Wedding planning is certainly not without its headaches.
But one bride dealt with added anxiety in addition to the stresses that are involved before the nuptials, and the cause stemmed from a sibling.
Blood may be thicker than water, but the bride didn’t apply that to her situation, and the resulting drama led to her seeking judgment on the Am I the A**hole (AITA) subReddit.
Professional-Ant5405 asked:
“AITA for telling my whole family I don’t care that my sister doesn’t have friends she will not be a bridesmaid at my wedding?”
The Original Poster (OP) explained:
“My sister and I are not close, and it is due to our parents. She is a very awkward/shy person.”
“She is two years younger than me and my parents always made me watch over her. Some examples, I needed to join clubs she was interested in so she wouldn’t be alone, dropping hanging out with friends to be with her, downplaying successes since it would make her sad and so on.”
“I was kinda an emotional support animal for her. When I was in high school and she was in middle school it was fine, since I could get away from everyone.”
“She came to highschool and my parents wanted me by her 24/7 again and it was awful.”
“I turned 18 and moved out with my aunt. I stopped helping her and she had a very lonely high school experience and at the time blamed me for it. She dropped out of college for multiple reasons but one of them was not having friends.”
“Overall she never grew out of it.”
“I have been in family therapy with my parents since they realized they messed up. My wedding is coming up and I was asked to make my sister a bridesmaid from my grandma.”
“My sister has apparently been going around telling everyone she will be a bridesmaid. I told everyone that she will not and it’s just my close friends.”
“This started an argument with my sister in front of the family and she was upset and told me how alone she is. I got annoyed and told everyone that I don’t care that she doesn’t have friends and she will not be a bridesmaids at my wedding.”
“She called me a jerk and people are split. Some think I was too harsh and others think it’s justified.”
“Edit: my parents had nothing to do with this, they are on my side about the whole situation. I am not going no contact with them, we have made great progress in our relationship.”
Anonymous strangers weighed in by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
- NAH – No A**holes Here
Many Redditors thought the OP was not the a**hole (NTA) here.
“NTA. You have not previously been allowed to have your own life. It is time to claim your life. OTOH, one of the sad things here is how much your parents have crippled your sister by not allowing her to work out her issues with socialization at a young age.”
“By making sure that you were always with her and protecting her, they did not allow her to learn how to interact and how to take care of herself.” – DrVL2
” It’s such a shame that OP’s sister is unable to make friends. And it’s sad that the parents enabled this situation by making OP fill in that space involuntarily instead of helping the sister learn how to interact with other people. They did their younger child a tremendous disservice. NTA.” – PineForestFern
“NTA. Your parents have turned you into your sisters safety blanket and now she doesn’t know to function without you and still expects you to keep up with your behavior. I know for outsiders it’s easy to say ‘you SHOULD have handled it better.'”
“I mean… Could you have handled it better? Yeah sure, you could have. Should you have handled it better though? I don’t think so. They’ve asked you to give up a lot just so you could shelter your sister from the hardships of social interaction.”
“There’s probably a lot of resentment that built up inside you that didn’t have an outlet. This is your day, if you arenot firm, your sister might think there is wriggle room. Which you don’t want.”
“People are telling you that you reacted wrongly. Why did no one ever tell your parents to stop parentifying you? Where were those people when you could not live your life without your sister? Why is your sister’s happiness always more important than your own?”
“She has to learn to deal with rejection. She blames you for her lonely high school experience, for crying out loud. She believes she is entitled to your time.”
“Nope. Deffinitely NTA. I wish you a happy wedding.” – Comfortable_Way_1261
“NTA. OP, I know you’re hurting but I lol’d at ‘being my sister’s support animal’. That’s wild.”
“Obviously, your parents put you in an impossible, difficult and unfair position, being your sister’s keeper and all and they need to accept responsibility for that fully, before you can have the relationship you’re supposed to have. Like the normal ‘child to parent’ relationship, not ‘parentified child to parent’, or ‘3rd parent to parent’.”
“You’re not only a support animal. as you so astutely pointed out, but you are, also, absolutely, a 3rd parent. One who so conveniently happens to be close enough to their youngest child’s age and can take the burden of dealing with your sister’s lifelong loneliness by demanding that you physically and emotionally be there for her at all times.”
“They certainly haven’t suggested you sister face her own problems head on, there’s no involvement from them required, they can happily bypass all your wants and needs for the rest of your life, so you can cater to your sister’s needs which should always supersede your own.”
“Forgive me, but if you guys are going through therapy, and they’ve understood that they messed up, and they’re taking some degree of responsibility, how is that reflected in their current reaction?”
“Like…how do you go from ‘Sorry we messed up for making you do things that we as parents ought to have done and not taking a bigger role in helping your sister all these years**’** to”
“‘Do this one thing for us that we know is rooted in a difficult past we’re still trying to untangle in therapy, but if you could just overlook your wants and desires, again, for your sister’s sake, this 100th time, on your big day? We’d be soo grateful? And by the way, you’re an a**hole if you don’t do it?'”
“There’s only so much you can do, and only so much you can take. Hence your completely understandable reaction and response.”
“If you didn’t say what you said, then you run the risk of having a bridesmaid you don’t want, you run the risk of having someone tag along to a honeymoon because they’re lonely, you run the risk of her showing up to your marital home at all times because she needs company.”
“You might choose to have a second child (yes, you read that correctly), and guess who’ll be there the whole damn time, because she’s lonely and feels left out. Guess who’ll be your kid’s godmother, whether you want it or not?”
“I mean this could go on forever. These expectations are, with all due respect to your family, complete and utter madness.” – SheLikesToWatch_1989
“NTA. They tried to pressure you into changing your mind with an audience, kinda like making a public proposal so that the intended will put not embarrassing the proposer over what they actually want.”
“They wouldn’t take No for an answer and now they are going to obsess about the way you turned her down rather than the fact that they are trying to force you into it. You aren’t close. You aren’t responsible for her issues and she doesn’t get to hijack your wedding.” – cassowary32
“NTA. You’re not required to make your sister a bridesmaid, your wedding, your choice, dude. TBH, I don’t see a huge problem with how you dealt with it. Obviously, you could have been nicer about it, but it’s not like you were exaggerating or lying so idk. NTA in my opinion.” – Art3mis1108
“NTA.”
“If anything, your parents probably made it worse for your sister by forcing you to always be by her side. Just because she didn’t have the space to actually learn how to make friends. I’ve been shy all my life and figuring out how to connect with people can be tough but you really do have to learn on your own, even if it’s hard.”
“I’m curious though: does your sister perhaps have diagnosed social anxiety or any signs of being on the autism spectrum? The way you describe her complete lack of friends doesn’t sound normal. Most shy/awkward people still have friends.” – am_3265
It’s unfortunate things wound up so negatively around a time of celebration.
Although it’s sad that the OP’s sister felt abandoned, a majority of Redditors strongly maintained that the parents were to blame for relying on the OP to do most of the heavy lifting in raising her sister.
Now that the OP said she and her parents are working on improving their relationship, hopefully, the focus will shift towards helping her sister become a more confident and independent individual.