agonyaunt | (no subject)

DEAR ABBY: Our 24-year-old daughter is getting married in 10 months. My wife is invited to the wedding, but I am not, and I am furious. The groom's family is paying for the trip, but they say I am not invited "for financial reasons."

I don't have a great relationship with my daughter. But that isn't the point. I told my wife that if the roles were reversed and she was excluded, I would not go. This may be a deal-breaker for me. It's apparent that our marriage doesn't mean as much to my wife as it does to me. What are your thoughts? -- ELIMINATED IN TEXAS

DEAR ELIMINATED: What I think is it's terrible for your daughter to put her mother on the spot this way. By doing so she is putting a strain on your marriage. You and your wife need to ask your doctor for a referral to a licensed marriage and family therapist so you can hash this out before further damage is done to your relationship. Do I think your wife should forgo the wedding? What I think doesn't matter as much as what she does.

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Ooof. If I'd seen this, I'd've put it with the other one, because once again, the bride is in the wrong.

Not about inviting her father - I'm sure she has a good reason for that - but about a. lying about that reason and b. inviting her mother but not her father.

I'm sorry, but even if you have a great reason for not inviting one parent, you can't invite only one of your two parents to your wedding when they're still a couple. And if you're going to not invite one of them then, assuming you aren't totally estranged and out of contact, you owe them and yourself the minimum courtesy of not lying about it. I don't know why Daughter didn't invite LW, but it wasn't for financial reasons. If your financial reasons keep you from inviting both your parents to your wedding then you don't have a wedding. You go to the courthouse and elope.

Inviting one parent and not the other just makes things difficult for the parent you invited, and since you probably had a good reason for excluding the other one it's not fair to dump that all on the one you can tolerate.

I agree, the daughter is in the wrong here.

She undoubtedly has very good reasons for wanting to exclude her father, but she either needs to invite them both, NOT invite them both, or give the real reason why Dad isn’t welcome.

When I got married last year I invited my father, who I and my husband see and speak to regularly, and my mother who I am estranged from was not invited. They are still married to each other. I did send my mother a message to explain the reason she wasn't invited though rather than just lying to her (which would frankly have been more in her wheelhouse).

Not that you need my approval but I'm impressed with how you handled this.

Talk about the tip of the iceberg. Hoo boy.

Maybe I'm misreading, but I read The groom's family is paying for the trip, but they say I am not invited "for financial reasons." as the groom's family is saying they're not inviting him for financial reasons, rather than the bride? I can see a scenario where, whatever the unprovided reasons for the estrangement, the in-laws gave the "diplomatic" excuse of "financial reasons" rather than going into and here's why your daughter doesn't want you at her wedding.

Edited 2026-01-22 12:15 (UTC)

That's pretty much how I read it.

Missing missing reasons...

It’s shitty dad didn’t get invited and mom did. (And maybe there’s missing reasons why it got to that extent.) But now that that is the current situation, does LW really want to go from a “not great” relationship with daughter to a non-existent relationship with both daughter and wife? He really thinks a daughter should not have her mother at her wedding? Looks like both his animus and his control issues are showing…