Husband finds himself missing from wife's family photo collage, asks if he's right to feel hurt

After getting married, a person might find a secure place in his newly formed family. However, getting excluded from them can be quite hurtful. A man, who goes by u/MaximumReflection886 on Reddit, found himself in a similar situation when he was excluded from his wife's family photo collage. What's worse, his wife became defensive when he pointed it out. As a result, he asked the internet if he was wrong for asking his wife about the photo collage and his place within the family.

"My in-laws are celebrating their 30th anniversary. My wife and all her siblings decided to get a large framed photo collage for them as a present," the man began. "The collage, of course, has their wedding pictures and pictures of my wife and her siblings as children. It also includes the most recent group photo of their whole family together at our wedding back in April. Additionally, the photo collage has pictures of her three married brothers with their wives and children, as well as a picture of her recently engaged brother and his fiancée," he went on. However, he noticed he was not in any of those chosen pictures, including the group photo taken at his wedding. There was no picture of him and his wife together either.

"I brought this to my wife's attention, and her immediate and annoyed-sounding response was, 'It's not about you. It's about my parents and my family and the grandkids,'" the husband recounted. He expressed that he understood it was not about him, but there was a picture of his married brothers and their wives. "It's not about my married brothers and their wives; it’s to show off the grandkids!" the wife responded. The man pointed out the picture of one brother and his fiancée and remarked that there were no grandkids to show off there. "At this point, my wife gets upset. 'You know, you're really annoying me right now. My siblings and I worked really hard to put this together, and now you have to make it ALL about you and the fact that you're not on it. Grow up. You'll be in other pictures in the future.'"

The man shared that he didn't care much about being in the photo collage in the first place, but he felt hurt by his wife's response. People in the comments supported the man. u/RaeKn47 wrote in a comment, "It seems like an intentional decision. Multiple people put thought into the photo selections. Surely, your name came up during the selection process. Surely, the photos you were in were available for selection but were vetoed from the [photo] collage. Why? Your wife isn't telling you why. She knows the reason. I'm guessing you may either know the reason too but she doesn't want to get into it or confirm your suspicions."

u/Virtual_Library_3443 commented, "Yes, she knows why and that’s why she’s getting defensive. Or it was news to her and she’s embarrassed about it and trying to protect her family rather than back you up." u/Eeveelover14 remarked, "With the other siblings having individual pictures with their respective spouses and one of the pictures being from OP's wedding, there is no way all of them just forgot about OP's existence completely the entire time they were getting the collage together. A choice was made to exclude OP from it; it's just a matter of why." Later in the comments, the man shared an update and said that his wife apologized to him for her response and would talk to her siblings about the man's picture in the collage.