'My SIL thinks I purposely wanted to outshine her at her wedding. AITA?'

"My sister-in-law thinks I wanted to purposely outshine her at her wedding. AITA?"

Careless_Algae4252:

This happened at my (f26) husband's sister (f31), she got married last week

Please don't think of this as bragging. I have always been considered physically pretty, people have always told me that. It has its perks and its cons. I had a hard time because of this when I was at school because let's say that I was a stereotypical cheerleader.

My point with this is that often other people either only paid attention to me because of my appearance or they thought everything I did was against them (this was a big issue amongst girls, which I think might have something to do with this as well)

So well, the conflict. My husband and I got invited to the wedding at a very fancy location, truly a very beautiful wedding. So I decided to dress up a little bit. I had a baby three months ago, I wore a dress with cleavage.

When her and her husband were busy catching up with friends, some family members came and complimented my outfit with the always so necessary comment about how good I look because I've lost most of my baby weight, you know how much people like to talk about that

Then the other incident was because we didn't bring our baby with us to the wedding. One of my friends was babysitting for us since she lives nearby, he only breastfeeds so she had to drive him twice so I could feed him.

The first time was when they were giving speeches, so I went to the car, breastfed him and she left. Then the second time some people wanted to see the baby so as we were outside (because of the music) some of our family came to greet my baby.

The thing is that my other SIL posted photos of the wedding, she posted one of me and her which said "with the prettiest doll" because she calls me Barbie sometimes.

My SIL thought that was very nasty, she posted on IG saying that no matter what, some people always want to shine brighter than others and steal the stoplight even on special occasions. I saw that and I sent her a text like "hey, is everything ok?"

She didn't answer that day but the next saying that I can't possibly be this tone deaf and that the post was about me. I was like what??? And she said that because "people" were posting and talking about how pretty I looked at her wedding, how good I look, how lucky my husband is, how pretty my baby is...

You get the idea. I told her "sorry, but I don't really see how that has anything to do with me" she said that I'm doing this on purpose and to back up her argument she said that in the photo I posted people were commenting on that kind of stuff. She insists that I wanted to outshine her by basically looking prettier and having people coo at my baby...

So I think this just might be that female competition because I've seen it other times. It wouldn't be weird to me if she thought that me dressing up or losing weight was something I've done to purposely harm her because it has happened to me before. But I don't want to be too harsh and I want to give the benefit of the doubt because maybe I was wrong.

Edit: As I see this is a recurrent question, I can't pump and leave a bottle for my baby because he doesn't want it, he would rather go hungry than drinking from the bottle so that's not an option.

We weren't discussing my looks all night! We discussed the wedding/ bride and many other topics as well (work, family, their trips, etc). I DIDN'T announce that my baby was outside. My baby was invited but my husband and I decided to leave him with a friend, it wasn't a childfree wedding

Here were the top reactions amongst the comment section:

Cuervoguy2002

NTA. I will NEVER understand why women are so damn competitive and get upset with people for not being 100% attentive to the bride on her wedding day.

Your baby never came into the wedding or reception. You went outside to deal with it. If you went outside and someone saw the baby, ok.

If there was a lull in the reception, people are allowed to go outside. I've been to receptions where people went to smoke, or check out the grounds, etc. Its not like everyone stayed in one place all day.

And being mad because people saw a BABY. This is so ridiculous.

OP:

This was a long reception too, lots of time to just dance and a lot of people were spacing out/ having conversations with a group about other stuff than just the wedding

Just_off_middle

This post is giving Gretchen Weiners apology energy.

I also feel like OP is omitting some background here to explain the upset, especially as SIL called her ‘Tone deaf’

Every bride deserves to feel like the most beautiful important woman on their wedding day and whether it was meant to or not, the attire of choice took that from her.

glitterandcat

“I’m sorry I’m so pretty, it’s such a burden”

heycoolusernamebro

OP is the type to apologize “if I made you feel inferior because of my beauty”.

IndependentCup1843

I mean I just don’t believe that people were going out of their way to say “how gorgeous” you were at the wedding after the fact. You’re just kinda into yourself

BUT you are completely TA for bringing the baby at any point. You knew that would take the spotlight, you should’ve been the one to leave, not go, or pump. That made you TA. Overall though you have an air of “I’m just naturally better and prettier than her so of COURSE I’m talked about.”

You can’t control others but it sounds like you didn’t take any steps to mitigate what was happening. It was rude AF for people to leave to look at your baby, it isn’t that special.

Also, clearly you made a big deal of it for people to even KNOW why you left.

Sweaty_Knee_7425

YTA. The way you write this post shows a really petty attitude. Also, parading your child in and out and introducing them to relatives is a crappy move.

You stole the attention, and appear to like painting other women as insecure and jealous of you. They might just not like you. And it might be justified.

Aphrahannah

Info: if you dislike the fact that everyone has always put too much focus on your looks, and you dislike the way people discuss your post baby body, why don't you ask them to stop? You shouldn't have to pander to your SIL, as you aren't the one who posted anything.

BeardManMichael

YTA kind of. So do you like or dislike the attention you receive? I ask because during the wedding it seems like you are leaning in to all the extra attention you received. You were tone deaf if you thought that this attention craving behavior was okay.

Someone who wasn't tone deaf would have deflected the attention back to the bride, AKA the actual focus of the wedding.

You should have never acquiesced to people demanding to see your baby. Weddings are not exactly the most sanitary events so why, other than attention, would you want a bunch of people seeing your child?

I just don't understand the behavior. That's why I don't think you're an AH. What I do understand is the reaction that others had to your behavior. You went to a wedding with a chip on your shoulder in the form of being a competitive woman. Overall, not a great look if you're trying to appear humble.

I don't think you're trying to appear humble and that's the problem. As soon as you make the choice to show off your baby, everyone's reaction to your other behavior makes sense.

Quackythehobbit

we all know she loves the attention from reading this post 😂

Lunaswitchytake

NTA, I feel like a lot of people are calling you an AH cause you know you’re beautiful and it’s a fact. It’s not being self centered, it’s not being conceited, it’s literally what you’ve experienced and what people tell you.

With that being said, if I was 3 months postpartum, invited to a gorgeous wedding and I’m looking good, best believe I’m gonna treat myself to looking my absolute best because I deserve it and want to have fun.

You seem like you have a great relationship with your other SIL and like you put that’s what she calls you already. Especially being that she’s 15, how was she supposed to know her older sister was going the throw a tantrum.

As for baby, people obviously have neither breast feed a literal newborn who doesn’t like bottles and prefer straight from the boob OR they have the easiest newborn known to existence that’s chill. Your friend that babysat your baby is an amazing friend for driving to the venue twice for feedings, keep that friend close.

As for family going down to see that baby, unless you specifically told them baby was coming and they followed you then yea slight AH, but if they were already outside and passed the word then how were you supposed to control that?

All in all, your SIL is jealous and I can’t stand when women get jealous of others for their looks. It’s not your fault and you can dress how you want that’s appropriate for the setting. God forbid you show some cleavage and feed your baby🙄

Rainbomg

NTA, but… Babies (and boobies) are more interesting to look at than brides. It doesn’t really matter why you felt like you had every right to shine (you did, you do, you go girl) you still ought to know by now that certain people are going to take that as a personal attack. It is ridiculous, but so is a fancy wedding.

SIL is clearly an attention seeking type and so I can imagine her wedding was like pinnacle peak tippy top dream day level important to her, as they are to most attention seeking types. You’re used to being the belle of the ball, she had to spend a year‘s salary and months of planning to get that for 2 hours, then you showed up with them thangs out.

With people like this, they’re as easy to piss off as they are to win back, so you can easily show up with a gift and make it up to her. In the future I’d take advantage of how easy people like her are to predict, just give them a reason to brag/get attention and you win.

also, side note, your friend the babysitter is an absolute HERO and a really good friend, definitely nurture that friendship!

Postforwardedtoabyss

I agree that "a baby was visible" is a shaky reason to be mad at someone, particularly since the bride could TOTALLY have capitalized on the teeny little attention-magnet. Insecure bride = not a good look. Gracious bride + adorable baby? SHOWSTOPPER.