Bride tells fiancé; 'You NEED to invite your stepdad to the wedding.' AITA?

"AITA for telling my future husband that he should invite his stepdad to the wedding?"

So this has some backstory, I am suppose to get married this spring to my fiancé James. James and his mother don’t have the best relationship because she got remarried to his stepdad, Ryan.

His mother and his bio dad were on and off again separation and around when James was 15, mom said she was done and divorce.

Around the same time she was dating Ryan. I know James believes his mother cheated but I have talked to his other sibling and they don’t think so. Really it was a messy situation where they were on constant breaks and mom pulled the plug.

Anyways James bio dad hit the bottles and he passed away before James graduated college. His mom and Ryan married and he hates Ryan. He blames Ryan for the divorce and how his bio dad handled it.

I have personally met Ryan and he is decent guy. James has confirmed with me that Ryan has only be polite to him, he doesn’t have any complaints against the guy besides blaming him for the divorce. He also doesn't cause drama at events, just acts like a normal guest.

To the main issue, we sent out invitations for the wedding and he did not invite his stepdad. If didn’t know this at the time the invites where went out. He basically told him mom, that while she may be her husband he is not his family and isn’t invited. That it’s his event and he can decided who to invite.It didn’t go well to put it bluntly.

Invites to Halloween party happened and the invite was just addressed to him. I was not included. We called her up and he asked why I wasn’t invited. His mom told us that I may be his future wife, I am not family to her and she gets to decide who to invite for her event. Big fight over the phone.

I know his mom is making a point, it’s very obvious and I personally would be pissed to not have my spouse invited to a wedding. I get her point. Not thrilled I got pulled in but again I know she is making a point.

I told my future husband that he should invite his stepdad and it is hypocritical to be pissed that I am not invited to a family event when he started this by not inviting Ryan.

He set the standards and his mom is following them. He told me it’s not the same. I told him it really is, especially when your beef with him is over your mom remmarrying. We got into the a fight and he called me a jerk. AITA?

Let's see what readers thought:

angelblade writes:

NTA - The Stepdad is not responsible for anyone’s behaviour but his own, so blaming him for his fathers alcoholism is not fair. Additionally, leaving him out of the wedding is spiteful and petty, and it goes to show you how immature he is that he doesn’t recognise the hypocrisy of it all.

I get people saying you should stay out of it, but everyone in that family seems to be dragging you into it, one way or another.

aaghop writes:

ESH. Even if he has his personal traumas that he needs to work on, you should respect his decision about not wanting to have someone that he feels that had a role in his father's fate. However, he shouldn't be mad that you received the same treatment (Which I find very childish of his mother) and if it was me I would've just avoided going to the event if you were not invited.

gaghaqp writes:

ESH. Wedding invites should be a two-yes situation where both of you should agree on who is invited and who is excluded. So he shouldn’t have disinvited Ryan without your agreement.

I do think you’re being unsympathetic to him though. He has a lot of feelings about the end of his parents’ marriage and his father’s death. You don’t have to agree with them. But if you’re marrying him you need to be able to respect those feelings. If you don’t respect those feelings that’s fine but then it does call into question whether you should be marrying him.

You seem to respect his mom’s feelings more than his. She’s being an asshole too by not inviting you. Again, you don’t have to agree with your fiancé here, you don’t have to side with him - but neither should you be siding against him. Here again, if you really think James is in the wrong and cannot accept his view on this, that’s fine, but it suggests maybe this isn’t the right person for you to marry.

reiewoak writes:

Whether he is right about Ryan or not, James has a lot of unresolved issues about him and simply telling him to invite him ain't gonna work. Unfortunately, rather than trying to do the mature thing here and sit down and talk about it everyone's pulling tit for tat childish retaliation. ESH

gllop writes:

You're marrying someone who is mad at a person who has never been anything but be in the wrong place at the wrong time and for something someone else did. Did you never think at any point he could do the same to you?

I get not being buddy buddy with his step dad but hating him for his father's own actions is ridiculous and for me a person who can't reflect and change their opinion on people who have again done zero things wrong is not a person for me. I would dig into your own morals on this one and what morals you want your kids to hold. NTA.

coastal0 writes:

I'm going soft YTA. While James does need to find a path forward with his mum and Ryan, it's not necessarily your place to dictate his relationship to his family. The situation with his mum not inviting you to the halloween event is slightly different as there hasn't been a reason to cause a rift between you and his mum and her husband.

It's evident that there's been no healing here and because James' siblings have accepted the situation, it doesn't sound like his mum really helped guide him toward the breaking up of his family.