'AITA for unintentionally nearly ruining my niece's baby shower?' UPDATED

"AITA for unintentionally nearly ruining my niece's baby shower?"

First some back story first... My older sister (8 years my senior) was a divorced, single mom raising 3 kids on her own. When I was 25 and newly married, my eldest niece started getting into fights, trouble at school and some with the law. My sister asked if her daughter could come and spend the summer with my husband and I.

We didn't have children yet, and felt it would be good because as a teacher, I had summers off and could give my niece lots of attention. At the end of summer, my sister asked if we could keep her until the new year. We said yes, and she gave us temporary guardianship so we could enroll her in school in our state.

Well, months turned into years, and suddenly 5 years passed, and my niece graduated HS and went off to UNI. While she lived with us, we never asked my sister for any money, as I knew she was struggling. We even paid for the portion of college her scholarships didn't cover.

However, sis lied and told family members that I demanded money from her constantly. So, because of this and a few other thing, I went NC with my sister.

10 years later and my niece is expecting her first child. Her mom begs to give her the baby shower, and my niece agrees, but warns her that I had better be invited. 2 weeks ago, my niece calls and asks me when I would be there. I explained that I wasn't sure what she meant.

She then realized I had not been invited, and she lost it. She started screaming at her mom, and walked out of the shower. I managed to calm her down, and talked her into going back in, explaining that everyone there was there for her, and she shouldn't make them pay for what her mom did. She did go back in, and enjoyed herself, but didn't and hasn't spoken to mom.

Well, my niece gave birth this past Monday (yes a Valentine's baby), and got home on Wednesday. She is still very angry at her mom, and is not letting her come to baby. I talked to my niece and tried to get her to allow her mom to see the baby. But, my niece said no.

She told her mom she can see my granddaughter (meaning me) after I have seen her, and have gotten to spend time with her. I live about 800 miles away, and won't be able to make it to her until school lets put for spring break in April, and I kind of feel bad for my sister having to wait that long.

Now, my sister and other family members are accusing me of nearly ruining the baby shower, and causing my niece to stop talking to her mom. They say I should have lied and told my niece I wasn't feeling well, or something, then dealt with everything after. I let them know that I absolutely would not have lied to my niece.

I told them the one they should be upset at is my sister, as she was the one that ruined the day for my niece. I am a terrible liar, and don't think quick on things, and my niece would have known that outside of death, being in the hospital, or a natural disaster, I would not have missed her shower. So, yeah, AITA by not lying to my niece, and waiting until after the shower to let her know I wasn't invited?

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

[deleted] said:

NTA. Your sister lied and got caught. Your sister basically abondoned her child then assassinated your character to family. Stop trying to repair the relationship between your niece and her mother. Not your job. When you see your neice do not bring up or speak about your sister. Do not play mediator. Just be with your niece and enjoy your visit.

[deleted] said:

Nta if your sister wanted to be there for all the fun happy stuff she should have been there when it was hard. A mom that can’t support their kids when the hard stuff happens doesn’t deserve them when it’s all happy and good. Honestly her mom should be thankful she’s allowed around at all!

And SilverSpectrum202 said:

NTA, though you are trending that way now for a very different reason. You've seen the things that your sister has done to your neice in her childhood. Your neice has tried to make that connection as an adult with the baby shower, possibly against her better judgement, and was blatantly betrayed by your sister again.

At that point your niece's peace offering has been slapped away and your sister has confirmed that she is the arsehole here. The fact that you even think lying and joining your sister in her disrespect to your niece might have been an idea is an issue. You being a terrible liar has nothing to do with it.

Where you are trending to being the arsehole is that you should be supporting your niece now in her choice to cut your sister out of her life. You should not be trying to get her to do anything with regard to your sister, you've seen what she's done to your niece.

She's just had a baby and needs your support. Be there for your niece and support her and if she doesn't want to see your sister; that sounds like a great idea and you should back her up.

She later shared this update:

I want to thank everyone for all the comments, support, and advice you all gave me. It truly made me feel so much better. I also want to address a couple things. Some of you assumed that if I did know about the shower, that I would have lied to my niece. Well, I would NEVER have lied to her, as we have a very close, open, and honest relationship.

Second, I was not attempting to push my niece to have a relationship with her bio mom. I simple let her know that for loyalty to me, she didn't have to wait for mee to meet me. After dinner tonight we had a video chat. My niece asked a question of us that had me immediately crying.

She asked if we would consider legally adopting her! I didn't even know there was such a thing as adult adoption. We immediately said YES! I will be calling my lawyer Monday to start the process.. Again, thank you all again so very much.

And then she shared a second update:

Again I would like to thank you all for your cooperation tinued support, and kind words. I have some awesome news to share. Yesterday my niece, husband, and I appeared in court, and the adult adoption was approved! We are all VERY excited. However, we did let our niece know that the adoption only solidified what we already knew and felt in our hearts, because she was already our daughter.

She did make a change to her name, and made our last name her middle. My niece stressed to us that she absolutely DOES NOT expect us to put her in our will as an heir. My husband and I live very comfortably (not millionaires or anything) but we have a sizable amount of property, stocks, insurance, and money saved.

So, when we wrote our will 10 years ago, we left everything to be evenly amongst our surviving children, and she was included in that equation. Unless something else happens concerning my original post, I most likely will not be updating again.

However, I have decided I am going to make separate posts about other crazy interactions with my sister. Until then be safe, stay healthy, and be free with your love as it's the greatest gift one can give to another.