Divorce can be really complicated especially when a couple has been married for a very long time because the divorce changes the way the exes interact with their ex-in-laws.

Imagine being really close to your sister-in-law, but then your brother divorces her. If she was also really close to your mother-in-law prior to the divorce, would you invite her to your mother-in-law’s funeral?

In this story, one woman does just that, but her new sister-in-law is furious.

Now, she’s wondering if she did the wrong thing.

Let’s read the whole story.

AITAH for inviting my ex-SIL to my MIL’s funeral?

I’m 46F. My MIL recently passed away. I invited my ex-SIL Brenda (48F) to attend the funeral. She is the ex-wife of my husband’s brother George (49M).

This enraged George’s new wife Joan (44F), who is now refusing to speak to me. AITAH for inviting Brenda?

Background: George and Brenda had an ugly divorce 6 yrs ago. They were married for 20 yrs, and during that time Brenda and MIL were super close.

But their divorce changed everything.

But when the divorce happened, at George’s behest MIL cut Brenda out of her life.

Brenda was heartbroken, as she loved MIL deeply.

I’ve remained friendly with Brenda.

Joan clearly hates Brenda.

4 yrs ago George got remarried to Joan.

I’ve tried to be friends with Joan, but she has a bad habit of loudly badmouthing Brenda to whomever will listen, ranting about what an awful wife Brenda was and how much happier George is now.

I don’t want to hear all these insults about Brenda, so I quietly leave the room when she starts up. I’m pretty sure George dislikes it too, but he never does anything to stop it.

I don’t think he hates his ex-wife…they still communicate about their kids. I think Joan is just insecure, so she badmouths Brenda to make herself feel better, and George puts up with it.

She didn’t just invite Brenda to the funeral. She made sure it was okay first.

When MIL died, I called Brenda and she said she would love to go to the funeral to pay her respects to a woman she thought of as a mother for many years.

So I asked my FIL if it was okay to invite Brenda.

He ENCOURAGED me to do so! He said that he and MIL always loved Brenda, and stopped talking to her only because George asked them to.

I also talked to Hubby’s two other siblings, who were supportive of inviting Brenda.

It does make sense for Brenda to attend the funeral.

Brenda’s two adult daughters with George were also going to be there, so I couldn’t see any reason why their mother shouldn’t be there too, as she was still part of the family.

So I invited her. She attended, and the service was lovely.

But Joan went ballistic!

She found out that I was the one who extended the invite. She gave me dagger eyes through the whole service.

Joan sounds like a horrible person.

Then at dinner afterwards, Joan cornered me and started SCREAMING at me about how inappropriate it was to invite her, that MIL HATED Brenda (not true), how Brenda tried to destroy George’s life (also not true – George is the one who ended the marriage) and how I ruined MIL’s funeral by bringing “that awful woman” to it.

Thankfully George rescued me by diverting Joan back to the table, but I was so traumatized by her attack, on such an already sad and emotional day, that Hubby and I just left.

Since then Joan is refusing to have anything to do with me.

Brenda’s action are making her second guess herself.

She unfriended and blocked me on Facebook.

We’ve had one family get-together since then with all of the siblings and our kids, but Joan wouldn’t even look at me and left the room any time I walked in.

I just found out she is having a big party next month and they’ve invited everyone in the family but Hubby and me.

I detest family conflicts and just want everything to go back to normal. But now I’m wondering if I really was TAH to invite Brenda to MIL’s funeral.

Brenda is a horrible person. She’s jealous, selfish and insecure. OP did nothing wrong.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This person thinks Joan is crazy.

Another person agrees that it was the right thing to do to invite Brenda.

This person thinks she had to realize Joan would be furious.

George really does need to stop being such a pushover.

It’s hard to grieve when there’s so much yelling.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check this one out about a man who created a points system for his inheritance, and a family friend ends up getting almost all of it.