'AITA for refusing to have my sister's kids at my wedding, despite my daughter being there?' UPDATED
"AITA for telling my mum off and refusing to have my sisters kids at my wedding, despite my daughter being there?"
I’m (28f) due to marry my fiancé Dean (30m) in a month. We’ve been together for 11 years and have a girl Ella(5). Important info, Ella has autism, high functioning. She’s incredibly quiet, keeps to herself, very polite and acts more mature than some adults I know. Obviously we want her there, she just wants to go as a guest, thats fine. She is the only child under 16 allowed at our wedding.
I was talking to mum the other day about final plans when she asked me about childcare for Ella. I was confused as we’ve made it clear from the start Ella would be there, to which mum said that ‘as sis isn’t allowed to bring her kids, we assumed Ella wouldn’t be there either because of their autism.’
BS on sis (F34.) She has twins, M&F 7. When they were 3, her ex caught her cheating, dna test done, kids weren’t his, he left, she’s been a single mum since. Before he left, the kids were well behaved. Had manners, knew right from wrong etc. Once he left she gave up parenting.
When Ella got diagnosed a year ago, she came up with the notion that her kids are also autistic. They are not, she has taken them to multiple specialists, they have all said they don’t have any mental disabilities. I know this because she moans that no one takes her seriously. She saw the same specialist that Ella saw and she told me that she’s incompetent as she could diagnose my kid but not hers.
Her kids act up a lot. E.g no one invites them to birthdays as last time, they had tantrums as they couldn’t open the birthday boys presents and had to be stopped from smashing the cake in retaliation. If they aren’t centre of attention they scream at the top of their lungs.
I had to ban them from my house because the last time they visited they destroyed Ella’s favourite books because she said no to them playing with her toys. I do not want these kids at my wedding because i know they will act up, and sis won’t do anything because ‘they’re autistic, I can’t discipline them, they don’t understand.’ Luckily hers aren’t the only kids under 16 so she can’t claim I’ve singled them out.
I explained to mum, Ella was the only exemption from the rule as she’s ours. She suggested that maybe its best Ella stays home so my sisters kids wont feel left out. I politely told her no, and explained the other reasons for not wanting them there, but she kept insisting it was the right thing to do, or remove the rule for my sisters kids.
After some back and fourth i had enough and just snapped. I told her to F off, just because my sister was her favourite didnt mean she had to have everything about her/ her kids, and especially not at MY wedding.
Mum left upset at me, now i have her and sis up my ass about it, mum saying to either leave Ella at home or let sis bring her kids. Sis because i said the kids misbehave. Dean is on my side, and joked about just uninviting them both, which I’m seriously considering now. But AITA here?
What do you think?
Commenters agreed she's NTA. Here are some top comments:
Izzy4162305 said:
NTA. Tell Mum that she can stay home and babysit the Terror Twins.
Critical-Strength856 said:
Nta, its your wedding, no is a complete sentence. Disinvite the lot because if she's throwing a fit now she is going to throw a fit then. You don't need the drama on your big day. Also consider going LC to NC with mom and sis. Sis is obviously morally bankrupt and a bad influence all around. Mom is an enabler. You don't need that in your life.
fatolderlady2 said:
Sis will try to bring them no matter what you say, I would uninvite both of them. NTA
Steve-in-ONE said:
Let me see if I understand this correctly. YOUR wedding. YOUR daughter. No. NTA. And if anyone else cannot understand the connection, maybe they shouldn't come to the wedding. Congratulations on your family. Your fiance and daughter sound lovely.
She later shared this update:
So both I and Dean have been going through all the comments (or at least as many as we could, there have been so many.) We have decided against letting either my mum or sis come to the wedding. I made sure to message the venue and all my vendors setting a password that only we know and will be looking into hiring security for the big day.
Luckily the way the venue is set out means it will be impossible for them to possibly sneak in and it will be made clear to security who to look out for.
Now onto mum… oh boy, to say she blew up is an understatement. She actually came over this morning again to try and force me to make either choice and i calmly made her aware that i am rescinding both of their invitations as I cannot trust them.
At first she didn’t seem to believe me but when i stuck to my guns she started shouting at me that i was cruel, heartless, im playing favourites (with my own kid? of course she’s my favourite and I’m gonna choose her!.) I was the worst daughter ever and if thats how I was going to be then I can pretend I didn’t have a mum anymore.
I’ll be honest, i thought hearing that would hurt, but surprisingly it didn’t. I just shrugged and said ‘fine, I’ll pretend I don’t have a sister either, goodbye.’ I’ve never seen my mum speechless, so i just steered her to my front door, gave her a small shove out, and closed the door before she could retaliate.
She did bang on the door for a bit but i refused to answer and she gave up. I have now blocked both her and my sister on everything. As well as made a post explaining whats been going on to everyone close to me on Facebook. Luckily most of them also don’t like my sister so I shouldn’t get any pushback from that.
Once we’ve have the wedding I’ll give an update, if anything interesting happens and there is one to give obviously. But thank you everyone for the words of encouragement!