Hi, Alessa, I appreciate your thought provoking questions.

I would love to have been invited and to have gone out w them in the past. Often, I would receive a text while that’s what was happening…or wife would have dinner w daughter and it turned into a night out as our friend joined them unexpectedly..or something else.. It was quite a while ago and I was surprised how all of these old feelings rushed forward when that old scenario resurfaced.

In this case, I had several events and said no, I couldn’t go. Then I later found out my stepdaughter was going. So, 1. I didn’t have all of the info when I said no because I had to play 20 questions to get info from wife 2. If I had known daughter was going, I could have considered rescheduling or missing my commitments 3. If I had been included in planning, I could have requested shifting the dates by a couple of days so I perhaps wouldn’t need to.

Yes, one can invite themsleves, but isn’t it better to feel included from the get go? Wife says I am invited, but when left out of all planning discussions, I feel like she really doesn’t want me there. Believe me, I have shared all of these things w her. I’m just having a hard time letting go. When I asked why she didn’t loop me into the text, all she could say is “I don’t know”. This would have been the first time in almost 10 years that we could all be together so it hurts pretty deeply.