
Yeah, not inviting his family seems completely reasonable, right?
Never underestimate the possibility that weddings will bring out the family crazy.
Recently, Disowned was contacted by his cousin, who at least had the grace to apologize for her past behavior, and even attended a few family events at her urging. His parents chose to ignore him at these occasions, and his other family members tried to pretend he hadn't been disowned.
His aunt and uncle "enthusiastically chatted to me and acted as though we’d just randomly lost contact and nothing weird had happened. I was polite but quickly stopped attending events and shifted to occasional friendly exchanges online with them."
"It never occurred to me to invite these people to my wedding, and they only learned of it when I shared photos online."
Although no reasonable person would expect Disowned to invite his parents to his wedding, it turns out that his family isn't made up of reasonable people.
"I have been bombarded with calls, texts, and messages from my cousin and her parents, all expressing how hurt they are that they received no invite. 'How could you pretend to have reconnected with us but disown us as your family like this?' is a genuine message I received from my aunt, along with, 'Who are these strangers you refer to as your ‘parents’? Your real parents are so humiliated!' (I referred to my mother-in-law and father-in-law as my family in a post, not as my parents.)"
Unfortunately, these messages had Disowned second-guessing himself and wondering if he had been "somehow callous in not inviting them after we reconnected."
Thankfully Prudie's guest columnist, the delightful R. Eric Thomas, was on the case to set him straight.
"No one is owed an invite to any wedding. This is ridiculous," the columnist wrote.
Thomas was both blunt and accurate when he told Disowned that "You have not been nasty, and if they feel humiliation, it comes from their own abhorrent behavior."
Yep. That's the truth.
And we have to agree with Thomas, who argued that Disowned needs to not only not feel bad about not inviting them but that he should also consider if he even wants to stay in relationship with these people.
"I suspect that going back and forth with them will only further hurt you and you will end up being cast as the 'bad guy,' as often happens when in conflict with abusive people," Thomas wrote."They’re going to keep making you responsible for the guilt they feel. My first thought is that you should simply cut off all contact and never respond again. Mail to the junk folder; calls blocked, etc. Definitely block them on social media."
We all know that comments sections can bring out internet trolls and mean-spirited comments, but Dear Prudie readers were firmly on Disowned's side.
As one noted, all bets are off when a parent kicks their kid out: "When your parents literally throw you out into the street as a teenager and then proceed to ignore you at family events several years later, nobody but nobody has cause to get up on their high horse about how you handle your relationship with them. If you call them awful and abusive, that's fair game."
Clearly the story made the readers as mad as it made us, with another writing, "they are in a self-righteous rage because they weren't invited to his wedding? How dare they? There are no words. They deserve no words. They know exactly what they did, and they know exactly why they weren't invited to that wedding. No explanation is needed, and, frankly, no contact with them is necessary."
Although we might not go as hard as the commentator who suggested Disowned "shouldn't bother to p— on them if they were on fire," we're still hoping that Disowned and his husband will have a wonderful life together and that he never feels like he owes his family a damn thing!
