my future sister-in-law just self- invited herself to my bachelorette trip when we don't even know each other like that posted by you/ cofo please apologies in advance for the paragraphs just looking for a good check here to see if I'm being a bridezilla and to get perspective on how best to navigate this situation I 31f am marrying James 36m next year his brother Matt 34m has been married to Paula 34f since before I met James Paula is very nice and we get along well when I see her which is one a year during the holidays
as we live across the country from James's brother sister-in-law and parents but we aren't close for the rest of the year we have very different interests and lives and we just don't really keep in touch we FaceTime James's family every Sunday when Matt Paula and my future father-in-law slm mother-in-law all get together for dinner and Paula will usually say Hi and then go back to whatever she's doing Paula and I exchange happy birthday texts on our birthdays and occasionally she'll Hart react a photo in the family group text that's about about the extent of our
relationship this is all completely okay with me I don't feel the need to force a closeness that isn't there and as I said we all get along great when we go home for the holidays I'm in the middle of planning my bachelorette trip we're not doing a bridal party or Grooms men and I invited six close friends and family members who I have known between eight years and my entire life I mentioned something about the trip on the last FaceTime with James's family and everyone was like that sounds like it'll be fun we moved on
and I thought nothing of it but the next morning James was chatting with Matt who said in a very off-hand way oh Paula wanted to know if op could send her the details for The Bachelorette so she can get her flights and stuff James was very taken off guard and was like ah I'll talk to her and Matt was like great thanks and then changed the subject I so baffled by this Paula has never once given me an indication that she believes we are or wants us to be any closer than we are we hang
out once a year during the holidays I can't remember the last time she asked me a question about my self she didn't even text me when my dog died and again all of this is completely fine with me I don't need my fiance's brother's wife who lives a time zone away to be my BFF but it truly never occurred to me that she would even want to be invited if Paula were the one getting married I would never in a million years expect to be invited to her Bachelorette let alone assume I was invited this
all happened on Sunday SL Monday and I still just don't know how to respond to this especially because Paula didn't reach out to me directly here's the part where I'm worried I'm being a J the path of least resistance would of course be to invite Paula but I just don't want to the friends and family who are coming to my bachelorette all have met each other already mesh well and are extremely important to me I am the only person in this group who Paula has met and we have such a surface level relationship that I
feel we barely know each other the trip is going to involve a lot of hiking and outdoorsy stuff in a location that's very special and nostalgic to me Paula prefers to stay indoors and has skipped the family's annual Christmas walk every year that I've known her I don't think she would have a lot of fun and I also don't want to be worried about her experience the whole time and beyond all of that there is a part of me that really resists capitulating to the expectations of someone who has not even told me directly that
she would like to come I would never ever dream of inviting myself to someone's Bachelorette let alone doing so via a game of telephone we're heading to James's family for the holidays next week and I'm so anxious and truly don't know how to handle this I really don't want to hurt Paula's feelings but I want to be surrounded by my closest friends and family at my bachor ET and we just don't have that kind of relationship do I just leave it alone and wait for Paula to bring it up do I proactively sit her down
to talk through it do I just get over myself and invite her update one day later thank you to everyone who weighed in on my post I appreciate all the advice and thoughts even from those of you who called me a jerk and or privately messaged me to tell me to basically bully Paula until she Uninvited herself I will not be doing that but thank you so much after posting yesterday I sat with my feelings and tried to figure out why I was having such a strong I don't want to invite her response given that
we've always gotten along fine when we see each other I came to the conclusion that what was really bothering me was the indirectness of it all I couldn't understand why Paula didn't just reach out to me herself and it made me worry that I had done something to make her feel like she couldn't but I also decided that it was more important for her to feel included than for me to have the perfect close-nit group trip I had been envisioning like everyone pointed out it's just one weekend and she will presumably be in my life
forever so I called her yesterday evening the first first time either of us has ever called the other L and the conversation went like this me hi paa I'm about to send over all the bachelorette info and I'm so excited that you'll be there I just wanted to check in though and make sure that you know you can totally reach out to me about things like this going forward I hope I haven't done or said anything to make you feel like you can't and if I have I'd love for us to talk it through Paula
long confused silence Ah that's really nice of you but I think there's been a miscommunication or something I hadn't been planning on coming to your bachelorette me also confused oh okay I just thought since Matt asked me to send you the info Paula he what me confusion intensifies Paula I'm going to talk to him real quick let me call you back 10 very stressful minutes later Paula called back and basically said that Matt got in his head about worrying that Paula was feeling hurt and left out which she was not she was like no offense
this trip sounds like my worst nightmare LOL and he had the Galaxy brain idea to like parent trap us into thinking that Paula was supposed to come on this trip instead of just talking to either of us the end result is that Paula has no desire to come to The Bachelorette and never did in the first place Matt has apologized and this all encompasses the most in-depth conversation about our feelings that we have ever had with each other growth got a love a stoic Midwestern family Paula and I are also going to get dinner over
the holidays which will be nice and hopefully an opportunity for us to get to know each other better thanks again to everyone who gave their input and and sorry if you were hoping for a more dramatic update