Messy mess distasteful mess.

mrsconn23

Dear Prudence,

How can you tell when you’re being justifiably stubborn and when you’re just making things worse?

My 20-year-old sister has been uninvited to my wedding after she went to my fiancée’s bachelorette party, announced she had a special surprise guest, and then wheeled in a skeleton dressed up in a “sister of the bride” t-shirt. My fiancée’s younger sister died when she was 16.

I am also not talking to my sister right now. I don’t know what you could even say. She has never liked my fiancée, but I still can’t believe she did something so theatrically cruel. My family all want me to back down. “She overstepped, but it was just a joke. You know she likes to be edgy. She’s devastated. C’mon, she’s a dumb kid and it didn’t mean anything. She’s very sorry and just wants to get back to normal.” The only person I haven’t heard from is my sister, other than her telling me to “get over it, it wasn’t like it was ‘dead sister’s’ ACTUAL skeleton.”

I have stood firm. Probably for the first time in my life. This was such an indescribably cruel thing to do (to anyone! Whether I loved them or not) that I can’t just sweep it under the rug. So now my side of the family (parents, brother, aunts, and cousins) aren’t coming to the wedding. Which is fine. They can get a bunch of skeletons and hold their own. I don’t care. The thing is that at this point, even my fiancée wants me to just give in to keep the peace. She says that it’s not worth causing so much disruption over a stupid prank that went wrong. Except it wasn’t a prank! No one would consider that funny and genuinely expect people to laugh.

I’m just not sure what to do. My fiancée was the one injured by this, and she wants me to stop (although her parents know what happened and were furious, so I don’t know how they’d react if my sister—a bridesmaid—smirked her way down the aisle the day of). I feel like I’m right, but no one else seems to agree. And no one is even trying to make my sister apologize! I feel that it’s so clear she’s the one in the wrong, but at this point all the blame is on me. I have started to wonder if I’m really the one in the wrong here by not letting it go?

— How Can You Tell When You’re the Bad Guy

charlotte989875

What does your fiancée want? She was the one targeted and hurt, she gets to decide what she’s comfortable. 

I mean I’m with LW that she’d be out, but ultimately he need to ignore anyone else but his fiancée here. 

downtondiva

It isn't as though your sister dressed up in some silly costume to tease your fiancee about a funny story from her past. She made light of a family tragedy and surely brought up a lot of pain and trauma in the process. 

Your sister's behavior was absolutely disgusting, and if she's so "devastated" then she should apologize directly to your fiancee before you can even consider allowing her to attend the wedding or be in your lives. Tell your family that next time they tell you to back down. While I know that removing someone from a bridal party is usually a relationship-ending move, I do also question the wisdom of your sister continuing to be a bridesmaid even if she does attend the wedding. But that part is a tough call. 

short+sassy

The sister is a monster.  Not only that, everyone is apologizing for her, but SHE hasn't even apologized!  Eff all that noise.

The only thing giving me hesitation is that the fiancee still wants to invite the sister.  I want more details on that.  Does she genuinely want to invite the sister or trying to make the LW feel better about smoothing over the rifts in their family.  Because I'd have the same attitude the LW does.  I wouldn't want my sister there and, if my family is going to boycott the wedding because of it.  Too bad.  More cake for me.

Plus, if the sister's judgement is that bad and her cruelty streak that strong, how can they trust she won't do something horrible at the wedding also.  

banana468

I imagine that the fiancee is likely trying to be nice to keep the peace because that's what nice people do.  She likely doesn't WANT the sister there but this situation puts her in a completely horrible spot and she knows it.  On one hand the SOG did something totally inexcusable to her she's totally justified in her anger and on the other hand she knows that if she DOESN'T say that the sister can come that this can be used against her for a lifetime. 

In ONLY this situation I think that the LW gets the final say here because it's HIS sister and he needs to be clear here: "How you treated my FI is how you treat me.  Her feelings on this are only part of the situation and you should have considered how you were behaving before you did something so heartless and cruel." 

If I were LW I'd hold firm that it's quite clear that everyone wants to enable the behavior of an adult and who is not familiar with the concept of consequences for her actions.
I'd go so far as to say to the parents, "You are welcome to attend my wedding.  If you are deciding that it's more important to stay home to be with the sister who thinks it's funny to drag up the memory of a deceased sister then I will have to interpret your actions to mean that you are seeing her lack of consequence as a greater issue than the grief my future wife and family experienced.  I wish you well." 

mrsconn23

@banana468, interesting you read it as the groom writing in because in my head, it is two women getting married.  But I guess why wouldn't LW have been at FI's bachelorette party and sister was there?  

Anyway, I reread it and now I have a brain wrinkle.  LOL  

Also, LW should keep up the outrage.  There's no fucking excuse regardless of age.  It's like DH and I can joke with each other about our dead moms (because we're ridiculously dark sometimes), but if someone tried to hone in on that it would not be well-received.  I can't believe no one in LW's family can see how downright awful and inappropriate this was. 

banana468

@mrsconn23 I try not to assign gender immediately but my assumption was that the LW is a man because 
-the FI is a woman
-LW talks of the bachelorette as if LW wasn't present.
-SOG was invited to be in the wedding but not on LW's side. 

I am guessing that LW's 20 YO sister is the youngest and hasn't faced a lot of consequences for her actions in life. 

VarunaTT

My mouth dropped open when I read this and that doesn't happen too often with Prudie anymore.

I agree with @banana468.  I think in this instance, it's really important to show that you have expectations on how the new family you're creating is going to be treated and this is no okay in any way shape or form.  

This is astoundingly and shockingly cruel.

STARMOON44

And sister hasn’t apologized! She isn’t sorry. 

banana468

STARMOON44 said:

And sister hasn’t apologized! She isn’t sorry. 

AND NO ONE HAS ASKED HER!

That's the other part that sticks out.  This is a family who walks on eggshells and makes excuses calling someone who is legally an adult someone who doesn't "know better".   If you continue to enable bad behavior and excuse it do not be upset when your bad parent backfires on you. 

levioosa

Fuck this noise. Sister is a legal adult. Full stop. She knew this was cruel. Full stop. The rest of the family knows this and has chosen to gloss over it. Sounds like LW has more than one family tie to cut off. 

MyNameIsNot

This may be the best reason I've heard to kick out a bridesmaid. 

flantastic

MyNameIsNot said:

This may be the best reason I've heard to kick out a bridesmaid. 

Seriously. That's the one thing I don't get about this letter, the "smirking down the aisle as a bridesmaid" bit. Maybe you and your FI decide to let her attend the wedding, although that wouldn't be my recommendation. But she sure as hell is no longer a bridesmaid, regardless.

geebee908

LW's family is battering the LW because he's the "reasonable" one and the one most likely to be persuaded to budge. I'm sure they're not asking anything of the sister because they know they won't get any concessions from her, and everyone just wants to get back to the dysfunctional family dynamic that they're used to.

I'd tell the LW to stand firm and let them all stay away, if they really want to take the side of the horrible sister.

kerbohl

mrsconn23 said:

@banana468, interesting you read it as the groom writing in because in my head, it is two women getting married.  But I guess why wouldn't LW have been at FI's bachelorette party and sister was there?  

Anyway, I reread it and now I have a brain wrinkle.  LOL  

Also, LW should keep up the outrage.  There's no fucking excuse regardless of age.  It's like DH and I can joke with each other about our dead moms (because we're ridiculously dark sometimes), but if someone tried to hone in on that it would not be well-received.  I can't believe no one in LW's family can see how downright awful and inappropriate this was. 

I started out the letter that way as well.  

I'm torn on this one too - if fiancee who was the one that was wronged is okay with the sister being at the weddding, then those feelings are the ones that matter.  And definitely not as a bridesmaid though - there have to be some consequences!  But then, the sister's response has been to "get over it".  That's so messed up - even if she thinks it is an overreaction, her sibling is hurt and it has affected the family.  This isn't something to just "get over" - work has to be done to fix it.