'AITA for not telling my parents that the event they were missing was my wedding?' UPDATED
"AITA for not telling my parents that the event they were missing was my wedding?"
Buckle up, this will be kinda long...So I (27F) have a younger brother, Mike (21M). He is the definition of a man child and a mama’s boy, always complaining, always expecting others to bow to him. Just, overall, an a#@hole. Ever since he was born, my parents fussed over him for everything.
He’s not special needs, or had a traumatic birth or anything of the sort. He was just…born. And my parents completely discarded me. My mom (50F) especially. She went from a loving mother to one of those boy moms that people make fun of on the internet. My father (50M) still showed me love and support, but he’s always been too much of a coward to stand up to my mother and let me win at least once.
The only one who stood for me was my grandpa (76M), who always called my parents out on their bulls%$t, and never liked my brother. I remind him of his late wife, my grandma, and we have a very special bond, but he lives on the other side of the country and I could never see him often.
Mike knows our mom prefers him, and loves to shove it in my face. Because of this and his behavior, we’ve always been at odds. He’s spoiled, a brat and an awful human. I can’t remember how many times I ended up in trouble for things I did better than him or for things he framed me with. His only talent are his football skills.
He won a scholarship to a nice college out of state. My parents didn’t spend a dime on my education because apparently my fund had been used to cover expenses after a fire, just for me to discover years later that said money were given to Mike to buy a car and a house.
It’s at public university that I met Lucas. He was the first person I was really drawn to there. Of course I met new people who are now my dearest friends, and thanks to them and Lucas, who was my best friend for years before we got together, I managed to move out of my parents’ house. Now both Lucas and I are well known in our fields and have very good salaries.
Now, to the main issue. Lucas proposed to me a year ago. We’re very private people, so we didn’t post it on social media or anything, and when I told my parents they dismissed it with a “that’s nice” (I’m starting to think they downright didn’t listen to me at all). We decided that we wanted a nice but simple ceremony and reception with our friends and relatives.
Lucas convinced me to invite my parents and brother, but they never responded to the invite. And whenever I went to visit and began to talk about my wedding (without mentioning it was a wedding), my mom would always speak over me and about my brother’s accomplishments and wild adventures.
At one point I got fed up with it, and interrupted my mom to tell her that there was an event I was planning to organize, whose date was unmovable. She told me that they couldn’t attend, because my brother was playing the last game of the season that very same day, and wanted them to be there.
Of course, this favoritism didn’t surprise me: they missed my ballets, shows and both my high school and university graduation for things about him. At this point, i wanted to be petty. I told both my parents that it wasn’t a problem to miss this event, purposely omitted the fact that this event was my wedding, and didn’t insist further.
Flash forward to a few weeks ago, I got married. It was perfect. My family, Lucas’ family and our friends were all there, and we had a blast. My grandpa was happy to give me away, and it was just perfect.
My relatives asked me multiple times why my parents weren’t there with us. I was honest and simply said they had my brother’s game to attend, and couldn’t come. They gave me a few looks, and my grandpa was visibly angry for a while, but otherwise nothing strange happened.
After the reception, Lucas and I left for our honeymoon, and were phone free for the whole duration of the trip. But once we got back, we discovered that a s*&t storm was welcoming us home. I turned my phone on, and was unable to even unlock it before a storm of notifications popped up. Most of them were from my mother and brother.
Mike called me all sorts of nasty names and insulted me because, apparently, one of my paternal aunts posted the photos of the wedding on Facebook, and captioned it with a very obvious dig at my parents (especially my mom) for missing the wedding.
The post apparently went viral in my parents’ community, and they’ve been publicly shamed for their mistreatment of me. It also turns out that my grandpa personally visited my parents to go on a tirade to shame my father, his son, to the point of tears.
And this seemed to be my father’s breaking point, because he was so distraught for missing his only daughter’s wedding and for his father’s disapproval, that he finally rebelled against my mom and is threatening divorce unless she makes it up to me.
I think that’s the reason why my mom has been spamming my phone with messages, at first insulting and threatening and then downright pitiful, full of begging and pity parties.
Now I’m at home with my husband, deciding how to approach the situation. Most of my relatives, even those I didn’t invite to the wedding, reached out to apologize for what I went through and to claim they had no idea this was happening at home (can’t blame any of my relatives, they all live with my grandpa on the other side of the country or in another state).
But my mom’s sisters and friends are belittling me for not telling my mom about the wedding, because now she’s inconsolable at the thought of having missed my wedding. Personally I think she just claims that to save face, but I’m not sure. The latest messages from my father and mother seem extremely saddened and hurt for missing my wedding.
Now my family is divided on three fronts: the majority who is sticking by my side, my maternal aunts shaming me for hurting my mom’s feelings, and my maternal grandparents who are adamant that I forgive my mom in light of her “atonement”. My best friends are telling me not to listen to them. So, AITA?
Here's what people had to say to OP:
NTA. They literally got the same wedding invite that everyone else did. Everyone else figured out that the event was a) important and b) your wedding.
You handled that like a pro - well done this Internet stranger is really proud of you! Now continue to handle it like a pro. Cut off the aunt’s who are shaming you for hurting your mums feelings - she did that to you for the whole of your life.
Cut off the maternal grandparents who consider your mum has ‘atoned’ for her behaviour because has she hell. Stick with the majority who are on your side. The family and friends who supported you at your wedding and continue to support you now. The rest can go to hell in a handcart.
Do stupid stuff, win stupid prizes. Your parents neglected you for your whole life and you just responded to it. You DID invite them! You did tell them. They just went on with their day as if it was nothing.
I would keep an open line with your dad. On condition that he is growing a backbone against your mum. You mentioned he did try to stand up for you but your mum sounds very dominant. But for your mum and bro NTA and for them I would say low to no contact. Grats on your wedding.
Edits from OP after reading the comments:
Edit: Thank you so much for the feedback and love! It’s overwhelming! I’m going to address the popular questions here:
1. I did inform my parents about my wedding. I sent traditional on paper invites to all my guests, and was notified that all invites had reached their addressees. I did not receive any answer from my parents and Mike, a few very distant relatives, and some people on Lucas’ side.
I did reach out to all of them through message to double check, and those who hadn’t replied told me they couldn’t come. I asked my parents and brother via text, but they didn’t respond. I was left on read. Knowing them and given all the things I had to plan, I didn’t bother insisting.
2. I didn’t repeat the date of my wedding because I had already been told there was my brother’s game. Plus, every time I insisted on highlighting my celebrations to get an answer, I was always told that it wasn’t that important and to not be pissy and a bother. Because some things were simply more important than me. At this point I think it’s fair for me to not insist anymore. It’s not worth the effort.
3. I didn’t keep my wedding a secret. I avoided telling my parents that it was my wedding to see if they would be interested in the slightest, but surprise surprise, they weren’t. Despite this, I did openly talk about my wedding with my aunts and uncles.
My mother was in the room with us a few times when I discussed venues or dress shops with my aunt (the FB post one), but some times mom was on the phone, and other times she was just chatting with other people. She never paid attention. When I talked about it during reunions, she smiled and said “that’s great, dear”, and then would change the subject. Radio silence on dad and Mike.
4. I kept in contact with them because, well, all the times I tried to go NC in the past years I’ve been harassed. I tried after my hs, bachelors and masters’ graduations, to which they never bothered to show up for reasons involving my brother. Every time I was shamed for daring to turn my back on family by my parents, my brother, my maternal aunts and my maternal grandparents.
I think the turning point here is that, all those times, Lucas wasn’t by my side (we started dating a little after my last attempt at going NC) and, how that I have him here, I feel more confident in my stance. But before that, I want this confident. As I already stated, all my paternal side lives on the other side of the country and wasn’t aware of how they treated me.
I did try to expose my parents once, at 14. My aunts, uncles and grandpa reprimanded them, they faked being sorry, and then once home I got the beating and gaslighting of my life for “lying”. After that, l kept in contact regularly with my paternal side, but omitting my parents’ abuse out of fear, which tbh still haunts me to this day.
Only grandpa knew, but he was always threatened to be alienated from me if he tried anything.
5. My parents and I are not from the same city. I live in a city an hour drive from my parents’ small town, and they don’t know my new address because once, my brother tried to break in my apartment to steal some cash and my mother backed him up, claiming that siblings share their goods. Now i moved, and I’ll be sure not to tell them where I live.
6. My parents didn’t buy my brother a car and a house before he even started high school. They bought him a car for his 16th birthday, and a house near his college when he began freshman year. They didn’t spend the money of my fund right away, they just lied to me to use it later for my brother, keeping it stored for later in the meantime.
Later OP came back with a full update:
First of all, I want to thank all those who were interested in my story, and those who wished me and my husband a happy life. I am beyond grateful for your reassuring messages, and your love and feedback. The response was overwhelming and beyond what I ever thought it could be. I love you all so so much🫶🏻
To those who believed my story was fake, i want to say that I’m happy your family life is better than mine, to the point of thinking of my reality as a fantasy, but I’d appreciate it if you stopped harassing me in DM, claiming that I’m writing a fake story for attention.
If I’ve missed a few details in the OG post, it’s because I was overwhelmed and crying my eyes out because of my family’s harassment. You are not forced to read my story, or think it’s true, but I think keeping the smallest amount of decency would be nice.
Oh, and before diving in the update let me clarify a few things:
1. Yes, the invitation specifically stated it was a wedding. No excuses.
3. My maternal side of the family didn’t come to the wedding. I’m sorry, I didn’t make that clear in the OG post. Most of them were busy, and the others just gave me excuses to send a gift but not come. That’s it. Don’t ask me why they didn’t discuss my wedding with my mom, it’s not like I live in their brain.
3. My mother’s “atonement” is the fact that she apologized via text. 💀
Now onto the update, things have been a little crazy this past week. I got off of Reddit for a couple of days, to gather my thoughts. Then, I had a lengthy conversation with Lucas about how to proceed. He’s been my rock, and I don’t think I could ever love him more than I already do. My parents were always a taboo topic, but he hit me with a brutal reality check that I absolutely needed.
We reached the conclusion that the fact I kept in contact all this time, stuck around and couldn’t go NC, isn’t healthy. I’ve realized that, the reason I never fully went NC, was that deep down I just wanted their approval, even now, for once. Pathetic, I know. But it’s like a drug, being with my parents.
They can be loving, funny, caring and warm, until they’re not. The little love they give makes you crave for more, and you want their approval so badly you destroy yourself. But that’s enough. I promised myself that things are going to change. I’ve thought about it, and decided to start therapy, and to go NC with all those who made an issue about this situation, for good this time.
After the days dedicated on reflecting on how I feel, I ended up messaging my father to tell him that, if he wanted to talk, I would meet him, mom and Mike in a neutral location the following day. He immediately replied and agreed, and we met at the park.
My father’s sisters and brother accompanied us for damage control. My father looked distraught and as if he had been crying for a while. My mom looked the same, but I think it was more out of anger and embarrassment. My brother looked annoyed.
I told the three of them about how their behavior and preference in regards of my brother always hurt me, and that their abusive behavior made me realize that I didn’t want contact with any of them again after that meeting.
My mother tried to cut me off multiple times, but my aunt (the one who posted on FB) shut her up every single time. When I asked them why would they treat me this way, they didn’t know what to say. My father kept crying and apologizing without giving me an answer, and my uncle reprimanded him for it.
My mother seemed as if she was asking herself that for the first time, but well, in the end she just said that she simply disliked me. Plain and simple. And my brother? He just liked the attention and making me miserable as some kind of sport.
I went on with my questions. When I asked why they never responded to my invite, they claimed to have never received one. I showed them the texts, but they denied receiving them. And well, it turns out that they hadn’t, in fact, received my wedding invitation. When it arrived to their house, they weren’t there.
The only one in the house was my brother, who had come visiting for the weekend. He saw the invite and, as many of you guessed, ripped it up and trashed it. And then, when I texted my parents, he deleted the messages (wasn’t hard to do, according to him they kept my chat archived and didn’t get the notification😑).
So, my parents never actually got a formal invitation. I was just distraught. I asked Mike why would he do that, and he just shrugged, and claimed that it wasn’t as important as the stuff they had in program anyway. I had to stop Lucas from punching him in the face.
Strangely enough, my parents were upset, and started reprimanding him. He actually began to throw a tantrum and cry crocodile tears, and I must admit that I was kind of satisfied. But then my mom claimed that all was resolved, there was no need to fuss over a “misunderstanding”, and it was time for me to clear their name.
That set me off, and I interrupted her, telling her that they weren’t forgiven at all, that just because Mike trashed the invite, it didn’t mean it automatically canceled all their neglect out. Plus, all that time it was still very obvious that I was having a wedding, and they should’ve asked about it.
You want to know my mother’s response? She said something along the lines of “I did hear you talking about a wedding of yours, but I just thought you were being delusional, and seeking my attention with exaggerated scenarios”. She was convinced Lucas didn’t actually like me, nor would ever marry me. When I tell you I was about to trash her face, do you believe me?
Another thing came up. It turns out that my brother didn’t have a football game to go to at all. My parents used the fact that my husband, friends and I know little to nothing about football (we prefer soccer), and the fact I stopped asking about it when Mike would mock me during his time in high school, to make up a story to avoid my event.
At the time I wrote the OG post, I couldn’t confirm or deny the presence of a game because my brother has private social media and Lucas and I are blocked, and I foolishly trusted my parents’ word. But no.
You want to know where they went with that man child? They went to Disneyland, because Mike wanted to go. They used the football story to cover for my brother‘s hundredth tantrum-holiday, and apparently they did it multiple times in the past months.
At that point I was just completely burnt out and overwhelmed by this amount of informations. The fact that I had been fooled this badly, that I was so guillible, genuinely made my blood boil, and I snapped. I stood up, and told my father he was a sad, weak man, unable to stand up for his kids unless his wife approved of it.
I told my brother he was a little dipshit, a poor excuse of a man that will not accomplish anything in his life and that he’ll always live like the leech he is, babied to the point of uselessness.
And to my mom, I just… I told her that she was the worst narcissist, pathetic, little woman on the earth, that she didn’t even deserve to be addressed and judged, for her irrelevance. That not even God could help her out because she is just too rotten. Harsh, I know.
My mother shot up from her seat to scream at me halfway through my rant to her, but I was just too mad. I shouted at her to shut the fuck up and sit down, and listen for once. She got so mad, it felt like steam was coming out of her ears. I don’t remember much after that, just that I kept talking. And talking. It felt as if all my anger and hurt just flooded out.
At one point I’m pretty sure the whole park was silent. I spat at my parents and Mike that I was disowning them all, and that if they’re smart, they’ll think before reaching out again. I took my purse and left with Lucas, Anna and Francis, leaving my parents and brother at my aunts and uncle’s mercy.
I think at some point the reality of what I had just learned and said finally hit me, because I ended up having a panic attack on the way home. Lucas was driving, so Anna helped me through it until we stopped in a parking lot to calm me down. I am beyond grateful for their help. Once home, I just fell on the bed and went to sleep.
I really wanted to go with you guys’ advice, and post the whole thread on FB, but given my work and career I couldn’t expose myself like that. One thing is sharing my story from an anonymous throwaway account, the other is on FB, with my name and face plastered everywhere. I couldn’t go down that path.
Instead, I did something better: I made a folder with all of my mother’s insults, messages and awful comments, and sent it to the woman in charge of my mom’s church. It’s a tight knit community my mom worked her ass off to enter in, but that is also extremely judgmental, and being shunned by them is a death sentence.
And well, that’s exactly what happened. Just like clockwork, the scandal spread like wild fire, going out of the church and reaching the rest of the small town. You can imagine what this means for my mother and father.
Because of my little spill, I did find other messages from my maternal side of the family, belittling me even more for upsetting their sister or daughter and insulting her.
I just didn’t care anymore at that point, so I followed you guys’ advice, and told them that from now on, they will no longer be part of my life, and that they can talk shit all they want, I just won’t care. Instead, they should be grateful I don’t send their nasty texts to their employers and spouses. I blocked every single one of them, grandparents included, on everything.
I did find a lengthy message from my father. He apologized for not being strong enough to face my mother, agreed that what I said was true, and couldn’t believe that he had lost so much of my life because of her. He told me he is going to divorce her no matter what my decision will be, because he is tired of being controlled.
He would like a relationship with me to make up for all the years that passed. I did reply to him, to tell him that as of now I really don’t want to see him or forgive him. He has replied that he’ll try his best to win me back, and that he loves me. I replied back that, as of now, I find that hard to believe, and then blocked him too.
Frankly, his slimy way of trying to have an out from this situation by throwing my mother under the bus is pathetic. At least, she was hateful and owned up to it. He is only able to blame others for his choices. I don’t want to surround myself with people like that.
My mother and brother are blocked similarly to my maternal side. Mike wrote other messages to taunt and insult me, and I just blocked him. My mom threw herself a pity party for being shunned by her community and for her marriage going into shambles, and I just replied “good riddance”before blocking her too.
As for my grandpa, he has decided to stay with us for a while, to stick by my side. He really is the best, and has read some of your comments (he isn’t going to admit that he’s flattered by them).
Since then a few days have passed, and all has been quiet. Lucas is spoiling me rotten, and I’m starting therapy soon. I know this isn’t the drama filled, revenge full update you hoped for, but well, this is it. I’ll let you know if anything changes or evolves.
Thank you so much for the love and support you showed me. I think I’m going to log out now. As for now, goodbye!