If Idon't attend my sister's wedding, AIO
I (31M) have made the decision not to attend my sister's (29F) wedding.
For context, back in 2024, my wife (29F) and I learned we were going to have a baby. I was at a job i was frustrated with. I loved my career field. My wife and I made enough to support ourselves at the time, but we wouldn't be able to do so with only my income as we decided it's best for her to stay home and raise our son than to send him to daycare.
So, I decided to attempt a career change to better support my now growing family. While I did have interviews in the summer of '24, nothing I was offered was more than a lateral move and the moves up weren't calling back.
During this, we learned my father in law, who lives out of state, was diagnosed with cancer. So my wife goes to be with her family temporarily. While she's with her family, I recieve a phone call that my best friend of 15 years passed away from health problems. Then a change in management was made and multiple people were laid off, myself included, just 2 months before my son was due.
The lone bright spot after all this was 3 weeks after I was let go, I was called in for an interview to a new position and career field that I had applied for 4 months prior. So I went on this interview and hoped for the best. In the following week the interview I started to develop of cough that I could not get rid of, which I learned later on was acute bronchitis, which then turned chronic.
The next thing to happen is that my son came 5 weeks early, but just after my cobra insurance expired. It was an emergency C section birth, and with her family being out of state and my family being 4 hours away, we had no support during this time.
My son was born with jaundice, liquid in his lungs, trouble breathing, and low oxygen levels. So he was in the NICU. Fortunately after 2 weeks, he made enough progress that we were able to bring him home, however, there was still no job.
Ultimately, my wife and I had to move 4 hours to my parents as I did see a job there that was in my old career field and fast tracked hiring me. This is where my sister is introduced to the story.
My parents have a large house, with multiple living rooms that separate a large bedroom on 1 side of the house from a few bedrooms on the opposite side of the house. My sister has always lived with my parents, and while she talked multiple times about moving out, she never has made a genuine effort to and so she stays in the large bedroom on the opposite side of the house as my parents.
Leading up to moving in with my family, my parents told my wife and I that we would get the room my sister has and then move her to a spare bedroom by their master bedroom. This wouldn't have been an issue I thought, except for the fact that my parents never told her about these plans.
My sister is the baby, and is used to being catered to. She is the type of person to not do someone a favor because in interferes with her itinerary...this is not an exaggeration, as I have on more than 1 occasion called and asked her to pick something up from the grocery store that she was already shopping at and been told "no, because i already passed that aisle and I'm not going back to that side of the store"
I repeatedly asked my parents when approaching the move if they ever talked to her about it and every time we were told "not yet but we are going to, we are just waiting for [insert random thing] to happen first" until finally. We are moving in and they never told her and she was disgusted at us for even asking about the room.
Now, my wife and I were more than grateful to accept anything at all and didn't initiate the idea of staying in this room. The importance of the room, however, is that it is right next to the kitchen where we can easily and quickly make bottles of formula, it was large enough to put a bassinet for my son to sleep in along side the bed, it had its own bathroom with a spot to do diaper changes and its far away from the other bedrooms, that even at his loudest crying, you can't hear the baby from my parents bedroom, which is important for my dad even though he wouldn't say so, but his job requires him to be ready at any time, day or night.
While we were staying there, there was a 3 weeks stretch that he was doing 16-20 hour days 7 days/week and at times, he has to drive drive hundreds of miles 1 way at times for work. Obviously, a screaming baby at 3 am, in the spare bedroom right next to his bedroom, along with his job demands scream extremely high risk, and yes, he is a very light sleeper.
We would have thought that a look at the entire situation would be self evident. "Hey there's a lot going on, and this is an inconvenience but it's for my nephew" is what we thought she might conclude as she makes it a point to remind us that, in her own words, is "an EXTREMELY EMPATHETIC person and feels so much for her friends and family". This is also why the context at the beginning of this post is long winded.
Instead, we were told "I'm not giving up my room because I'm tired of my brother being the favorite. I'm putting my foot down with mom and dad that this room is my safe place, I'm setting this boundary". Which i find this reasoning weird as she doesn't pay rent, and her telling my parents "I can't pay you rent because it ruins my autonomy", but I digress.
So now, my wife and I tell my parents "thank you for giving us somewhere to stay" and just appreciate that we had somewhere to go. The difference become apparent with the much smaller room however.
There was no space for any of our stuff, walking around the bed had to be 1 person at a time and walking sideways to get around. There were no room for dressers, and the only space available was used for my son's changing table. But you know what, we had somewhere to stay at least.
That's at least the sentiment we tried to maintain until we thought more and more about why my sister didn't give up the room. We couldn't get over how the unfortunate circumstances my wife and I endured somehow turned my sister into the victim when she said "he's the favorite". She chose resentment towards me instead of compassion for her nephew....and really parents, me and my wife.
This did upset my wife and myself for a bit but we just tried to stay cordial, but ofc tension between everyone built. My mom finally had enough one day but came after me saying to get my stuff and get out.
So now everything is uncomfortable with my parents and sister, myself and my sister, myself and my parents and my wife with everyone. And this comes to a head in an intervention where we all sat down and *tried* talking this out where my mom did apologize.
During this talk, I told my sister that I think she is a selfish person and just says she's empathetic to convince herself she otherwise. I talked about how this has been an issue pre-dating this rooming situation and so it isn't the room. But she couldn't understand that it's not the room and maintains that it's because I didn't get what I want.
When diving more into why she wouldn't give up the room, she told my wife and I that because she works from home, she needs the larger room so that her chair can recline as well as slide out from her desk without hitting the bed. My wife and I are completely dumbfounded by this. And she then follows it up with "it's the same thing as flying on a plane. I wouldn't give up my seat to strangers just because they have a baby and I'm the only one in my aisle".
To my wife and myself, all we heard was "you're inconveniencing me and you 3 are just strangers". We wrap this up with me telling her "I'm sorry if what I said upsets for, but I'm not sorry for how I feel". Which this apology's wording was important and relevant for later on. Because a few weeks later, my sister told my wife that she doesn't accept my apology. I was never sorry about telling her she is selfish, just that she was upset by hearing that. She thought I was apologizing for saying something "mean"? And her response in the event i had done that is "I don't accept it"? Noted.
At this point I'm tired of it all and just want out. So my wife flies out of state to her family to get away from all the drama. And while she's out there, I fortunately get a call for the job I interviewed for right before my son was born 12 months later.
So I agree to this job and we end up moving back. In the process of moving, my sister, at one point, says something to the affect of "I'm glad we're good again" and I'm confused to what she means as I never really apologized, she didn't accept it anyway or wouldn't have and she just seems to look at it like everything is better because I'm leaving and no longer disrupting things, or at least that's what it felt like.
But that sticks in my mind. So I decided that I'm not attending her wedding that she keeps talking about even through the at the time boyfriend hasn't proposed yet.
When he did propose, I was in town to get more of my stuff and move it, but it seemed like she knew that she was being proposed to (she had all her friends there and my parents as well as his friends and family) but I declined to attend. She didn't like that much and my parents kept trying to pressure me into going but maintained my stance. This is what is giving them indication I'm not attending the wedding.
Since starting my new job, I'm reminded regularly when the wedding is and how my son will be the ring bearer (she never asked btw). She even mentioned "I'll be out of the house before the wedding, so yall can stay in my old room for the visit for the wedding" which doesnt sound like that was intentionally said as she is quite tone deaf, but maybe it was, who knows.
Regardless, i have family from out of state that I'm going to visit in a few weeks before the wedding so that my son can meet them for the first time. Im telling my family that it's so my son has more time than just the wedding to meet extended family. The 2 family members that I want him to meet however, my uncle and aunt, live out of the country and won't be coming until the wedding.
I talked with this uncle and aunt, they are both my favorites and my wife's favorites, so they are the only 2 who know I'm not going.
However, while they said they understand my decision, it does seem that they would like for me to come meet them after the wedding. I don't want to be around all the family immediately after not attending because I know I'll be the bad guy for not going in everyone else's eyes.
Now my wife has asked my on multiple occasions if im sure I don't want to attend the wedding. Which I tell her "why invite strangers on an airplane and their baby to your wedding?" I remind my wife that my sister also doesn't have issues with only my parents and us, but she's basically best friends with my older sister who lives across the country and she is upset with my older sister for getting pregnant. And the reason she's mad for that, is because the baby was due around the same time my sister wanted to get married, which at the time my older got pregnant, my other sister wasn't even engaged yet.
So there's a lot that support my claim of calling my sister selfish, which i didnt even touch the story a family friend of 10+ years recently told me about my sister. But despite all of it, my wife is now suggesting not taking our trip to visit my extended family, combine that with my uncle and aunt trying to get my family to come up post wedding, I'm starting to wonder if I'm taking this too far.
So am I overreacting?