'WIBTA if I marry my best friend's sister's soulmate?' UPDATED

"WIBTA if I marry my best friend's sister's soulmate?"

I need some advice on a major personal decision I'm facing. I'm a 28-year-old woman, and I'm currently engaged to a wonderful man. However, there's a complication involving my best friend's (29F) sister (25F), who has had a crush on my fiancé for a while.

A bit of background: I lived on the other side of the country for a few years due to work, but I recently got laid off and moved back home. Since returning, I've been reconnecting with old friends in my religious community.

To my surprise, a man (26M) from the community contacted me because he was interested in me. This was unexpected because, while I'm not unattractive, I don't fit the standard of beauty in my faith community.

I'm West African, I don't observe religious dressing, and I'm autistic, among other things. These aspects of myself don't bother me, but they make me stand out or blend into the background, depending on the situation.

Given this context, I was shocked that someone was interested in me, especially someone as kind and sweet (and popular, the man is attractive) as my fiancé. However, I'm unsure if I'm truly in love with him since we’ve known each other for 8 months and I don't know if "love" is the right word.

Yesterday, my best friend invited me over and had a very unusual conversation with me. When I arrived at her house, everyone was home including her little sister and we had this conversation in the lounge, so it wasn't exactly private.

She suggested that, based on her understanding of my personality and how autism might affect my capacity for physical intimacy (I cannot stress enough how embarrassing it feels to type this out loud, I don’t know how I didn’t pass out yesterday), my fiancé might be tempted to cheat in the future.

She believes it would be better for everyone involved, including myself, to consider preserving our spiritual well-being. Her sister has been in love with my fiancé for years, and my friend asked me to consider stepping aside or allowing him to have a second wife.

She also mentioned that "they make a really cute couple" and that "his family and mine are more culturally similar too," which I now realize was quite upsetting to hear. I'm not even the first wife yet.

In so many words, she said I would be the asshole for keeping them apart. She spoke about them like they're star-crossed lovers and it was really hard to hear. I didn't know anything about this since I just got back in town and he reached out to get to know me for marriage 6 months ago.

I still don't know what the context of their relationship is since they couldn't have been in a dating type of relationship. I didn't have much of a reaction to this conversation, as I generally have a calm demeanor but I do think my feelings were hurt (some call it a flat affect, but I see it as built-in armor).

I spoke to a new friend outside of my religious community and she said it was and I quote: “Extremely fucking weird and kinda bitchy”. I can’t reconcile that assessment with the actions of a person I’ve known since I was 14.

I'm feeling very conflicted and would appreciate any perspectives on this situation. On the one hand, I like my fiancé very much and he hasn’t indicated that he would want a second wife or a wife who is not me or anything like that.

He’s currently out of the country on a volunteer mission and isn’t easy to get a hold of, let alone have a long conversation with, at this time. I don’t think I want to let him go but my friend is right that having her sister as a wife would probably be easier for him socially and in terms of the kind of wife I can be. WIBTA to marry him?

Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP's post:

lifehappenedwhatnow

For context, what they did was ambush you and tell you that you aren't good enough and you should give a person who has autonomy to her sister because her sister is better than you. She is not your friend, and they all suck. Talk to your fiance about this ambush. I hope he's as offended for you as I am and as you should be.

DahliaDarkoo OP responded:

Thanks for pointing out the autonomy part, you’re right that he’s a human being and not a toy to give away. What do you mean by ambush?

CriticalSimple3122

Your friend and her sister are overlooking the fact that this man is a person with a mind of his own. If he wanted to marry this sister at any point, he could have tried to make it happen. He hasn't done that.

Choice-Intention-926

This woman is not your friend. Because of your autism you’ve missed the nuance of what has happened. She told you: She will support her sister trying to steal your man and cheating with him if you refuse to let her have him. She told you, you are not good enough for the person who has chosen to be with you and that her sister is better.

What you need to keep in mind is he does not want her. The fact that they are willing to go to these lengths means she has already approached him, and been rejected. It also means she will continue to pursue your fiance even when he becomes your husband. She will pursue him for years until she can finally break him down.

You need to have a frank conversation with your fiance about your expectations in marriage and whether or not you are amenable to having plural marriage. If you are not be very clear that you will leave even if there are children involved.

Be clear that do not want him to have any relationship with this person or her family not even a civil one, and you cut ties with them as well. These people are presumptuous and rude and if you ever let her be a second wife she will make your life absolutely miserable.

A little over 2 months later OP came back with this update:

I’ll use initials for clarity:

Edit: Sorry, I didn’t realize initials were so hard for people to follow, but I wanted to post an update since it’s been a while. Thanks anyway!

Me: R, 28, West African My parents: BabaR, MamaR; 50s - 60s

My partner: A, 26, Arab His parents: BabaA, MamaA; 60s His brothers: F, 33; B, 29 His sister: L, 31

My friend: Em, 26, American

My exbf: F, 29, Desi Her parents: BabaF, MamaF; 50s - 60s Her sister: S, 25 Her brothers: M, 22; U, 26; H, 27

Spiritual Leader: SL60s

Here's the update:

Turns out, S (25F) never told F (29F) that she was in love with A (26M). They went to the same schools when they were younger and S had a crush on him then but they were 16 and A was the new boy in town at the time. They were in shared classes but then they both went away for college and grad school, S made it clear that she hadn’t thought about her crush in ages.

She also had been unaware of the conversation I had with F because she had deliverables for work and had her AirPod max on the entire time I was there. She didn’t hear any part of the conversation and most of the others in the home were busy with their own thing as well so that was just my self consciousness talking.

BabaF and MamaF had been on the phone with family back home so they weren’t really listening either and had thought it was just us catching up.

Turns out F has hated me for a very long time. She hated being compared to me. She hated that I had skipped a grade. She hated that my family was not as strict as hers, that her parents were kind to me despite my lack of overt religiosity, that I had a career that was well regarded compared to hers, that I “got to be a whore and still get the man”.

She didn’t think I deserved a man who she thought was too good for me and before she had any marriage prospects to boot. I don’t understand where this came from because if you had asked me before this happened I would have told you that F is funny, beautiful, an empathetic nurse, my favorite dance partner, and the most gregarious person I’ve ever met.

I adored her. I looked up to her. It turns out that she just always thought it was nice to “have a pet r****d”, so she kept me around for 14 years.

All of this came out over the course of a week. It took me a while to workshop the message with my friend Em, but once we got the core message hammered out I sent a voice note and the post link to my partner (he asked me to use this language, he thinks it’s a better representation of the kind of relationship he would like us to have. So much has happened.) to give him context and it kind of set off a shit storm.

The first thing he did was call me at like 3 in the morning to make sure I understood that he had apparently fallen in love with me at first sight. That was news to me. In the time we’ve known each other we have talked about absolutely everything big. From theology to finances to end of life care to parenting styles.

Everything but our actual feelings which makes sense because we were never alone so it just felt weird to ask or volunteer that information. I just thought he thought we would make a good match so he reached out. What really happened is that my little poet apparently saw me at a community gathering in December ‘23 and said he knew right then that I was the one.

While he’s also made it clear that he’s a one woman kind of man, I’ve added a divorce trigger clause to our marriage contract just in case he decides on another wife and he’s fine with it. Like I said, he’s known for being decisive. He never thought of S as anything more than a community member, someone in the same circles but not at all a romantic interest.

He also said that he wasn’t more explicit about his feelings because I’m known for being more rational than emotional and he wanted to make the best case for his proposal in the way I’m most comfortable. His feelings are welcome and I believe I have stronger feelings for him than I first thought. I may even be in love with him, after all of this.

The second thing he did was rally the troops. He called his siblings, his friends, and especially his parents who immediately reached out to me and my family. There are religious marriage rites shared by us all and cultural ones specific to my ethnic group, which would involve a multi step process that’s frankly a hassle so I didn’t make a big deal of it because I didn’t really think it was a big deal.

As soon as they got in contact with my parents and started talking, BabaR and MamaR let them know of the traditional process so they’ve started on it. My parents knew of the proposal and approved but they thought I would run in the opposite direction if they were too involved so they had been trying to give me my space.

BabaA and MamaA also took me to dinner on Wednesday with two of his siblings (they all brought me small gifts which were amazing), and they reached out to the spiritual leader of our community for mediation and resolution.

The spiritual leader set up a meeting with all of us involved who were available and that was where the revelations came out. My parents are still back home so they joined via a WhatsApp call but my in laws, BabaF and MamaF, S, F, Em, and myself were present. Once S clarified that she never actually told F that she had any interest in A, F quickly fell apart.

Apparently she has hated me for at least 10 years, maybe more. When I was away, it was easier to be my friend and even easier after I was laid off but her parents made her watch out for me from the start so she has always resented me for that. She has apparently been mean to me for years and has doubly resented me for not noticing her cruelty.

My lack of a reaction to her bullying (I want to emphasize that I never saw it as such, I always saw it as my friend making jokes or having fun or including me in the ribbing. Not malice.) apparently fueled her rage even further.

I have no idea why she decided to spill all of it because by the time she was done speaking everyone was shocked, her parents included. I don’t think anybody was aware of the depth of her hatred for me, I’m not even sure she knew herself. We are no longer friends.

The third thing that has happened is that me and my partner will be in premarital counseling and somatic coaching for at least 8 months before we get married. It was always meant to be a long engagement but we decided to be intentional about what things we needed to work through.

I’m also going to be in individual therapy because the longest relationship of my life outside of the one with my family has turned out to be a complete lie and I don’t know how to deal with that. All in all, I’m grateful for this experience and the truths it has revealed, I would like to never experience this ever again. So that’s it, I lost a best friend and gained a partner. Thank you all for your help.