'AITA for telling my wife there’s nothing weird about me giving away my niece at her wedding?' UPDATED
"AITA for telling my wife there’s nothing weird about me giving away my niece at her wedding?"
GladResorts
My niece (26F) has her wedding in a month, and she wants me to give her away at her wedding. Her father passed away when she was really young, and I felt a moral obligation to help my sister and her daughter, because my sister too helped me a lot growing up.
I knew I had an obligation to my wife and children primarily, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t help out my sister and her daughter too. Since they lived just 10 minutes from us, I tried to be as physically active as possible in my niece’s life when she growing up.
My wife and I have had a few arguments on it over the years. I have also been sending money to my sister every month for the past decade or so. It is from my individual account, not the joint account my wife and I share, so I have full liberty to spend it however I want. But my wife does know about it, and we have had arguments on this too.
Now coming to the point, my niece wants me to give her away at her wedding next month. But my wife thinks it’s very weird and she doesn’t want me to do it. I told my wife there’s nothing weird about it, and her opinion on this is irrelevant.
We have had lot of discussions on this over the past week, and I am made to feel like a bad guy by my wife. Am I the bad guy? Am I the AH if I were to give my niece at her wedding?
Here were the top rated comments from readers after the OP's initial post:
clickstreets
i am confused why that is weird.. you are walking her down the aisle at her wedding. what is the problem? NTA! you should like a caring uncle and brother. saying your wife's opinion is irrelevant to her making it a problem is deserved. Sorry, not sorry.
GuidanceSignal5587
I don’t get it either, seems a normal thing for an uncle to walk a bride down the aisle in place of a deceased father. My brother and I walked my sister down the aisle at her renewal ceremony because our dad had passed.
oldnick40
My great-uncle gave away my aunt after grandpa died. Totally normal thing imo, and I don’t get why wife is so opposed to OP having a relationship with his niece.
ZaraBaz
OP is a champion uncle, the kind of family member who many dream of having. Imagine losing a parent and then one of your uncles and aunts steps up to the plate to compensate. Only a hard working, empathetic champion would do that. His wife should be elated and proud to have such a great husband, not jealous and spiteful that he is sharing his goodness with family.
mid_vibrations
what reasoning did your wife have for it being weird?
GladResorts OP responded:
She’s given many reasons. Like for example, one reason being that we have a daughter who isn’t married yet, and she feels like I am closer to my niece than my daughter (which isn’t true at all). And then she says symbolically, me going to my niece’s wedding as her father figure, while my sister being there as her mother, she thinks it’s weird.
morganalefaye125
She's hinting at it looking incestuous? Is that the point she's trying to make? 99.9% of people would just think it's sweet that her uncle is walking her down the aisle. If that's what your wife is hinting at, then she needs some therapy. She's the weird one for sure. NTA.
JarbaloJardine
Yeah that's so weird. An uncle who has acted as a father figure is the perfect person to walk a niece down the aisle nothing about that would make me think of anything incestous, at all. She seems like she's got a weird jealousy towards the sister that is misplaced.
The next day, the OP returned with an update:
GladResorts
Reading the comments on my last post made me feel a bit better about everything. To be honest, all these discussions I’ve had with my wife, it just gets extremely tiring, and I sometimes start feeling guilty about everything, but reading the comments made me feel better.
I had a discussion again with my wife last night. I didn’t show her the post because a lot of the comments were pretty harsh towards her, but I did feel confident last night when we had the discussion. We came to a decision that I would walk my niece down the aisle, but we would also go to marriage counseling, because my wife had a lot of things to get off her chest.
I asked my wife what some of those things were and she said the primary issue was that she felt like I was playing happy family with my sister and my niece all these years, and that she feels like I have taken the role of an SO to my sister, which I disagreed with, but we’ll speak about it in marriage counseling.
She then talked about how she sometimes wished she was my sister instead of my wife, because she wished she had that same emotional connection with me that I had with my sister. I didn’t really know what to say to that, so I didn’t say anything.
She then talked about how I’ve been more of a father to my niece than to our daughter, but I disagreed again, because my daughter and I always have been close, and I’ve never sensed any resentment from our daughter. Again, something we’ll both talk about in marriage counseling.
So that is it for the update, a pretty exhausting discussion, but marriage counseling should hopefully help. I am glad I will be able to walk my niece down the aisle because she said it really means a lot to her.
Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP's post:
FairyFartDaydreams
You should have a private conversation with your daughter and aske her how she feels about your relationship with her cousin. Since you have missed some of your wife's emotional needs it is possible you have missed some of your daughter's need.
1indaT
I just read the first post and your update. It sounds like your wife feels like she is not as important as your sister. I am wondering if she is right, especially when you said her opinion was irrelevant. I agree that marriage counseling is a good idea.
krayziekris
I think it's odd that your wife would look at a relationship between siblings and compare it to her marriage, but it's also obvious that her emotional needs have not been met over the years, so who are we to belittle what she may genuinely feel. Good luck to you both in counseling, and I hope it helps to resolve the underlying issues in your marriage. Congrats to your niece!
SwimmingJello2199
I think if you take sex out of the equation it makes perfect sense. If op has in fact been a more present and dependable partner to his sister than I would totally get where his wife is coming from. Obviously idk and her choosing to draw the line at the wedding was weird.
mela_99
My father was a teen at home when my aunt Sue had my cousin. He was there for it all. Never missed anything of hers. Not for anything. One of my earliest memories is vomiting profusely into a store bag in the car during summer. because it was Lynn’s graduation party and we couldn’t miss it.
Or when he disappeared for three days after leaving my mother and the sudden death of my grandmother. He drove over 36 hours to show up at her college graduation. He couldn’t tell us because my “mother would be annoyed”.
Or when he had his heart attack and didn’t call me first… but called her. Oh and when he told me after I said my dream was to be a doctor, “Lynn couldn’t afford to get her PhD there’s no way you can.” I’m still bitter I didn’t go to medical school.
My brother and I were an afterthought our entire lives. I hated her more than I could put into words. But I could never say a word to him. Tread carefully, OP.