CAROLYN HAX

ADVICE WITH ATTITUDE & A GROUNDED SET OF VALUES

Dear Carolyn: My daughter, her boyfriend and our whole family are struggling to move on after other close family members hurt us. We need help!

My husband and I have three children and my husband’s brother’s family has two. While the five kids were growing up we enjoyed dinners every Sunday night, shared every holiday, celebrated every birthday/graduation, went on vacation and more. The two sets of parents retired in the same community and see each other often. My husband and his brother are very close. Our youngest daughter was in a yearslong relationship, destined for marriage (or so we thought), that ended abruptly just before the pandemic. She was devastated, alone in her apartment, city shut down, furloughed from her job and more. A very dark time for her that both families worried about.

Two years later, she fell in love and is gloriously happy with a wonderful man!

Fast-forward to last month. Our niece is getting married at the end of July. Our daughter and her boyfriend, who are on the path to marriage, will have been together for eight months. The e-invitations arrived: The boyfriend was not invited to the wedding by name, and my daughter was not given a “plus one.”

My other daughter immediately called her cousin, the “bride,” and it is fixed. Bride said it was a computer mistake. Crisis averted. But the damage has been done. If it was a mistake, it was negligently cruel. My daughter’s feelings were not important enough to them to get it right. If it was on purpose, it was intentionally cruel. My daughter’s feelings were not important to them at all.

Either way, the feelings of our daughter and her boyfriend were roadkill in the world of arbitrary “plus-one rules.”

We would never in a million years behave toward our nieces in this way.

Disclaimer: I said at the outset that my daughter and whole family are struggling to move on from the insult and hurt. More accurately, they have busy lives all over the country and are just glad it’s resolved. I am the only one having trouble figuring out how to deal with my brother-in-law and sister-in-law.

My husband just wants it to be over without any more family strife.

— Momma Bear

Dear Momma Bear: You say your whole family “have busy lives all over the country and are just glad it’s resolved”? Then the busy people aren’t upset. You are. Moreover, this isn’t just about finding something better to do than perseverate about an exclusion that won’t actually happen.

■ All that backstory is irrelevant.

■ No “damage was done,” unless you take your niece for a liar and/or redefine “mistake” to include only malice.

■ You exaggerate and obfuscate at this other family’s expense. You say the new couple “will have been together eight months.” Meaning, five months when you got the invitation, yes? A lot of five-month partners don’t get plus-ones.

Plus you ascribe the worst possible motives to their leaving off the “and guest,” but the best possible ones — hello, “Momma Bear”! — to your handling this situation without any grace.

So, please. Stop exaggerating, finger-pointing, worst-assuming and single-shaming this one, quickly remedied omission into a resentment-fest. Also see the role idleness plays and find more productive things to engage you.

As I’ve said before, even kind and generous people make mistakes in guests lists. Much more damaging than these mistakes? Keeping score at home.