Family can be hard, especially when there is conflict between parents, step-parents, and the various siblings.

What would you do if you were having a child, so you planned a gender reveal party, but then you found out that your mother and sister went behind your back to uninvite your stepmother?

That is what happened to the guy in this story, so he is thinking about cancelling the entire party so that he doesn’t have to deal with the fighting.

I think he is well within his rights to do it if that is what he wants. At a minimum, he needs to put his mom and sister in their place so they don’t try something like this again.

WIBTAH to cancel my gender reveal party after my family uninvited my stepmom behind my back?

My wife is 15 weeks pregnant, I am a proudly expecting dad. My parents divorced since 2008.

People like this are hard to get along with.

My parents have engaged with my sister in narcissistic triangulation for a long time — they talk behind my back when they want the result of something to change because they disagree with a decision I’ve made.

My wedding plans, our party, anything they feel will affect them. Now it’s my gender reveal party, which was more for them than anyone else.

Exes often don’t get along with the new wife, even if there aren’t great reasons for it.

My mom and sister hate my stepmom. I don’t know why, but they claim that my stepmom was ‘not accommodating’ to my sister in 2008 when she started dating my dad.

I have no specificities on actual injuries. My mom initiated the divorce, so stepmom wasn’t ‘the other woman’.

People put up with a lot for the sake of their kids.

Regardless, her unspecified crimes got her banned from my sister’s wedding. My dad has now been married to her for 18 years and folds on this insane ‘boundary’ every single time.

I don’t know why she stays married to him, but that’s not my decision.

They can’t ban someone from her house.

I have an internal policy of inviting my stepmom and my dad on the same invite, and my mom, sister, and her husband separately.

I invited them on three invitations, and my stepmom told me she wasn’t able to come because my sister and mom complained to my dad and my dad said she was ‘banned from attending’. Banned from the house that I own!

She has every right to be upset about this.

I’m livid. I feel like I’ve been complicit in this from the start by not putting my foot down with their insane behavior, and I’ve been put in an impossible position that I shouldn’t be in in the first place, much less while I’m planning a party and pregnant.

My mom has told me for YEARS that she would get over her weird gripe with stepmom once a baby was born.

There is no reason to think that all of a sudden things will get better when the child is born.

Well, we’re almost here. I don’t know if she’s lying or not, but I am half-tempted to throw the baby out with the bathwater and cancel this party.

Would I be in the wrong if I cancelled this party, even if it blew up my relationship with my entire biological family?

WIBTA?

I wouldn’t cancel the party, but I would make sure that the stepmother is invited and the biological family is not. If they want to cause drama, they get to be left out.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a woman who stirred up family drama by finally choosing her own mom over her in-laws.

Read on to see what the people in the comments have to say about it.

The conflict won’t stop until he forces it to.

Here is someone with whom I agree.

This would be the best option.

Yes, his dad should be standing up for his wife.

I love this idea.

He needs to take a stand now, or this drama will occur with every future event. Whether he cancels the party or just ensures his stepmother will be there, he can’t let it continue.

I do like the idea of cancelling the party and then telling his stepmom the gender, but not his biological family. This would teach them a lesson they won’t soon forget. Of course, that is easy to say from the outside.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a middle schooler who was totally frazzled after being left to babysit alone for 3-plus hours, and swears she’s never doing it again.