AITH for excluding my future BIL’s girlfriend from our wedding?
So the story starts like this- my long term partner (33M) and myself (33F) are engaged and planning our wedding. We want something very small (maybe a dozen people, tops) and we want to get married in a National Park out of state (an in-country destination wedding essentially). Guests we plan to include are his immediate family (parents, brothers, sister, sisters fiancée and their child) and my immediate family, plus we each have one friend very close to us we’d like to come too. This situation gets dicey because of one of my fiancée’s brothers.
Fiancée’s brother (31M) got divorced 3 years back, started dating a local woman (40+F) and they got pregnant quickly. Their relationship has been rife with drama, he had been in contact with his ex wife even letting her see and hold his new baby. The relationship with his new girlfriend has been very on and off, going from playing happy family to kicking him out and breaking up. She has kids from two previous relationships (two adults and one young teen). It is well known amongst the family that she has been verbally and physically abusive towards both my fiancées brother and her own children. I have seen this woman in passing in two occasions, but have never actually had a conversation with her. She recently gave birth to their second child, and while we want good things for them, the truth is I don’t really know this person or feel comfortable around her knowing all I know.
My fiancée and I are in agreement that we want the wedding to be a very select group of people, she is not a part of that select group. Despite having two children with his brother, my fiancée and I don’t feel inclined to invite someone we aren’t comfortable with to our out of state ceremony (especially bc there are dozens of others we’d include before this person).
We feel this decision might go over like a bomb with his side of the family. Constant interference from his parents has been a huge factor in my future BIL’s relationship, mostly because I think they’re afraid of losing their grandchildren (whom they consider the adult children and preteen are as well now). We live out of state and don’t interact with them often, so we don’t see the relationship in the same light. Truthfully, we see it as a toxic ticking time bomb that will one day end in an arrest and a call to CPS. Regardless of our reality, we anticipate a bit of outrage at excluding the girlfriend and her children from the event.
AITH here?