Man pulls out of sister's wedding after she makes him get 'honest' about her marriage.

Boundaries are hard enough to set with an insistent acquaintance or work colleague. But they're extra hard to set and maintain with family members who weaponize their blood status as a way to override your comfort.

Sadly, drawing a firm line in the sand with family can cause a massive amount of backlash and emotional recoil, regardless of how necessary that line is.

In a popular post on the AITA subreddit, a man asked if he was wrong for snapping at his sister and pulling out of planning her wedding after she pushed his buttons.

He wrote:

AITA for pulling out of planning my sister's wedding, causing her to lose her venue?

As a wedding planner who has been in the industry for many years now, my (31M) party trick among close friends and family is being able to guess how long my clients' marriages will last with pretty alarming accuracy. If you ask anyone in the industry, there are specific indicators while working with a couple that allow us to be able to gauge compatibility.

I can usually get down to around a six month window when predicting when photos of each other will disappear from socials. This is not me taking joy in crashing and burning of relationships. Working in this career field can actually leave you feeling jaded about relationships in general, which is why I'm reluctant to work for friends and family.

The specific stress wedding planning puts on some people/couples can bring out the worst in them that you don't see in everyday life. My sister is getting married early next year and practically begged me to plan for her despite my stance on clients I know personally. I finally gave in and we began the process back in March.

Last week, while we were meeting and finalizing a few things, she asked me about the party trick I mentioned. She said since I had been working with her and her fiancé for months now, I could give my prediction as to how long they were going to last. I laughed and tried to move on. I thought she was joking, but she continued to press the issue.

After her continually bothering me about this for at least 15 minutes when I'm trying to move on (I do have work outside of my specific appointment with her that I needed to get to), I finally told her I thought they would last forever. She claimed she didn't believe me and wanted my real number, so I shrugged and told her the truth: A year and a half. She was livid.

I felt incredibly uncomfortable with the whole ordeal, especially with how little she respected my boundaries in what is supposed to be a professional setting, and just tried to usher her out of my office. Instead, she began ranting about my own marriage and said she gives us until the end of the year before we break up, and accused me of being a homewrecker.

She finally left, and I emailed her saying I would no longer be involved in planning. I gave her the contact information for all of the vendors we were working with, but told her the venue would no longer be available as they only book to people they have existing relationships with and my involvement was necessary. I have had to 'break up' with clients before, but this felt particularly rough.

She is now told our parents that I am purposefully sabotaging her wedding, and that I was unforgivably rude to her when she just asked a playful question. I feel very silly for letting a person disrespect my boundaries over and over again, something I typically wouldn't tolerate, but now I'm wondering if I'm in the wrong. AITA?

People did not hold back their passionate thoughts on the situation.

ZenwalkerNS wrote:

Update in a year and a half whether your number was accurate.

south3y wrote:

If you push and push to be told information, you alone are responsible for the consequence that hearing it brings. NTA.

cuervoguy2002 wrote:

NTA. She pushed. You gave a perfectly acceptable answer of 'forever'. To which she didn't like that and wanted a 'real' answer. But what would she have been happy with? 20 years? 10 years? It sounded like she is a constant boundary pusher. You didn't want to plan the wedding, but she pushed it.

You didn't want to answer the question, but you pushed it. This is on her. That said, don't expect your family to see it that way. They probably will take her side because people enable s#$%ty behavior from brides. Good luck.

SandwichOtter wrote:

ESH. I think you should stop playing this 'party trick' with anyone. Even if you're accurate, it's not a nice thing to say about people. You could have avoided this whole scenario if you never played mental games with people's lives. Now, of course your sister is an AH for pushing and pushing, but you should never have told her the truth.

Jxb1000 wrote:

YTA for the loss of venue. There are ways you could have backed off and still salvaged that. Leaving her in the lurch was not cool.

ESH regarding the breakup prediction. Both sides are terrible: her for pushing and you for even advertising this “trick” and giving in.

Careless_League_9494 wrote:

NTA. You told her you didn't want to plan her wedding, and she badgered you into doing it anyway. You didn't want to tell her what you thought the relationship length would be, and she harassed you into telling her anyway. She then threw a tantrum at your place of business, which could be very damaging to your business, and your relationships with other clients, and vendors.

frame_data_serial wrote:

I think you missed an opportunity with your sister. Either she feels uncertain in her choice, or she thinks you disapprove of her choice. She was (ineptly) looking for a real connection with you, so of course the flip year-and-a-half hurt. Alternative responses:

'Why are you worried about this? Do you think I don't like groom? Or do you have doubts?'

'How long do you think you'll be together?'

'I would never presume to judge your relationship, but sometimes you've seemed unhappy about X. Is that still worrying you?'

alicesheadband wrote:

Oh, you know you're here because YTA.

Seriously dude, you work in event planning and you haven't learned how to graciously lie? This is not the 'Was I Correct?' Sub. This is AITA.

I did 20 years in hospo and ran a wedding venue for a couple of those years and you and I both know that a positive lie trumps the truth with every bride when it comes to this kind of question. Is this really the bridge you want to burn with family? Because you are being an AH here.

People can't seem to agree on a unanimous ruling here, but a lot seem to agree that OP could've been less 'honest' and his sister could have respected boundaries better.