Someecards Logo
ADVERTISING
Woman refuses to attend sister's wedding because, 'I hate your fiancé.' AITA?

Woman refuses to attend sister's wedding because, 'I hate your fiancé.' AITA?

ADVERTISING

"WIBTA for telling my sister I won’t attend her wedding because I hate her fiancé?"

Expensive_Page_8666

Older Sister - “Brooke”, 32 F Fiancé - “Mark”, 32 M Me - no nickname necessary, 25 F Younger Sister - “Jenny”, 22 F

My sister, call her Brooke, has been together with Mark since freshman year of high school. As far as I understand it, they did not want to get married initially because Brooke is vehemently child-free, and Mark agrees with her. But, they have decided to hold a wedding/commitment ceremony next spring after a lot of years of back and forth.

The problem is, I’ve known Mark since I was a kid (he started coming around to the house a lot when he and Brooke were sophomores in high school, so I was eight or so when I first met him as Brooke’s boyfriend, and I have basically hated him the whole time. I’ve tried to be polite, particularly now that we are all adults, but I just don’t want to go to the wedding of my sister and the guy she’s always put before her family.

As an example, when Brooke and Mark started dating, Brooke went from eating dinner at home with the rest of us every night to going out two or three times a week with Mark and his friends.

This was against our parent’s rules, and caused a lot of arguments that negatively impacted both me and our younger sister Jenny (who was barely in kindergarten at the time and didn’t understand what was going on).

Brooke and our parents started fighting basically every night, and it was incredibly disruptive to our home life. My sister went from being my best friend to a stranger, and Mark was the one encouraging it.

The stress of those years was so bad that I had to repeat fourth grade (failed math), and I was bullied really badly for that. I stopped going to school looking nice because there was so much tension in the home that no one was paying attention to whether or not I had clean clothes.

Jenny also struggled academically and socially but I was able to step in and help her more with things like getting dressed and packing her lunch, so she doesn’t remember those years as negatively as I do.

Of course, as soon as Brooke and Mark graduated he convinced her to move across the country to go to college. Our parents were really hurt by this and there were a few years where she didn’t come home over Christmas or for the summers.

Eventually things cooled down when I was in high school and Brooke started making more contact with our family, but Mark would do things like glare at our parents over the dinner table and suddenly declare that it was time for them to go.

I don’t think I should have to go to the wedding of my sister and this guy that stole her from us, and I am planning on RSVP-ing “no” when the time comes. Our family has been minimally involved in wedding planning, and I am not in the bridal party or anything like that (they are all friends of Brooke and Mark’s from the hospital where they work). WIBTA?

I am getting a lot of feedback that Brooke was potentially parentified. If anyone has recommendations for podcasts or books about that, I would appreciate it. I think I need to learn more about her experiences before I decide about the wedding, since we did use to be close and it would be unfortunate to lose the relationship entirely Thank you.

Here were the top rated comments from readers:

Puzzleheaded-SR

I think you're being childish and petty over stupid s$*t. I think it's insane that one of your examples is she wasn't eating at home as often. Frankly you are blaming your sister for s@*t you aren't entitled to. You failed math. No one else made you do that.

Your parents sound just as immature. Why aren't you blaming them for creating a toxic home life? Why aren't you mad at them you had to take care of your younger sister? She's their child! The way you talk it's like you feel ownership over her instead of being an individual. It's weird. It's like grow up and get over it. Jesus. YTA.

Practical-Big7550

Honestly I read the whole thing twice to find where Mark actually did anything bad to OP. I still haven't found it. After reading OP's parents sound like tools, making a mountain out of a mole hill. It's no wonder Brooke ran for it when the opportunity came for her to move out.

The OP responded after some negative comments:

Expensive_Page_8666

Please stop attacking my parents. They have their faults but they did not have many resources when we were young. It’s important to me to support them now that they are older and can’t work but I also want to support Brooke and understand better now that I have not been handling this in a mature way.

I will be apologizing to her and asking for more of her perspective on things from our childhood. I’m going to stop reading now but I appreciate your help. Thank you.

But, the comments continued.

SomeJokeTeeth

He helped his girlfriend achieve a much needed sense of freedom and he's the bad guy? Wild.

thirdtryisthecharm

None of the problems you described were Mark's fault. Brooke started having the usually teen feelings of wanting to be more independent and getting invested in her relationships and that conflicted with your parents' rules.

That's not on Mark. You have not described any single action or statement that makes it clear whether Mark is controlling or just objects to your parents trying to control their now adult daughter.

So why is your issue specifically with Mark? Or is he just the easy scapegoat for your family not being as comfortably and conflicted-free as when you were a child?

'The stress of those years was so bad that I had to repeat fourth grade (failed math), and I was bullied really badly for that. I stopped going to school looking nice because there was so much tension in the home that no one was paying attention to whether or not I had clean clothes. Jenny also struggled academically and socially but I was able to step in and help her more with things like getting dressed and packing her lunch, so she doesn’t remember those years as negatively as I do.'

These are all things that are your parents' fault, not Mark's fault. Your parents were neglectful. Mark may simply have been invested in getting Brook away from a bad family situation.

Substantial-Roll-860

YWBTA. Your family is weird AF. You haven't listed one thing that Brooke and Mark did that's not normal. So, you freaked out and failed math because your sister went out to eat? Your parents are the real AHs. They created a toxic environment in the home.

So, do you think readers are right and the OP is being too harsh against Mark or is she just trying to protect her sister from dedicating her life to someone who seems to be trying to change her?

Sources: Reddit
© Copyright 2024 Someecards, Inc

ADVERTISING
Featured Content