'AITA for making a big deal about being excluded from my brother's wedding photos?'
"AITA for making a big deal about being excluded from my brother's wedding photos?"
Visual_Tap_5695
So my mom was widowed before she met my dad and she had my three brothers from her first marriage. By the time I was born they were 11, 9 and 8 and I think their dad had been gone for 3/4 years at that point.
I always loved and looked up to them but I can admit now that they were never too into me. Mom would bring us all together for movie nights, family game nights, hikes, bowling, museum tours and stuff. But that gap between us never closed.
I didn't see it when I was younger. I felt so lucky to have three big brothers and people used to say how sweet it was to be a little girl with three much older brothers to look out for her and protect her.
So I believed that's how it was. And I would get so caught up in whenever they visited that I ignored how much they avoided being around me or how cold they were to me.
They also don't have a close relationship with my dad but I knew they had a different one and thought that was pretty typical. But I still thought we were real siblings I guess.
My oldest brother got married last year and the wedding was the experience that opened my eyes, I guess. My brother's wife got a few sibling photos taken in different poses and stuff, and my brothers had photos together and my brother and his wife posed with all the siblings.
But all the siblings did not include me. I was not in any of the sibling photos. My mom even came to get me and I then watched as the photos were taken without me. My mom told my brother I was waiting but he said I would only be in the bigger group photo at the end.
When it came to the immediate family photo it was just my mom and three brothers with my brother's wife and her parents and siblings. Dad and I were not included in that.
My brother did this really sweet dance with his wife's youngest sister who was 14/15 I think (I'm 16 for reference) and that was like a major highlighted thing but he didn't dance with me at all and neither did my other brothers.
Two or three months after the wedding it still bothered me and then we went to my brother's house and I saw that I wasn't visible in the bigger wedding photo. Like you would not realize I was there at all.
That really upset me and I told my parents after that I didn't want to go back to the house anymore. I got kinda upset and the whole wedding and then the photo in his house overwhelmed me and I started crying.
My mom got so angry at my brother and all three of my brothers then told mom that she was overreacting and was interfering. She told them how upset it made me and they said I was making a big deal out of something I shouldn't be, because I should know they're not close to me and don't see me as their real sister.
They said I was just being an overdramatic baby and making a big deal out of something I should just forget. They were really angry at me. My mom and them are still fighting about it. AITA?
Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP's post:
Trace9217
Oh, this is heartbreaking. You're NTA. Of course, NTA. Maybe when they were still young, I could have acknowledged how hard it must have been for them to lose their father, then see their mother go on to make a new family. But they're adults now and their behaviour is just awful. I'm so sorry. I can't imagine how you must have felt standing there waiting for your turn in the picture.
The OP responded here:
Visual_Tap_5695
It was uncomfortable and the more photos I saw being taken, especially the different sibling ones, then more I felt like I wanted to cry. I held it all in until I saw the photo at my brother's house and then I couldn't hold it in anymore.
floatingvan
NTA-you need to accept they don’t really like you and you need to realise you might never get closure or the answer of why. I’m sorry this sucks and as a kid you are not to blame, some people are just selfish.
Polly265
I love this site. If the writer was the brother saying: My mum wants me to treat her daughter like my sister when she isn't and the man who replacd my dead dad like my father.
I didn't want them in my wedding photos because I don't see them as family. Everybody here would be saying the brothers were not the AH and parents shouldn't force them to blend with the new family and blah, blah blah.
In fact I read that story yesterday or the day before. I am sorry OP and my heart breaks for you that this happened but sometimes parents don't do a great job of managing patchwork families.
Unfortunately the boys were older when you were born and may not have bonded even if the relationship was fully biological. The outcome here depends on what you want going forward and maybe some therapy would help you decide that.
Whatever I wish you all the best and hope you can have a different kind of relationship with your brothers in the future if you want to (if you don't, well screw them, they don't know what they are missing). NTA.
abnerdwight
NTA. I think you saw the signs that they weren’t close to you. Some people are just not close. Talk to a professional to move through your grief and start building relationships that actually make you happy. Hopefully you’ll find someone that would take pictures with you.