Being left out

No one likes to be left out, whether it's being left out of an activity or of being the recipient of some important news. When it happens it hurts. It can cause tears and can feel like your heart has been wounded.

I have always tried my best to be fair. I have a large extended family and thus have always valued including everyone in my life as much as possible. To find that others in my family don't value me or others in the family the same way is really painful.

Once when I was a teenager I was very hurt to find out that relatives were going to visit us for a week only the day before they were to arrive. Everyone else had known about this for at least a month, and yet no one had bothered to tell me. It seems that when talking to various family members they had thought they had also talked to me about it. I tried to be as cheerful as possible, but the whole experience was negative for me.

I had hoped that this experience would have been the only one of its kind I would have to endure. Unfortunately I was wrong. Recently another relative and I have been left out of another family member's wedding festivities. No invitation was sent and no information was given even though this occasion has been planned for almost a year. Other relatives have known these details and received invitations. Therefore, it is very hurtful to find that we were left out, either deliberately or as an oversight.

It is hard knowing what to do with this knowledge. I know I should be forgiving, and I am trying to, but it is quite a hard thing to do: to forgive when the feelings of hurt are still so raw and painful. Our family tends to make known the hurt and then brush it off as if it didn't happen. I don't know if I can do that either. My relatives do not read this as far as I know and they will, therefore, not learn of this unless I specifically tell them.

Next year I hope to be married to my wonderful fiance. I plan on inviting everyone that I can in both my and my fiance's families. I can guess that less than half will be attending, but still I do not want to cause the pain I am feeling in everyone else by leaving anyone out.