'AITA for not letting my daughter have the wedding dress of my other daughter who died?' UPDATED
"AITA for not letting my elder daughter have my younger's wedding dress?"
Here's the original post:
Names have been changed, I'm 55 and Amelia is 32. My husband and I have two daughters, Opal and Amelia. Opal and her fiance Jack passed away four years ago. Her wedding dress had been bought and my baby never got to wear it. I kept the dress, I don't look at it much anymore, but it's just one of those things that remind me of her, and also Jack who I viewed as my son.
Amelia is getting married to Liam. She asked me if she could have Opal's dress, she said she loves the style/design and wants to tweak it a bit to better match her tastes. I said no, Amelia told me that Opal didn't wear it so no one's seen it, and I can't keep it in a corner gathering dust forever.
I've insisted no multiple times and that Amelia can get her own dress, maybe similar to Opal's design but she can't have this one. Amelia said life is for the living and I'm making things harder for her, she offered to pay and buy it from me but I still refused. It seemed like Amelia understood, but this past weekend our family and Liam's family went to dinner,
his mom pulled me aside and said that Amelia is upset about this whole thing and the wedding planning is already difficult, so I could compromise and make it a bit easier for her by giving her the dress. Now I'm thinking if I really am being unreasonable? My husband thinks I'm in the right but some third party opinions would be nice.
What do you think? Is this mom being unreasonable?
She added some updates in the comments:
Opal's dress was custom made from a local boutique that closed down during the pandemic. Amelia likes the design which will be very expensive to recreate from somewhere else now.
We've had multiple discussions about this and I've said that she's welcome to use Opal's dress as a reference to get a similar one, but she insisted she'll just take this one and tweak it to her liking. As mentioned in the post, her reasoning is that Opal never wore it and no one will know it was hers, so it's okay for her to wear it.
Amelia has never told me she wants the dress for sentimental reasons. She said Opal never wore it and no one's seen it, so it's okay if she wears it. We've had multiple discussions on this topic and Amelia said that I'm playing favorites and life is for the living, which I'll be honest hurt me a bit.
As far as their relationship went, Opal and Amelia got along well enough most of the time. Amelia's boyfriend at the time lost his job and here Opal was getting engaged and planning a wedding and all that. Jack was an attorney, Opal was finishing up med school, and Amelia felt they were trying to one up her.
Opal called Amelia's boyfriend disgusting and some other names which made the situation worse. My husband and I were contributing to Opal's wedding (we said we would offer x amount to both our daughters for their weddings), and we had to lower it to help Amelia out a bit.
Amelia was upset after their deaths but went through it at her pace and came to terms with it. We never really discussed it much, if that makes sense? I felt we were all just healing in our own time. Amelia has made it clear though that she thinks we're holding on to the past.
She said I'm playing favorites because I'm not prioritizing her, and intentionally making things harder when giving her the dress would get one thing checked off the list. I would like to say that my husband and I were equal to both daughters, but the truth is we weren't. It doesn't mean we loved one more than the other, but this is just what it was like.
We paid for Amelia's college fully, Opal got a fraction of that. When they were teenagers, Amelia wouldn't do her chores to go out with her friends, we never told her off for it and Opal would do her share and Amelia's. When Opal got her first job, she saved up for a long time to buy these expensive earrings.
Amelia saw it, wanted it and the next day we went and bought the same pair for her. Even for Jack and Opal's wedding as I mentioned, we were going to contribute x amount but took some of it back to help out Amelia. Things like this.
Opal never said anything to us about any of this, although now looking back I can see this was completely unfair. I will be honest, I feel like I let her down her entire life, so I would like to keep the dress not just as a memory, but also like a "see, this one thing is truly for you". So this is what the prioritizing means, that I'm not helping out Amelia now and "prioritizing" Opal, who's no longer with us.,
INFO : how come you have the dress ? did you take it or are you the one who bought it ?
Jack bought it for Opal as her wedding gift. I asked Jack's mom if she wanted it, but she declined and told me to keep it.
Commenters' reactions were mixed. Some thought she's being unreasonable, while others supported her decision not to give her daughter the dress.
Then OP shared this longer update:
Thankyou for your kind words, even if people had different opinions most of the replies were kind and understanding. Sorry if the title was confusing as I saw some comments misunderstanding the ages, Amelia is my elder daughter. She's 32 and Opal would've been 30. Also some people were asking about how they passed, I don't want to go into details but it wasn't accident or s*icide.
Last night Amelia came over and we had a long heart-to-heart discussion about everything, in relation to not only the dress but me and my husband's treatment of both Amelia and Opal in the past, and the effects of it. I wasn't sure if Liam's mom talked to me on her own accord or if Amelia had told her to.
I asked Amelia and she said that she talked to her about all of it, and Liam's mom agreed that her having the dress would make things easier. She suggested speaking to me about it and Amelia agreed, but Amelia herself didn't ask Liam's mom to talk.
I told her that if she wishes to wear Opal's dress without making any sort of tweaks (outside of tailoring to fit), I will let her borrow it. Amelia didn't agree, as she's mentioned that she wants to alter it to fit her tastes.
There were a few things that were brought up. I explained to her that our treatment of her and Opal were unequal when the girls were growing up (which was a parenting issue on our part and we'll fully take the blame), but she's not a child anymore. Amelia listened, she said that that's irrelevant because Opal and her had different personalities and different needs.
I asked Amelia if the reason she wanted the dress is a monetary/time issue or if there are any other reasons behind it, and to be open with me. She said outside of that, she views the dress as a sort of grand gesture Jack made about his love for Opal, spending a lot of money for her custom gown.
She told me that she wouldn't have asked for the dress if they were still alive, or if only one of them had died. Liam won't be buying a dress like this for her, so she can use the romantic sentiment behind it for her and Liam's love now, as neither Jack nor Opal are with us (so by extension any trace of their relationship is also gone).
I will be honest that this didn't sit right with me at all. I did stand behind my decision that she can't have Opal's dress. Amelia agreed and said that she'll start looking around at dress shops, and I offered to come along with her if she wishes.
Amelia has made it clear that she thinks that I should be over it by now, but she has accepted that not everything will go her way and importantly, she won't be getting the dress. Overall our talk ended positively enough, with a lot of deep conversation.
This ended up being quite a long post but I wanted to answer some of the questions that people had and also include a bit of the conversation I had with Amelia. Again thank you for your replies and messages.