'AITA for excluding my brother who has anti-social personality disorder from my wedding?' UPDATED

"AITA for excluding my brother from my wedding?"

Everyone around me thinks I am an @$$hole so I wanted to ask here. My brother (25) is something. I (28M) and my sister(28F) never understood him to be fair, I think no one in our family did.

He always had major issues in his life. At elementary school he would refuse to sit with other kids, he would not let anyone to come close and he was expelled from his first school at age 10. After getting expelled from 3 schools, he was homeschooled and at age 19, he got a diagnosis of ASPD (anti social personality disorder). All that time he had therapy, a psychiatrist and also a support team.

I can easily say our parents spent 80% of their energy to him but it never worked. At 19, he left the house,got himself a studio apartment, entered to a job that includes near-zero human interaction and cut contact with me and my sister. The last time I saw him was our uncle's funeral 5 years ago and he was forcefully brought by our mom.

Last month, my fiance (27M) proposed to me and I said yes. It is a big event because I am the first one getting married in our generation and the wedding will be huge . I am not talking like 500-600, it will probably be at least 1.5k+ and my family is huge. My fiance also has a huge family (I am Italian, he is Armenian) and we also have a lot of friends from high school and college(we met at high school).

We were looking at the invitation list and I decided to exclude my brother. He never talks with anyone, he is always a mood killer and he can be unpredictable. The only thing he feels is anger and vindictiveness. He said himself while he was 20 he does not understand the concept of happiness.

My family lost their mind except my sister and my dad. My mom called everyone and all of them are currently berating me how could I exclude someone from my blood who is just a little quirky (he has ASPD but whatever) and how can I steal an important night from his life. To be fair, his life is very boring.

He always wakes up at 7 am, does his breakfast, goes to work,does his job,comes back, gets into his house and the cycle repeats. I heard him once going on a vacation and it was a big thing. He mostly stays at his house other than his bi-monthly therapy appointments which my parents still drive and his monthly psychiatric examination.

It might be good for him to mingle with us and I might be a real @$$hole for not including him. My ILs do not have any clue about him.

A little info: We do not have+1s, if you have kids, you bring all of them if you can. Most of my family and his family at least has 3-4 kids in one parental unit and we have lots of aunt's and uncles and cousins and their kids and our parents cousins and their kids etc.

Our friends also have kids, some of them will become with their parents because we are close to them, one of our classmates even comes with his 5 siblings so this is a festival and I am living for it.

What do you think? AITA? This is what top commenters had to say:

nastaway said:

INFO : does he actually care about being included in your wedding? You should ask him. It's more about his own feelings about the matter than your mom's. And, if he wants to attend, then maybe only the ceremony and not the reception -- he gets to decide, doesn't he?

To me, it doesn't sound like you don't like your brother, it just sounds like he's been forced by your mom to attend family events he didn't want to be included in. A funeral is one thing I can understand her forcing him to attend, because, well -- it's a funeral, but a wedding? Nah. Ask him how he feels.

If he doesn't want to attend, then sit down w/ your mom and tell her so, and maybe tell her that she'll have more fun if she isn't so focused on your brother for one night.

OP responded:

He probably doesn't. He does not care about us and he only sees our parents bi-weekly because his therapist advised him it would be good for him. He does not like any kind of human interaction.

Also, I can't say I don't like my brother,I am mostly really indifferent with him. He never existed in my life other than living in the same house until he was 19. We never did anything common unless our parents were there. He always had his own universe.

limegeuse said:

NTA. It looks like a lot of people in this thread (and in your family) don’t understand how hard it is to get a diagnosis of ASPD, and what that diagnosis entails. It’s not a “quirk.” Among other things, the person has to demonstrate a pattern of behavior prior to the age of 15 that usually involves violence, cruelty, and disregard for the fundamental rights of others, all without remorse.

The diagnosis can then be made after the person turns 18 if the pattern continues. It’s not curable, and it’s a very, very difficult diagnosis to get.

This is a difficult situation with no easy answers. Does your brother want to come?

It’s your wedding, and you can invite who you want. If you’re afraid of a violent outburst at your wedding, then that’s a good reason to not invite someone.

And Fattdog64 said:

NTA, But can we take a moment to look at some reality here?? This guy does not like human interaction. Just how fun could being crowded in with over a thousand people be for him??? Call him up and ask him if he would even want to come. I will bet money that he has ZERO interest in being around that many people.

He later shared this brief update:

I called his social worker via my dad and she was horrified with what my mom said and she said not to send any in-person invite to him because he wasn't in a good place right now but she suggested we can have a live stream of the ceremony which might be good for us and him. We are currently trying to arrange that.