'AITA for telling my brother’s fiancée that we don’t owe her a family?' UPDATED
"AITA for telling my brother’s fiancée that we don’t owe her a family?"
fsinlaw
My (F25) (step)brother Nico (29) has recently got engaged to a woman called Jenny after dating for two years. We all tried to welcome Jenny, especially knowing that she grew up in the foster care system and didn’t have family.
We tried to get to know her, but she seemed to want an instant intimate connection rather than building one. Me and my younger (step) sister Chelsea (22) bore the brunt of her neediness but our parents have also expressed concerns.
Since she met us she has been trying to insert herself into pictures, family disputes, and social events. She has no boundaries. We’ve all talked to Nico about it so many times, even sitting him down as a family and he keeps saying he will talk to her but nothing changes, and it’s got worse since the engagement.
She tried to make me her Maid of Honor, demanded my mother throw her a bridal shower, started calling my parents Mom and Dad even though they asked her not to, and reached out to distant family members that we don’t even talk to to tell them about the engagement.
Last week we were all (Chelsea, Nico, me, and our partners) staying at our parents’ place. Jenny, Nico, and my bf were the only ones not up yet and the rest of us were in the kitchen. Chelsea, my mum, and I were talking about taking a weekend trip.
Jenny came in, having overheard us, saying it sounded like fun and proceeded to invite herself along. I was pretty annoyed by this and said she couldn’t just invite herself. Jenny said why wouldn’t she be invited, and I said because marrying Nico doesn’t give you a blanket invite to every single thing all his family does.
Jenny got upset and said she would really like to be included in our family, since it was the only one she knows and she doesn’t have a proper family. I said I know that and we all sympathize but that doesn’t mean we owe you a new one.
The whole room was silent and Jenny got up and went back upstairs. She didn’t come out the rest of the day but Nico came down to chew me out over what I said. Our parents defended me saying he had an opportunity to talk to Jenny and he didn’t. He and Jenny left the same day and he’s now only keeping low level contact with everyone.
When I’ve spoken to him since he’s just said I went way too low with what I said to Jenny and that I’ve set her back mentally and that she’s really down. I do feel bad, but I also feel like Jenny has been overstepping.
We are all open to a relationship with her (we all have good relationships with partners in the family) but she never really made a genuine effort to build relationships with us, she just decided she was entitled to them, which I think isn’t fair.
I don’t know if I should reach out to Nico or Jenny with a more fervent apology, which I will if I have really screwed up here. I don’t want to be the reason Nico stops talking to us. I just feel like he dropped the ball by letting it get to this point.
We do push back when Jenny is being intrusive. I can’t count how many times I have said “Jenny I’m not comfortable talking about my sex life/therapy/medication etc., it’s really personal, can we just change the subject”.
We move on from the conversation but the next time I talk to her it’s back to square one. Same with my parents, they politely ask her not to call them mom and dad, and she stops for the duration of that conversation, and then starts again next time. We’ve never had a more in depth conversation with her, we offered, and Nico said no, he would talk to her.
For everyone saying I should consider Jenny family because she’s engaged to Nico, that isn’t what I meant with that comment. I commented this elsewhere but I’m copying because it encapsulates when I was trying to get across.
I never said or meant that she isn’t part of the family. I guess what I meant with what I said was, you can’t parachute yourself in and expect us to be the family you deserve. Because the family every person deserves is one with their mom and their dad and it’s happy and it’s from birth, and you don’t have do anything to earn it.
Sadly, not everyone gets that. I know I didn’t. And I know how much it must suck for her to feel like she has to work for what other people got for free. I have a sh*tty bio dad, so I kind of know. You think “why do I have to be good and clever and kind and a million other things to have a good family while all anyone else has to do is just be born”, and it’s the worst.
But when you come into a family that already exists that’s the way it is. They learn to love you and it takes time. My stepdad didn’t love me the second he met me, or love me just because he loved my mom, he got to know me, and figured out who I was as a person and he loved me for me. We wanted to have that opportunity with Jenny.
And maybe that doesn’t feel good enough for her and I guess it’s not really fair that she doesn’t have the other kind of unconditional love but I don’t think that’s up to us, or anyone, to fix. That’s just my view.
Here were the top rated comments after this initial post:
diminishingpatience
"he’s just said I went way too low with what I said"
So what does he suggest you should have said? We’ve all talked to Nico about it so many times, even sitting him down as a family and he keeps saying he will talk to her but nothing changes, and it’s got worse since the engagement.Nothing. He wants everyone to say nothing. NTA.
Choice_Werewolf1259
Yeah honestly I really feel bad for OP, the family and Jenny. Nico set them all up for this inevitability instead of talking to his partner about boundaries and not approaching things so intensely.
I can see how Jenny saw this new family as finally hers. I get how she likely came on too strong and too fast. And I can see how it would be overstepping and creating uncomfortable situations for the others involved. Frankly if Nico had talked to Jenny she probably could have gotten the relationships she wanted with these people because it would have developed organically.
This all boils down to Nico not wanting to have the uncomfortable conversation that he needs to have to make this situation better for everyone. NTA Op.
Bananas4skail
Yeah and she needs therapy if only to understand how a family works. I don't expect to be invited to everything my sibs do, and I have walked in on convos where things are being planned (without me) and I have never invited myself. Because I know that there's some things we do as a whole, and different things we do as smaller units....naturally.
NewLife_21
Foster kids attend therapy almost constantly while in the system. It's part of helping them deal with what they're going through. Most foster kids who age out end up feeling, and coming across, as needy and clingy because they've never been loved by what they consider a permanent family.
It's always a foster home or residential and no matter how close they get to the parents, staff or social worker they know in the back of their minds that eventually they're going to lose those people too. So they stop letting themselves feel like they have a permanent place.
Jenny likely views her relationship with Nico as the first permanent family relationship she's ever had. She did push too hard and too fast for close relationships but it's not because she needs more therapy. It's because she's excited to finally feel like she has a "real" family.
OP, if you read this, 8gnore Nico telling you not to talk to her and do so. Explain, gently, what you've said here. Be honest but understand that her feelings are likely ... Well fragile is the only word coming to mind but it's not quite right. Raw might be a better word. I hope you understand what I'm trying to say.
Tell her no one minds having a relationship with her but it needs to happen over time in a natural way. She can't push it or force it or it won't be genuine. Remind her to use all the coping skills she learned in foster care (minus any drugs of course).
Almost a month later, the OP returned with an update.
"UPDATE - AITA for what I said to my brother’s fiancé"
fsinlaw
Wow that post blew up. In no small part to my extensive replies while sitting in an airport lounge on a layover 😂 I am still getting dms asking for an update so here goes.
First, Thanks everyone for your advice, I received some really insightful messages and comments which were really helpful and heartfelt.
Long story short we decided to have a session with a family mediator. It was me, my bf, Jenny, Nico, my parents, and Chelsea. I’m not sure I can’t fit in all the insights from the session so I’ll keep to key things.
Firstly, for all those wondering if Nico ever actually told Jenny what we said. Nico talked to Jenny about our concerns precisely twice, a third of the times we brought it up. She said it was presented to her as an offhand comment from our parents rather the intervention it was.
Second, Basically one of the main things that came up was how Nico kind of “sold” our family to Jenny as a blended family she could slot into, and she got really invested in that. Nico said he kept hoping that it would all work itself out once Jenny felt more secure in their relationship. Then came the real crux.
Jenny said she wasn’t just looking for a relationship with Nico, but with a whole family. And we all had a long discussion about what that looked like for us in an ideal world, and it was vastly different.
Then the mediator asked her the question “if you never get the relationships you want from this family, do you think you’ll still be able to have a happy relationship?” And she said she didn’t know.
This kind of triggered Nico, who said he felt like Jenny was making him feel like he wasn’t enough on his own, that she wanted a family from him more than a relationship with him. Then Jenny got upset and said why couldn’t we all just try to be the family she needed.
At which point my boyfriend had an uncharacteristic moment of insanity and went off on her, then he and I left the room. I was right in the middle of lecturing him when everyone else came out except Nico and Jenny and said that they need the rest of the session to discuss what had been said.
Nico came back to our parents’ place later and said he and Jenny are “taking a beat” because she’s ruminating on what the mediator said and he’s pretty crushed that she might not want to be with him if he doesn’t come with a ready made family attached.
He said he was prepared to pretty much give up a family for her, but she won’t even give up the idea of one for him. He’s now staying with my boyfriend and me until further notice. We haven’t had any further conversations with him and Jenny, he’s not in the head space for it. If they stay together I foresee a lot more mediation.
At the end of the day, everyone on the thread was right in some way. I was an AH for saying what I said in the way I said it, and this conversation between all of us should have happened earlier.
Here were the top rated comments after this latest update:
nitogravelord
This is so bizarre, what your boyfriend told her in his "insanity" moment?
IAmHerdingCatz
When my current partner and I got together, his daughter was super excited to have siblings. Unfortunately, all of my children are extremely introverted and reserved, and she is quite extroverted and struggled to read social cues.
She thought that they would all just instantly "click," and the harder she tried to force it, the harder they withdrew. It didn't help that all of my kids were adults living on their own and working/going to college/in the military, and she was living with her mom and having a monthly allowance so she wouldn't need to work.
It's really difficult when expectations aren't clearly defined. I feel bad about it. And I feel for everyone in this giant mess.
Scottfos72
Brother is not getting nearly enough crap from the field on this today. He told her (lied to her) that his family was hers (immediately blended). He told his family he’d talk to her and never did. Lies. He yelled at his family for not being what he lied to her about, what he promised her they would be.
Then he yelled at her for not being content enough with reality after his lies all crumbled. She needs therapy, but he’s the real AH here. OP, did I get any of that wrong?
In, fact the more I think about this, the worse he comes off. She came to him in an incredibly vulnerable state, and he left her exponentially worse! And if his family doesn’t hold him accountable for this, he will remember this incident not as something he caused, but some “crazy ex girlfriend” story.
Taigac
This is sad all around, Jenny's looking for the family she never had (while breaking a lot of boundaries yes) and your brother is never going to be enough for her without it, I hope they just stay in therapy and not get married anytime soon.
Caimthehero
Wow Nico is way too desperate for a relationship. Jenny's circumstances are tragic but if a girl ever said "I don't know if I would want to be with you if I don't have a full relationship with your family" it should be over. She's already saying she values having your family more than having you and that should be a death knell to the relationship.