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Dear Abby: Family Photo?
DEAR ABBY: Three months ago, my sister "Diane" said she would like to get the family together for some professional family photos. The photographer she chose was available only on one particular day. Unfortunately, my husband couldn't get off from work that day.
Diane then suggested we take the pictures without him. I said it was inappropriate and refused. When I asked if we could use a different photographer at another time, my sister told me to forget the whole thing.
Today I was visiting my parents and I saw the family photos -- taken without me, my husband and our child. I had no idea they had gone ahead and taken the pictures without us. I am angry and hurt. I'm especially mad at my mom because she knew how bothered I was that Diane suggested excluding my husband.
Am I justified in feeling this way? Should they have waited until the whole family was able to get together? Or should I suck it up and not expect everyone to accommodate my husband's work schedule? -- OUT OF THE PICTURE IN HOUSTON
DEAR OUT OF THE PICTURE: Yes, yes and yes.
Diane then suggested we take the pictures without him. I said it was inappropriate and refused. When I asked if we could use a different photographer at another time, my sister told me to forget the whole thing.
Today I was visiting my parents and I saw the family photos -- taken without me, my husband and our child. I had no idea they had gone ahead and taken the pictures without us. I am angry and hurt. I'm especially mad at my mom because she knew how bothered I was that Diane suggested excluding my husband.
Am I justified in feeling this way? Should they have waited until the whole family was able to get together? Or should I suck it up and not expect everyone to accommodate my husband's work schedule? -- OUT OF THE PICTURE IN HOUSTON
DEAR OUT OF THE PICTURE: Yes, yes and yes.
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Other than that, this feels like the tip of an ugly slice of family fight with History behind it for context.
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On the flipside, I'm struck by the use of the word work schedule - to me that sort of suggests that this is a regular issue, and we're into a whole different world if Husband is working a job where excessive or irregular hours are the norm and this is a constant problem because to some extent: no, actually, it's really not reasonable to ask the entire rest of your family to accommodate everything they do to a wonky schedule and I can actually see where Sister could legit hit a point of YOU KNOW WHAT I DON'T CARE ANYMORE, WHATEVER.
But that plus things like Sister actually saying "you know what forget about it" (because that's a very specific phrasing as well) just really imply to me that this is a tiny tip of the iceberg that's MOSTLY about LW going "see Dear Abby's on my side!"
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I did not have the same sense about "work schedule" you did, but then both sides of my family are very much of the "work! comes! first!" persuasion in different ways--- and come to think of it, most of us have always had something with weekend and/or evening obligations/long commutes/business travel/something else that is not strict M-F 8-hour day type things, not to mention being geographically spread out, so scheduling around various work schedules for family stuff is just As One Does, why, hello, micro-culture! And likewise, hello, thing I would not have even thought about if you had not mentioned it; thanks!
Between your as-usual insightful comments and the original letter, I am left with a VERY strong feeling that LW feels like "Diane" wants to exclude LW's spouse from family things, whether that feeling on her part is accurate or not being another story. for example, as you wisely pointed out, if LW's spouse is the only one in the family with a "non-standard" work schedule, or more to the point everyone else in the family has one work/other-obligations schedule and his is different, then the spouse-gets-excluded thing could both be very real and very much a logistics problem rather than a personal problem.
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*g* Even more micro-culture: my family runs (and has always run) from on-call full-time physicians through to freelance artists etc plus a NUMBER of people with special medical needs, to the point where actually the thing we learned to accept is that sometimes you just cannot please everyone and, in fact, you PROBABLY won't be able to, so suck it up and realize that being left out of $HolidayThing/GatheringThing/FamilyThing is not about We Hate You, You Are Not Family, it's about, if we wait for everyone to actually be available, this thing will happen never.
I mean, sticking to the LW's issue, we literally have Formalish Family Photos that are "and that's everyone except Aunt Jane and her husband Clifford, because they were down south for work" . . . and then another one that has Aunt Jane and Uncle Clifford, but is missing Cousin Sue because she was on a band trip in Europe.
Which is why my, like, visceral reaction (as noted below) is " . . . cool your panties, LW, it's a photo and it's not like you're paying for it, schedule your own if having one Of Everyone is such a big deal." But this is because my family just does not operate around these things being Big Symbols of Inclusion inherently, and we don't tend to make them into it in the course of what fights we do get into. (Cuz, like, it's not like we don't fight. We're just kinda . . . direct. Either we're at the level of "suck it up and deal with annoyances", or we've flipped over to Pissed Off and at that point everyone knows EXACTLY why each side of the fight is pissed off at the other.)
/rambling
I am left with a VERY strong feeling that LW feels like "Diane" wants to exclude LW's spouse from family things
Definitely. And, like, this could be! Gods above and below know it wouldn't be the FIRST time someone acts like that to an in-law/equivalent-of-an-inlaw, you know? And if it's a part of an ongoing pattern even if it isn't malicious it's fair to bring it up as a problem and try to find a solution.
But on the flipside it also wouldn't be the first time someone made a HUGE grievance out of what basically amounts to "my family is not making their world revolve around how my life works and this means they're TERRIBLE TO ME", and eventually one does kind of get exasperated to go "you know what NEVER MIND, EVEN".
And I also have to wonder things like: did "Diane" just pick a day and Tell everyone to get it off to come do a photo? Or was this a day that was discussed and then whoops, husband can't get it off after all? Is there a deposit to the photographer or taking-days-off-work-for-everyone-else involved?
Which: honestly part of the reasons Advice Columns INTEREST me is because they vividly show up and sometimes outline the assumptions that people make that they don't always REALIZE they're making, colouring their (our) responses. So.
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And what's really interesting to me is that the problem is between the sisters, and not, apparently, with an in-law, because, presumably, they were both raised with similar Family Rules about what compromises and scheduling and negotiation of family events looks like, even if, naturally, their personal experiences of those were different. And LW being like, "This is not appropriate to "Diane" (emphasis mine) makes me wonder about her Family Role, like, does she feel like she is the Thoughtfully/Mannerly Sister and her sister is the Devil-May-Care-Doesn't-Think-About-Others one? (And maybe to sister the roles look more like "LW is stuck-up-prig-who-wants-everything-her-way and I am compromiser-who-takes-the-best-they-can-get? Inquiring minds!). And I find it interesting that their parents went ahead with the photo, even though LW didn't think it was "appropriate". Yet again, inquiring minds!
Soooooooooooo, TL;DR: this sounds exactly like what you say all the way back in your first comment: this smacks hugely of Round 186293224354342341312983 of Sibling and Possibly Whole-Family Issues. Not just about the photo, here, people.
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Reasonable people find compromises, and accept that perfect is the enemy of the good, and find out what's important-vs-impossible for everyone involved and take steps to make sure that inclusion/etc are communicated in other ways if schedules really clash.
Sometimes OTHER people throw a massive shit-fit. So.
(....honestly, from my personal position I wind up looking at this and going " . . .why is this even a THING? I mean it's a little bit sad, but the only thing I'd be mad about is Sister not telling me she was going ahead. THERE ARE OTHER PHOTO OPPORTUNITIES AND SHE'S PAYING THE PHOTOGRAPHER. What is your problem, even?" Soooo.)
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Which is in turn why I'm still with the "out of cucumber error, redo from start": I can't BEGIN to even parse who's reasonable and who isn't without all that stuff filled in, you know?
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At any rate, I think that if I were the LW I'd take a photo with my parents, husband, and kid, and tell Mom how much her putting it on the wall beside the Family Photo We Missed means to me. OTOH, I'm an only child, so this is one arena of family fighting I've been mostly spared.
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If your relationship is serious enough that you'll put up with MY family at a reunion, you should get to be in the photo.
In the years since, both relationships have continued, and one is now an engagement.
Oh, and neither of the excluded girlfriends is white, although my family is. I'm sure that had nothing to do with my aunts' behavior, though. Completely and totally sure. Yep. Very sure.
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Including at family weddings!
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