Engagement implodes after woman exposes sister’s fabricated stories of 'traumatic' childhood. AITA? + UPDATE
"AITA for denying my sister's lies in front of her in laws?"
I am 25F and have an older sister Kate 30F. She and I were never close due to our age difference and because she hated that our dad married my mom and had me after divorcing her mother.
Kate claims dad told her he never loved her mother and that my mom was his true love, that our dad always compared the 2 of us and asked her why she has to be a dificult child and that overall dad loved me more.
On the other hand, dad claims nothing she says is true, that she was very problematic and insolent. These claims are backed up by my mother and dad's parents so I assume Kate was never 100% honest. Anyway, these are their problems that do not concern me.
Some time ago Kate reached out to me and told me she got engaged. I said congrats and everything. She told me she has a favour to ask. She told me her MIL is very family oriented and it does not sit well with her that Kate is estranged from her family.
In her words, future MIL considered something is also wrong with Kate and she is also to blame for being no contact with her family, fearing Kate will also influence her son to do the same thing. What Kate wanted from me was for me to meet her in laws for them to see she does not hate her family.
I joked that future MIL sounds a little insane and I agreed to help her because at the end of the day I never hated her and I don't think she hated me neither. The fact we are not close does not mean we hate each other or want bad things to happen to the other one.
Anyway, I went to meet Kate, her future husband and her MIL and FIL at a restaurant. They are very nice people and very warm. At some point MIL said something along the lines that she is happy to see that the abuse we suffered did not affect our sisterly bond.
I was confused and asked what abuse is she talking about while Kate tried to change the subject. MIL says it's ok, I have nothing to be ashamed of and that she knows from Kate our parents abused us while growing up.
I clarified that this is not true, we were never abused by our parents or anyone in our family, we were raised in a very loving family, we were never hit or spanked no matter what we did, our parents are well off so we always had everything that we wanted, clothes, phones, laptops, cars etc.
MIL got very very angry. She apologized to me and started insulting my sister. She called her a liar, accused her of being manipulative and trying to insert herself into their family by being dishonest. What happens is that Kate accused our parents of many things that are not true.
Now Kate is accusing me of ruining her life. She says her engagement is over, the in laws hate her and her fiance does not trust her anymore. The thing is I don't think I did anything wrong. I cannot sit and hear people blasting my parents for her lies and for things that never happened. But still, AITA for telling the truth?
Here is what readers had to say in response to the OP’s post:
NTA. Kate rolled the dice with a fake sob story and lost. I’d have done the same, nobody gets to slander my parents just to look good. Sucks for her, but that’s on her lies, not you.
Exactly. Kate gambled on a lie and it backfired hard. It’s not OP’s fault for telling the truth it’s Kate’s fault for fabricating abuse. If she was willing to lie about something this serious who knows what else she’s lied about?
Even worse, she lied to OP shot what she lied about to MIL. So OP would have been a party to slandering her own parents simply by agreeing without knowing the details. Her sister pretty much painted herself into a really ugly picture. I’m sure her bf is totally on board with the relationship still though. She sounds lovely.
Five days later, the OP returned with an update.
So a lot has happened during these last days that generated even more drama. But before I get into that, I want to express a big thank you to those who commented and provided their feedback. After reading your comments some things started making more sense and honestly it brought a lot of perspective over things that I missed.
Also I got really mad reading every little comment from those who projected their own messy family life over my family and I realized the magnitude her words and claims can really have. People called my parents abusive, invented things that never happened and started projecting on what her life was.
Some of them even claimed my mom ruined her family when my mom did not even met my father before his divorce so it was a shock to me to see that strangers who somehow hear her stories may as well believe everything that she says without even doubting a word or even add their own dramas into the picture to feed her fantasy.
The major thing that happened was that one day her ex fiance reached out to me via Facebook. He apologized for how things went during the meeting with his parents and asked me if I am willing to have a chat with him because he wanted to check my version for things that Kate told him.
I explained that I do not want to do this behind her back because I don't think it was fair but if he can manage to convince her for the 3 of us to have a conversation I am all in. I also told him there are a lot of things I need to confront her about and I would really feel more comfortable with a "witness" there.
For 2 days I have heard nothing from them and yesterday the big conversation happened. We scheduled a call around evening because everybody felt more comfortable like this.
I will say from the start that I had nothing to do with convincing my sister to attend the talk. This was her decision after discussing it with her ex. Based on what I understood, she agreed to it hoping that in the end her fiance would take her back.
Unfortunately I will admit, her ex and I kind of ganged up on her because both of us had many questions and she was the one to provide answers. Some answers that I got from her:
Why did she lie about being abused by my parents? She claimed she did not specifically mentioned me as being abused but admitted she did not correct her MIL when she understood something else.
So she knew her MIL was living with the assumption our parents abused both of us but did not correct her in any way. When her fiance asked her why, she said she felt by not correcting her, the MIL will stop considering her the problem knowing that there were 2 of us in the same situation.
She still claimed she was abused by my parents. When I asked her to provide some clear examples she first said "You know very well what happened" but me and her fiance insisted. Some of the things she mentioned were: when she was a teenager she was oftentimes punished while I was not which was a clear indication I was loved more and this is abuse.
Keeping in mind that when she was 14-15 I was only 9-10 and she was doing bad things like getting suspended for smoking during one of her classes, skipping school etc, how was I supposed to be punished along her? She said I was also doing bad things but was never punished while she was.
Her fiance asked her verbatim "So you claim you were abused because you were punished for smoking in class while the bad things your younger sister did was maybe draw on walls? How do you assume that it would be fair to punish such different actions the same?". She was not able to answer.
She claimed she was financially abused by our parents because they would not give her money for fun activities, school trips or events when she misbehaved. This was an example of punishments what she would often receive.
Her fiance asked her if our parents provided her with basic things like food, clothes, school supplies and she said yes. He mentioned parents are not obligated to financially support trips and fun activities so how was she financially abused?
I asked her if she ever thinks about everything she did wrong towards our family. She claimed she knows she was not a saint but she was a child. I pointed out that at 17 you are not a child and you know better than to swear on your grandmother.
Her fiance had no idea about anything so I explained some very nasty things she did and said. One time we were getting ready to go to our cousin's baptize and she wanted to wear a black T-shirt with a pentagram on it. Grandma asked her to change because her outfit was not appropriate for a baptize. Kate called her an "old, outdated f***ing hag".
Her fiance mentioned a story Kate told him and his parents with an incident where my parents abused her and confiscated her car, leaving her to "walk" to school during winter time. What she failed to mention was that my parents confiscated her car because of a DUI that she treated like it was not a big deal.
And secondly she never had to walk to school during winter because she could have gone by bus but in reality even with no car she carpooled with one of her colleagues. This triggered her ex a lot because unfortunately he lost his grandfather because of a drunk driver. So even knowing this, Kate lied and turned her story into a soap opera just for her to look like a victim.
I asked her ex if she ever said negative things about me and he said no. She only mentioned some instances where our parents treated us differently but always pointed out that they were doing it to turn us against each other. But based on the stories she told, she apparently never blamed me for anything or said anything negative about me.
The entire ordeal lasted for around 3 hours and in the end I was exhauated. I told her that even if we were never very close as sisters, I have always loved her and considered her my sister, period. Not half, just my only sister.
I told her I understand that our parents could have handled things differently and maybe she did not receive all the help she needed to adjust to a step mother and a new family dynamic, but I am now judging her as an adult who should know not to lie and pose as a victim and who should assume responsibility for her part.
As people pointed out in my last post, I advised her to get therapy and solve all her issues but until that happens I cannot continue to have a relationship with her. She accused me of favoring our parents over her but I told her I favour the truth over lies and she should be ashamed of her.
So that's what happened between me and Kate. I have no idea what happened or what will happen with her ex but based on how things turned out, I really doubt he will give her another chance.
He made it clear that she cannot be trusted and pointed out something his mother told him: if she is capable to lie in such a way about her own parent, what will she be capable of saying about him? He said he is not doubting she can start saying he was also abusive since this seems to be her narrative. But that's her own problem, she made this bed for herself.
Here is what readers had to say in response to the OP’s post:
I remember your last post, while I did suspect correctly that her experience growing up would be different from yours, I knew from the get go she was up to something nefarious. She could have been honest but instead she lied and expected you to cover for her.
The story about her DUI made me lose any ounce of sympathy I may have had for her situation. Since she is a liar and may lash out at you I suggest you talk to your parents about what happened so that they are aware and not caught off guard when it eventually gets back to them.
I told them everything that happened so they can be aware. What was very very hard to digest was the way they reacted...they were not angry, not enraged, they were just like "yeah...we expected that much from her".
Sounds like sis carries a lot of resentment from childhood, doesn’t mean her resentment is justified. Best advice telling her to get therapy and hopefully she loses her victim mentality.
I’m glad her ex got to hear the whole story. She’s playing the victim for sympathy. She was never abused. She was disciplined for being a little sh/t. I’d steer clear of her. She so easily lies, who knows what she’ll say to you or about you.
I'm glad her ex heard all the truths and really hopes he blocks her and moves on. I agree, until she gets therapy, she isn't a good person to be around.