Man proposes to his ex's sibling at her birthday party. AITA? Updated!
Proposal Faux Pas Ruins Birthday and Relationship.
Not only were they dating their own sister's ex, BUT he proposed at the family party meant to celebrate her birthday.
AITA For Saying Yes to My Boyfriend's Proposal?
Hi. Sorry, I usually just read through this sub, but this happened and I've been wondering if I'm the asshole, so I decided to ask.
So, basically, I'm 24NB. My boyfriend (Fiance?) is 25M. My sister is 26F, and I don't know the ages of most of her friends, but roughly the same age.
Now, my sister and my boyfriend/fiance do not get along well. I don't really know what happened. I think my sister is just upset because she has issues with commitment, and she dated him at their high school (I went to a different high school), and then cheated him, and is upset he broke up with her. I met him in college, and didn't know it was him.
Now, what happened is, last week it was my sister's birthday. She was always into stupidly lavish things, we both are, so she threw a big birthday party at a venue in the forest.
Me and my boyfriend/fiance were both invited. We've been dating for a few years and he's never been invited to one of my sister's birthday parties before, so we were both thrilled at this development.
At the party, my sister was busy opening all her presents, then eating cake, both of which we were there for. Afterward, my sister started talking to her friends, and the guests started to explore the area. It was stunning.
Me and my boyfriend were a little bit away when we found a little clearing. We were still pretty close to the venue, but I think it was pretty private. My boyfriend thought so too.
He got down on one knee, and proposed. He didn't have a ring, he had one at home though, but he had woven a ring out of grass while we were walking (we are both very fidgety), so he put that on my finger after I said yes.
Apparently it wasn't as private as I thought, because when we got back to the venue after taking a selfie and scheduling a post for a few hours after the party was scheduled to end, I was bombarded by a shower of congratulations. Turns out my sister's friend, 'Lisa', saw my boyfriend propose, and then came back to the venue and told everyone.
I figured that I could show them the ring, and tell the story, and then move on from that and back to my sister.
While I was being congratulated, another girl, one of my sister's best friends, came up to me, asked to see the ring, and told me that 'Wow, he even skimped out on a ring. He couldn't plan his own proposal, or get you a nice ring.'
I was upset, because I wasn't even planning to tell anyone. If someone noticed the ring, I would tell them, but I wasn't going to announce it to the world, or do it in public where everyone can see us.
We left immediately afterwards, and my entire family has been blowing up my phone calling me an attention seeking b-word, and that I shouldn't have done that to my sister.
I'm worried I might be an a**hole because it was my sister's birthday and if I said no maybe she wouldn't have been upset about my boyfriend proposing.
Here are some of the initial reactions from readers:
People of Reddit: stop 👏🏻 getting 👏🏻 engaged 👏🏻 at 👏🏻 other 👏🏻 people’s 👏🏻 events 👏🏻
Unless you’ve explicitly spoken to the host of the event and received enthusiastic consent, it’s just tacky.
Yeah, your sister’s friend sucks for telling people, but there shouldn’t have been anything to tell. Someone with a modicum of social awareness wouldn’t have weaved an engagement ring out of grass to propose to their ex-girlfriend’s sister at her own birthday party.
YTA by proxy, because yeah, he’s the primary AH, but you should’ve known it wasn’t an appropriate time or place, either. I’d go E S H, but your sister’s only presence in the story is the olive branch she extended by inviting your boyfriend to come with you in the first place.
YTA but mostly your fiance is. Especially since he dated you sister in high school. Even though we don't know how serious? Maybe her first? It was her birthday party. And also sorry but you say you don't know why they don't get along? Because they have a past together of them dating and how i understood it her cheating on him? YTA.
I too think that the fiancé is the A0 but OP wasn’t at fault. They didn’t even make it public. It was someone else snitching. The party was ruined by sister’s friends.
But op goes on to show them the ring and tell them the story and throws in that they (op) doesn't get why they (fiance and sister) don't have a good relationship. I think that op should have just played the proposal down and it itches me that op threw in the sentence about not liking each other.
And honestly yes it was the fiance and he shouldn't have done it but he also knew in some way that op wouldn't care about their sister's birthday and about her feelings, because otherwise he wouldn't have done it. That's at least the impression I got.
Your boyfriend absolutely knew what he was doing. YTA for pretending not to see the issue here. You claim not to know what happened for your sister to dislike him, then proceed to explain exactly why she dislikes him. Kinda weird. Then, you say how pleased the two of you were that she finally invites both of you to her party.
Kind of like she’s letting shit go and moving forward, and your boyfriend pulls this shit 🙄 He didn’t even have the ring with him, which means it wasn’t the original plan and he likely did it to get back at your sister.
You are both TA here. I disagree with a previous comment saying you aren’t at fault for what he did. While it isn’t your fault that he proposed at such an inappropriate time, you defending him makes you an asshole as well.
The next day, the OP returned with an update:
Hey guys, I'll probably do a more complete update later, but scrolling through your posts kind of awoken something in me. I've never been good with people (Undiagnosed Autism), so it didn't occur to me that my BF might have been lying about my sister.
I told him that I was going to be thinking about some things, gave him back the ring, and called a friend we both knew in high school. He said that apparently my BF was lying.
See, I was in a student exchange program when they were dating. So I never knew what happened, since the drama died down before I got back, but apparently my BF not only lied about my sister cheating, but also lied about why they stopped getting along.
Yeah. Apparently, not only did my sister not cheat, the reason they broke up is because my BF did. Cheat that is. With his brother. At least that's what the rumors that went around said. Neither of them shared. And then tried to sleep with my sister, which is why she got cold around him again. She didn't tell me because she didn't want to ruin my happiness.
So as far as I can tell, he might have proposed to me as a twisted revenge scheme of some kind. I'm thinking about it all over. I will make another update post later when I've figured all the pieces out.