Okay, so I'm in need of some advice. This is relatively long, so I apologize in advance. I've been losing sleep over this for too long to keep it bottled inside anymore.
Some backstory, I've been with my husband for 7 years (married for 1.5). My husband has a small family, just his mother and younger brother. We've been quite close with his mother for the last few years, and she's been a huge support for us. My husband has never been close to his younger brother, and he's not really ever been around for the entirety of our relationship. When I say I know nothing about BIL, I mean literally nothing. I've seen him maybe a total of 12 times in the last 7 years, and any interaction I've had with him, he has been relatively aloof and disinterested. He is a successful tattoo artist and spends a lot of time traveling and being busy, so I understand that he can't always make time for us. But, he really seems to go out of his way to put as little effort in as possible.
Here are some examples: He and his girlfriend (his current fiance) showed up in the middle of my bridal shower causing a complete ruckus, and started popping bottles of champagne and shouting in the middle of me opening my gifts. He threw a fit about us having to change our wedding date since we switched from a destination wedding in New Orleans to a local wedding in Michigan despite us giving him 10 months notice. He refused to fly out to see his dying grandmother on her deathbed because he 'hadn't forgiven her' for things she had said to him in past. He recently 'wasn't able' to come out for a family funeral because he was 'moving', and wasn't able to attend. He doesn't come around or reach out for people's birthdays, major holidays or the like. When they were teenagers, my husband's brother stole $200 out of his wallet, lied about taking it, and bragged about it to his friends while on the phone with them. DH and BIL got into a physical altercation as a result of this, and their relationship was never really the same after that. About four years ago, my husband put himself out there to apologize to his brother about their fight, and tried to take responsibility for his part of the fight. His brother told him that he 'didn't forgive him', and subsequently ended the conversation. Since then, the only communication we have had with his brother has been predominantly through their mother. I also feel that it is necessary to mention that BIL is clearly the favorite of her two sons, as MIL treats him as though he is the second coming of Christ and can do nothing wrong ever.
My husband and I got married in November 2016, and shortly before then it seemed like his brother was making a bit more effort to be more present and around for family stuff. We went out to dinner (once), and we started exchanging pleasantries once in a while (texting happy holidays, happy birthday, etc). BIL has since moved to Philadelphia (we live in Michigan), and the effort has become relatively one-sided again.
In October this year, we found out that BIL had become engaged to his girlfriend. How did we find out? From his mother...We sent them an engagement gift as a result of having heard the news, and didn't receive any kind of response or thank you. His mother told us that they were planning on having the wedding sometime next year. A short time later, we found out that he and his fiance are expecting their first child in July of this year. He did make an effort to tell us this via video call, which I appreciated greatly since it felt like he was trying to include us in this big moment. We were pretty excited, and I know my husband is very excited to be an uncle for the first time. They made it sound like they were going to try to move up their wedding to do it before the baby was born, but they still weren't sure.
In mid-February this year (during my MIL's birthday lunch), she shared with us that she was flying out for my BIL's wedding sometime in April. She also told us that only parents and "probably the bride's sisters" were going to be invited. Sorry? What? I'm sorry, but this felt like we were being purposely excluded from the wedding. And since we had heard nothing from him since the announcement of the baby, we were both pretty hurt. It felt like a complete slap in the face. I was really looking forward to going to their wedding and celebrating with them, and I was extremely happy for them. Now it felt like they didn't want us to be a part of that, and it really really hurt.
The next day, I received a text message from BIL stating that 'We are getting married at the courthouse on April 14, 2018. You guys are invited. It was just going to be parents at first, but it sounds like [SIL's] sisters are going to be able to make it as well.' WOW, what an invite. I should note that MIL has the tendency to enjoy being the middle man, and has a tendency to meddle in her son's lives. I have my suspicions that she told him how we reacted, and twisted his arm to inviting us. We were traveling at the time that he had texted us, so I responded a day or so later stating that we would let him know who would be able to come etc. No paper invite, or even a simple email with details about the day followed the 'text invite'. We literally just got a text message saying that we were invited to this wedding, and no other information. If we didn't talk to MIL, we would know literally nothing about this affair. I planned on booking our tickets anyways, and going to the wedding despite his lack of enthusiasm.
After months of struggling in a job I despise, I recently interviewed and was hired in a new department in my company, and my first day of work would be April 9, 2018. The week of BIL's wedding. It's a job I've really wanted for quite sometime, and I'm very happy about this transition. Since DH and I were planning on flying out on April 13, I opted out of coming since I wasn't sure what my training schedule would be like (sometimes our training is out of town, sometimes up to two hours away), and I didn't want them to have to wait to make plans for me since I won't find anything out for certain until April 9 when I start. I figured it was better for just DH to go since he had already taken the time off, and there's been no transition to his job. I spoke to MIL and DH about it, told them our plan, and everything seemed to be fine. I bought DH the cheapest ticket out to PA (departing 8:00pm Fri, arriving back 7:30am Sun), and the plans were made. Despite telling BIL our new plans, still have yet to receive any text response or anything back from him. STILL. Over a month later. And still no new details about the wedding.
About a week later, my husband comes home insisting that I make more effort to come to the wedding, and that I should make different arrangements. I was taken aback since we had already discussed this, and he knew that I had already purchased his ticket alone. We got into a sort of heated debate about the subject, and he finally broke down and told me that his mother had made comments to him about me making excuses for not being able to go, and that I should try to make more of an effort. MIL has the tendency to avoid confrontation, and will often discuss things that she should discuss with me with DH so he can tell me so she doesn't have to. This has been a point of tension between her and I for sometime, and all of the other circumstances of this wedding and BIL in general to do not help. I told DH I would try to make arrangements, and that he was right and maybe I should make more effort to try and see if I can go. I contacted my employer to try to make arrangements to reschedule my training, and after quite a bit of fighting and having to talk to higher-ups and HR, I was able to get the time off. I was literally in the process of trying to get his ticket refunded so I could get us both tickets to PA for the same day and time.
Welp, this all came to a head yesterday. MIL texted me absolutely furious saying that I was 'playing games' with her, and I was making a bunch of excuses not to go to this wedding and I was being hurtful. We exchanged some words, and finally she told me IN A TEXT that she didn't want myself or DH at BIL's wedding. I spent the remainder of the rest of yesterday trying to figure out how to make this right, and reached out to BIL to tell him that I was sorry if I had caused him any issues or upset, and that was not my intention. I told him my reasoning for not including myself at first (DUE TO WORK), that I was able to pull a lot of strings at work, successfully got the time off, and told him that I'd still like to go to the wedding if I was still permitted. RADIO FRIGGIN SILENCE. NOTHING. NADA.
So, needless to say, I didn't sleep well last night. I am so unbelievably emotionally exhausted from this entire thing, and am at a loss for what to do. I have literally NO desire to go to this wedding anymore, especially now. Despite all of my initial reservations and unwelcome feelings, I had completely honest intentions of going to this wedding until I got this new job. I even risked LOSING this job and having to stay at my current job, JUST so I could go to a wedding THAT WE'RE PROBABLY NOT EVEN WANTED AT! How can I possibly recover from this? What am I supposed to do? DH has told me multiple times that he also doesn't want to go to this wedding, but is going strictly because his brother attended our wedding. I am at a complete loss, please help me. :-(
