'AITA for asking my sister to be a groomswoman against my fiancée's wishes?' UPDATED
"AITA for asking my sister to be a groomswoman?"
Here's the original post:
so, my (25m) fiancée(24f) has never gotten along with my sister (18f). my fiancée has never liked how close i am with my sister, and it has been a cause of few arguments. i proposed to fiancée (“sarah”) a few months ago, and things have been going smoothly. in fact, i would say our relationship has never been better.
a few days ago, sarah listed off to me all of the people she wanted as bridesmaids, and not surprisingly, my sister was not one of them. she said she was planning on asking them in a few more months to be in our wedding.
sarah then asked me if i knew who i wanted as groomsmen. i listed off a couple friends that sarah knew, “keegan, joe, sammy, etc.” and then, i said i wanted my sister to be one of my groomsmen.
this made sarah upset. she said that it wasn’t traditional for a woman to be a groomsman, and that it would embarrass her. i explained to her that my sister was one of the most important people in my life, and she was going to be apart of our wedding. this made sarah even more upset, and she accused me of trying to ruin her wedding day, and she locked herself in the bathroom.
it’s been a few days since this, and we haven’t spoken at all. many of her family members have reached out to me and asked me to not include my sister in the wedding at all, and that sarah should be the most important woman in my life, not my sister. my mil even called me, telling me that i was making sarah depressed, and that i was a horrible person for doing this to my future wife.
my sister heard about all of this, and told me that it was okay to not invite her. i stood my ground and told all of them that my sister would be included, no matter what. aita for doing so?
This is what top commenters had to say:
SmittenBlackKitten said:
Your future bride views your sister, who is just barely of legal age btw, as a SEXUAL rival. Let that sink in, because it's sick.
RetiredAerospaceVP said:
NTA. Your fiancé is really immature. Too late to reconsider?
princessofperky said:
NTA but you have bigger issues if your fiancé isn't talking to you about this issue and has dragged multiple family members into this argument. What is your plan moving forward? Do you think she's going to continue to try and push your sister out of your life?
princessofperky said:
NTA but you have bigger issues if your fiancé isn't talking to you about this issue and has dragged multiple family members into this argument. What is your plan moving forward? Do you think she's going to continue to try and push your sister out of your life?
niennabobenna said:
NTA. Her locking herself in a bathroom and not even trying to compromise is a red flag though. It's your wedding day too. Y'all are going to have to find ways to work around more in your actual marriage.
PuertoRicoRules said:
NTA - but you fiancée is throwing out some serious red flags. Locking yourself in a bathroom when you don’t get your way is extremely immature. Wanting your sister as a groomsman is different, but doesn’t seem unreasonable to me. I also wonder if there is more to this story.
As you paint it, she just has it out for your sister. I’m really curious why there is so much hate here. Like it would be easy to say she is just trying to distance you from family, but just doesn’t make sense why she would do that.
Haunting-Row-3961 said:
NTA a million times. But are you sure you want to have this lifelong battle…. 1.Your fiancé is not going even trying to be nice and inclusive about your sister before marriage afterwards it’s going to be extremely tough - your fiancé will most likely never allow your children to have a relationship with your sister- and this will hurt her and you…
2. Your MIL is demanding you not invite your sister to your own wedding- imagine her treatment at other events baby shower, birth, christening, birthdays…. You will constantly be pressured to keep your sister away.
Op they are not the right people to be in your life- they are manipulative and insensitive. Things will only take a worse turn after the marriage. You still have time to rethink- please do so for your own happiness. Best wishes.
Consensus: He's NTA. But his fiancée is.
Apparently, he took everyone's feedback into consideration. Because he later shared this update:
i got home from work, and i told sarah we need to talk. she agreed, and we sat down in the living room. i started off by asking her why she had such a problem with sister being a groomsman, and also (as many of you suggested) if she had been sa’d or had any trauma related to that. sarah told me that she hadn’t. she went on to say that having sister as a groomsman was untraditional.
she said, “men are groomsmen. woman are bridesmaids.” sarah also said she was uncomfortable with how close i was with sister. i asked her to elaborate on this, and sarah implied that we had more than a sibling relationship. she said cuddling between siblings was something she had never seen, and that it just didn’t seem like something normal siblings did.
i assured sarah that nothing like that was happening, but she just didn’t seem like she wanted to accept that, and it just let to more arguing. i gave sarah an ultimatum. we could go to couples therapy, she could try to repair her relationship with sister, and tell her family to stop guilting me, or we were going to have to call of the engagement.
sarah blew up at me, and said she was going to stay with her mother. family in law is now completely pissed at me, and are sending me hateful messages on facebook lol, so i guess that’s most likely the end of sarah and i.
but to wrap things up on a good note: sister is planning on moving in with me :) her mental health was drained from this, so we decided to move in together. thank you everyone for sticking through this with me, i appreciate all the kind messages. i ended up showing sister some of them and she was very delighted.