'AITA for laughing at my stepson when he accused me of 'ruining' his wedding?' + UPDATE

"AITA for laughing at my stepson and ruining his wedding?"

For context, I have been married to my husband for just over two decades. We started dating when my step-kids were 5 and 3. Our kids are: Adam (28, stepkid #1), Ben (26, stepkid #2), Charles (20), David (17), and Ellie (13).

Adam is getting married at the end of summer to his fiancé Alice (27). We have all been very excited for them. All of the kids have roles for the wedding, Charles is the best man, the other two boys are groomsman, and Ellie is a jr bridesmaid.

Last weekend we had a dinner for my husband’s birthday, all of the kids attended along with Alice. The topic of the wedding came up again, and this is where it started to go downhill. Ellie brought up that she was SO excited to go dress shopping and that we planned to go to a bigger city in a few weeks to get her a dress and me a stepmom of the groom dress.

At that, Alice looked at Adam sideways and responded that we only needed to worry about one dress, Ellie’s. Ellie kind of laugh and said “what are you expecting mom to wear? A suit?”. Alice responded with “(My name) isn’t going. You know we are keeping our guest list very limited to only family and a few close friends.” WHAT.

Adam and Alice have been to our house numerous times for holidays, dinners, just to say hi since they’ve been engaged, this has never been brought up.

Pretty quickly things escalated. The cliff notes version is that Charles asked them to clarify if they were choosing to uninvite me now or if I was never invited. Alice confirmed the latter. why? Adam said it’s because I’m not his mom. Charles, David, and Ellie argued with Adam and Alice that none of them were going to go if I wasn’t invited.

That it was cruel to leave me out given I’ve been his parent for a majority of his life and loved him like my own. My husband and I admittedly sat there for a minute just shocked. Adam finally turned to my husband and said, “well?” My husband told him he wouldn’t be going either.

Adam then turned to me and asked if I was really going to let everyone ruin his wedding on my behalf. Here’s where I might be the @$$hole: I just laughed. Idk what came over me but the entire thing was just so ridiculous that laughing was the only thing I could get out. I told my husband I’d be waiting in the car and left. And then promptly bawled my eyes out.

Anyways, Charles, David and Ellie are not talking to Adam. Adam called my husband yesterday to try and smooth things over. He was still adamant I’m not invited and it’s their wedding. He also requested I apologize for laughing at him.

My husband told him tough sh!t. It’s their wedding and they can invite whoever they want, but they cant control who will actually go. He said THEY owe ME an apology and that Adam should be ashamed of himself. I’m getting texts now asking wtf I did and why I’m being a “step-monster and ruining the wedding” AITA?

What do you think? AITA? This is what commenters had to say:

fancyandfab said:

I feel like there's a lot missing here. You've been married to his dad since he was 8. That was years of elementary, middle, high school, college. 20 years. Is his mother living? Did his fiance influence him? Just seems odd to not invite his dad's wife of 20 years and call her not family. I don't think you're TA, but I just want to know more about the past 20 years

OP responded:

I am sorry, I had to cut out a lot. When Adam called, my husband did ask him if I had done anything, if it was related to bio mom (she has never gotten along with us), if I had overstepped in any way. Adam says no, it’s just they want family only. Stepdad is invited as far as we know.

I was a SAHM for most of my stepkids childhood and we had 50/50. My husband has always worked a lot but has been as involved as possible, the house and child rearing mostly fell to me though. I love our kids to pieces. I thought we had made it clear from the beginning that I am/was another parent that loves them, not a replacement mom.

We’ve never had any issues and I thought up until now that we were particularly close. Our communication has slowed since he met Alice but he was calling me about once or twice a week prior to this.

Alice and I have gone shopping on occasion, gotten lunch, I even went with her to the florist for the wedding because her mom wasn’t available and Adam got called into work. There has to be something/someone causing an issue and my husband and I are baffled

wesmorgan1 said:

.....wow. "I’m getting texts now asking wtf I did and why I’m being a 'stepmonster and ruining the wedding'"

You should answer those texts with "They announced that I was never invited to the wedding, and other people then said they wouldn't attend if I wasn't invited. I said nothing and did nothing while that was going on. I can't ruin something if I'm not a part of it. You need to talk to Adam and Alice."

You aren't ruining their wedding; they picked this hill to die on, not you.

You are absolutely NTA - and kudos to your husband for backing you up all the way.

Weekly-Cartoonist235 said:

Counselor here! Do not apologize for laughing. Your sudden burst of laughter was actually the seeping of hysteria laughter. (totally appropriate.) It’s what can happen when we are traumatized.

Nester1953 said:

Adam is the A here. I love that your husband, children, and younger stepson are supporting you and recognize Adam for the A he is. I'm guessing you're a wonderful wife, mother, and step-mother as clearly your inspire loyalty. And laughing was a lot better than saying what Adam deserved to hear, but probably heard better when it came from his father and siblings.

You're not wrecking the wedding, Adam is. I'm so sorry this happened to you, it's very sad. NTA.

MoveThePawn said:

Absolutely NTA. Assuming you and Adam have gotten along fine until now it’s absolutely wild that they wouldn’t invite you. “Only family and a few close friends” when a stepparent literally counts as family, and the nerve to accuse you of ruining his wedding, I don’t blame you for laughing.

And OP responded:

It’s probably also relevant but my husbands parents are long since deceased. My parents (dad, stepmom, and mom) have been very involved with all of the kids since they were little. They are also not going since if I am not family, they aren’t either.

My brother & SIL, their daughter, my cousin (they call him uncle), and several of my other family members that have been around since step-kids were little have also dropped. They are up to like 20 people they have rescinded their yes rsvp for a wedding of maybe 60 people

Five days later, she shared this update:

Hi friends, I do have an update. Thank you to everyone who responded to my post, most of you were kind and offered good advice. I appreciate it.

Before I give an update I just want to answer a few frequently asked questions:

1.) I am not an affair partner. My husband did not cheat on his ex wife with me, we met about a year after they divorced. She was already engaged (not to current stepdad), not that that really matters.

2.) Ben was at the dinner, he is autistic. I went into it more in some of my comments, but he was very upset. He doesn’t understand what the argument was exactly about but he was mostly upset at Adam for saying I’m not their parent and then at all the siblings for fighting with each other.

Anyways, the update. The short is: if you guessed it was related to bio mom, you were correct. I didn’t want this to be the case.

Adam rescheduled with Charles for Monday, citing Easter weekend (fair enough). He also texted my husband to let him know that him and Alice would be doing Easter with her parents (we expected that).

At some point on Sunday, Ellie texted Alice. I am not sure what exactly was said, but it prompted Alice to spill everything that was going on with her parents. I have met them a few times but they live a few hours away. They encouraged her and Adam to reach out to us to clear everything up.

Monday we dropped Ben off to bio mom's (he stayed an extra night for Easter fun). A few hours later, she began to blow up my husbands phone as Ben mentioned the fight. My husband answered one call in which she was screaming and promptly hung up.

He texted her that the siblings argued, everything is fine, and that if Ben has any further questions we will talk about when he’s back with us. From some of the things she texted, we knew she was the root of all of this.

Monday Adam also met up with Charles, and he did come clean. Charles texted us to see if it was OK if they came over after and we said yes. I’m not going to lie, Adam looked a mess. He immediately began crying and apologizing. The short and sweet is that he’s been trying to mend bridges with bio mom.

Their wedding isn’t 60 people, it’s blown up to about double that and they have been struggling to figure out how to pay for it. At one of their visits, Alice let it slip and bio mom jumped to help pay for things.

It slowly snowballed from there from small requests to big requests. I am not sure what the final nail in the coffin was, but it ended with bio mom requesting I not be there. Adam said it was easier to hurt me and risk WW3 with his mom.

Alice’s parents were less than pleased to find out how they’ve been with the wedding/budget, and even less so at bio mom’s antics. They are trying to figure out how to start covering the payments bio mom has made (we’ve decided to help some with this). Adam also asked if we could meet again in a few days with Alice and we’ve said yes.

There is still a lot of ground to cover for this to be close to mended. I am still hurt but mostly, I’m angry on behalf of my oldest son.