Advice: My future sister-in-law just got divorced. How can I disinvite her to my wedding?

"My fiance is extremely close to his brother, who has said that he prefers that none of his family have any contact with his ex." Illustration / Marta Monteiro, The New York Times

Psychotherapist, author and podcaster Lori Gottlieb tackles readers’ relationship dilemmas.

Q: I’m getting married in August. Shortly after my engagement, I asked my fiance’s brother’s wife to be a bridesmaid. During the seven years my fiance and I have been together, I formed a close friendship with my future-sister-in-law and considered her to be like a sister.

Unfortunately, she and my fiance’s brother have just divorced, and the split, though mutual, isn’t amicable. She immediately moved to a new city without saying goodbye. I understand this isn’t about me, but it hurt. I miss her deeply – she was my closest female friend for years. My fiance is extremely close to his brother, who has said that he prefers that none of his family have any contact with his ex.

My problem is that my ex-future-sister-in-law just reached out to ask about plans for my bachelorette party. A few months ago, I would have felt overjoyed to hear from her. But given the circumstances, my fiance and I decided, and assumed she understood, that she would no longer be invited.

I would prefer to minimise my contact with her to avoid dredging up difficult feelings or creating conflict. However, I feel as if I must actually tell her she is not invited to our wedding. After all, she did receive both a save-the-date and an invitation to be my bridesmaid before they divorced, neither of which I revoked.

I’m surprised to be in this position. I truly thought any rational person would know they were disinvited from a wedding under these circumstances. How can I be respectful to all people involved here, and also attempt to protect my own emotional well-being?

From the therapist: I’m sorry you’re dealing with such a challenging situation as your wedding day approaches. You’re navigating not just a reevaluation of wedding logistics, but a reorganisation of an entire relational system. Your brother-in-law’s ex-wife wasn’t just a bridesmaid – for seven years, she was your closest female friend, and you saw her as a sister. There’s real loss. Meanwhile, you’re entering into a new role in your fiance’s family, including that of a wife and sister-in-law.

Before considering what to say to your ex-future-sister-in-law, you might want to think about two things: first, how to better understand her behaviour, and second, how you can communicate with your future husband about this dilemma in a way that prepares you for the marriage ahead.

Let’s start with your friend’s experience. As you’re seeing, divorce doesn’t just end a marriage – it often detonates an entire social world. Your friend didn’t just lose her husband. She lost her place in your family system, her role as sister-in-law, her home in your city, and now the deep friendship she thought might survive the wreckage. This is one of divorce’s cruellest aspects: the way it can force people to choose sides, leaving the divorcing person isolated, in ways not always visible, when they need support the most.

You say that “any rational person” would know she was no longer invited, but these circumstances can cause anyone to act in ways that seem irrational to others. In her immediate grief and disorientation, she may have fled town without saying goodbye for self-preservation. Now, as the wedding approaches, she might be trying to hold onto the parts of her former life that mean the most to her, including being a part of her close friend’s bachelorette party and wedding. Your future brother-in-law, meanwhile, in his own grief and disorientation, has made what some might consider a similarly less-than-rational request: that your closest friend be banished from your life.

Your fiance’s brother’s desire for his family to cut contact with his ex is understandable in his pain. But it’s also not entirely fair to be asked to sever your most important friendship because someone else’s marriage ended, leaving you as collateral damage and forced to toggle between loyalty on the one hand and grief on the other.

This is where your future husband comes in, because while your wedding is just one day, the way you communicate about difficult family issues will matter forever. You might want to open up a conversation with him that goes something like this:

I know your brother is going through a very painful time right now, and I respect how close you are to him. I also understand why, given how raw everything is right now, it would create stress for all of us to include ex-SIL in our wedding.

But losing my deep, long-standing friendship with ex-SIL is really hard for me. I didn’t expect to grieve a friendship while planning a wedding. I want to respect your brother’s feelings at this time, but down the line when things are less raw, I’d like to keep the door open for us to reconnect. I hope you can understand that I’m trying to be both loyal and honest here, and I want us to be able to have hard conversations like this and work through them together.

By doing this, you’re honouring your brother-in-law’s pain, respecting a current family reality, sharing its effect on you and including your fiance in a conversation that affects your shared future.

With that in mind, here’s how you might respond to your friend’s outreach:

I’ve been sitting with how to respond to your message, because this isn’t an easy thing to say.

When I asked you to be a bridesmaid, it was because you’ve been one of my closest friends, and I always imagined you standing next to me on my wedding day. The last several months have been painful and disorienting for a lot of people – including me – and I’ve been struggling with how to handle our friendship and my upcoming wedding. I care about you deeply, but I need my wedding day to be a peaceful one, and out of respect for the current family dynamics, I’ve decided it’s best if we don’t include you in the wedding. I know this adds to losses you’re already dealing with, but this is the decision that seems best for me on a day that I need to be stress-free and devoid of family complications. I’m thinking of you, and my hope is that we can reconnect when things settle down after the wedding.

With compassion and honesty, you’re honouring what was while recognising the reality of what is. Will she be hurt anyway? Probably. But it’s your wedding day, and you’re responding to a situation you didn’t create with as much care as you can. And that, in itself, is an act of respect – for yourself, for her and for the life you’re about to build.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Written by: Lori Gottlieb

Illustration by: Marta Monteiro

©2025 THE NEW YORK TIMES