I am an only child and have been treated like this by cousins.

They probably just didn’t have space for you.

It will cause you a lot less emotional pain to learn to accept that you don’t have siblings and people will always prioritize their siblings over their distant relatives even if they spent time together decades ago. People move on.

There are advantages too. Read the threads about all the dysfunctional sibling relationships. But yes there are ones that aren’t toxic and you will never have that. You’ll be ok.

Op is going to have a hard time uninviting this couple to her house for Thanksgiving or other get togethers. That couple operate as children tagging along and so never get an invitation. It is just assumed that they are invited. It would be very awkward to uninvite them. Op should just skip hosting for a year then try to reestablish what she wants in the following year.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In this case I would try to figure out why because that seems like such a selective and personal exclusion. Can your mom poke around? I would probably go to the cousin and just be really open and say 'I just found out about Larla and Tom's wedding and that we seem to be the only people not invited. I'm not angry but I'm a little confused and hurt and mostly want to understand why because I thought we all had a good relationship. Did something happen?'

So they aren't on the defensive about the wedding and you can just get to the meat of the matter.

Oh I did reach out to the parents. The response I got was that "the young couple are paying for the wedding". I could feel my cousin was uncomfortable. So it was OK for the young couple to be at my house many times but apparently we are not good enough for the wedding.

The young couple may have come to your home because they thought it was pleasing you and/or the parents pushed them to join for the holidays. I would not have reached out to the parents, and I am not surprised they felt uncomfortable. Back in the day when parents paid, I could see it being rude because it means your own cousin doesn't value the relationship. These are young adults who presumable are not wealthy and they are paying a small fortune for this wedding. Just because they come to a family event doesn't mean they feel close to you and creating drama is not going to make things better. I know you are hurt, but now you know. I personally would still invite them to my holiday gathering if I enjoyed seeing them and I enjoyed the prep, but I would not host a holiday gathering simply because I think it must be done especially if it stressed me out. You have a right to feel hurt, but you need to find healthy ways to process it and manage the hurt. It's not your place to drag more people into this and try to start waves in the family.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are there other “first cousins once removed” that are invited?

This is the key question OP has yet to clarify.

If there are ten first cousins once removed to the groom and OP was the only one not invited, that sucks.

If the "cousins" OP keeps referring to are OP's cousins but the groom's aunts and uncles, that's an entirely different story.

Other cousins were invited, yes.

You're being vague here and not explaining whether they are the groom's parents cousins or your cousins.

What matters is this:

Are these cousins who were invited siblings to the groom's parents?

Or were they cousins to the groom's parents?

If they were your cousins, but siblings to the groom's parents, then this is totally understandable.

But if the invited cousins were cousins to the groom's parents, then drop this family in future events. I would be upset too.