DEAR AMY: Every fall, my sister, cousins and a cousin's sister-in-law have a weekend shopping excursion in our home city.
We stay in a hotel, treat ourselves, shop for our children and go out for lunches and dinners. It is a great time to reconnect.
We do not invite my sister "Wendy." She is offended to the point of tears when she finds we have not invited her. My two sisters and I are close in age, but Wendy hasn't been as close to this set of cousins as my other sister and I have been through the years.
We are all married stay-at-home moms. Wendy is a divorced, working mom with one young child.
We do not include her for several reasons. We know she doesn't have much money for such an outing. She also does not have many of the same interests as we do. Her life is different from ours. We're not interested in what she has to talk about. She complains too much about her aches and pains, and claims to have some kind of neurological disease that some of us feel is more psychosomatic than real.
She also complains about her ex-husband who left her for another woman, but everyone knows it takes "two to tango" and she is not without fault.
We're all very active churchgoers, while she only sporadically attends services.
Plain and simple, she does not really fit in with us anymore.
She takes it personally, and last year she even came over to my home unannounced crying about it, which upset my children and caused my husband to threaten to call the police if she did not leave.
Now she barely speaks to me and has told our relatives that I am a horrible person (even though I've helped her).
How can we get her to understand that she should perhaps find another set of friends whose lives and interests align more closely with hers?
Sad Sister
DEAR SAD: First, let's establish that I agree with your sister: You are a horrible person.
Obviously, you can do whatever you want and associate with -- or exclude -- whomever you want, but you don't get to do this and also blame the person you are excluding for not "fitting in."
The only way your sister would ever fit in would be for you to make room for her. You are unwilling to do that, and that is your choice. But her being upset is completely justified, and you'll just have to live with that.
Perhaps this is something you could ponder from your church pew; despite your regular attendance, you don't seem to have learned much.