Someone early on posted a comment that it's perfectly within etiquette guidelines to bring a newborn to a wedding or funeral. Considering my own experiences with nursing during the first weeks after my children were born, I can't imagine having gone anywhere without them. Period.

And when I reread the letter, I saw nowhere that the sister-in-law was planning on bringing her older child. The question of bringing a child is ONLY about her bringing her newborn. As many people have posted, newborns don't cry very loudly, and really do need to be with their parents. No way would I trust any babysitter except grandma with my babies before they were a couple of months old. And grandma wouldn't have been willing to watch a nursing newborn unless it was a genuine emergency. The only reason to exclude a newborn from a wedding is the competitive fear that people will gravitate to the baby rather than keeping their adoring eyes entirely on the showcase bride.

Maybe people yearning for these perfect showcase weddings should invest their money in a genuine stage production. Rent a theater. Sell tickets. Then it really will be all about you, and the issues of friends and family won't be a factor--they'll be clearly on notice that they are not active participants but rather nothing but audience. And there will be no coughing or talking or cellphone calls or babies or other disruptions during the production. Rent an "Applause!" sign if you're afraid they won't respond properly.

men should be surprised that women are disinclined to invest in relationships/interactions with men who want an instant sexual relationship, especially given the high and always increasing penalty for mistakes.

When someone loses their mother at a young age, there's a lot of scarring. When so much attention is being paid to a sick mother, it's hard for people to give enough attention and love to the children. LW, are you still hungry for love and attention that was denied you?

Your letter focuses on two problems with this woman--1) she "took over" the weekly dinners. I'm a lackadaisical, easy-going kind of person who might "start" a weekly "tradition" of going out to a restaurant with friends. I'm the kind who can show up and if no one else does that week, I don't mind. But most people do want some sort of assurance that a weekly date really is going to happen. A once-a-week email reminder is not at all a bad idea, and most likely has nothing to do with wishing to control anyone, but rather with the woman trying to take some small bit of control over her own life. I do not in the least understand your being upset about this.

Then you write, "But at dinner, I noticed she was starting to interrupt me when I was talking and yawning when I was telling a story, like a little kid vying for attention. It really hurt me a lot."

Did it occur to you that you might be repeating stories, or dominating the conversation? Did she do this when other people were talking? Were other people being given the opportunity to talk? She might have started out trying to give you subtle signals which didn't work. We don't know anything about this.

"Then she started making really nasty personal cracks to me."

Here is where you aren't being at all forthcoming about what kinds of personal cracks. So, because the only specific examples you give are that she had "taken over planning the weekly dinners for a group by emailing that group to confirm plans, and that she yawned while you were telling stories, I can't help but imagine that her personal cracks were about your behavior at those dinners, and based on your letter, we have no idea whether those personal cracks were founded or unfounded.

How will you confront her and end the friendship? I can think of no way you can do this without it being filled with "personal cracks." Is your aim to hurt her as much as she's hurt you? Is it to work out some part of your mother's death, hoping for a different outcome, some "Oh, my dear child--I didn't mean to take all the attention from you. I know how much I controlled you as a child, and how no one paid attention to you when I was dying. I'm so sorry."

It won't work. You need to forgive yourself, and forgive your mother. If your friendship with this woman is over, it's over. You don't need to explain--you CAN'T explain in any way that won't be construed as nasty cracks. If you can be a friend, be one. If you can't, disappear quietly and think through why you so yearn for a dramatic finish to a friendship that was really just about meeting someone in a dog park and eating dinners with her and a group of other people who met in a dog park and not much else.