Can I skip my sister's wedding?

  • Thread starter Thread starter primrose5891
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Okay…if you do decide to go through with this even despite your misgivings, take some precautions.

If you live in a different city, have a rental car and rent a hotel room. Have a Plan B, in case this fails. If the stress gets overwhelming, retreat to your safe place.

If you see a counselor before you go, ask for ways to stand up to your sister when she puts you in compromising positions, how to politely decline her requests.

Limit your exposure to your sister as much as possible.
 
If you do this, would you go alone? Can you bring someone with you who will be supportive to help you through this, so if your family excludes you, you will at least have someone to talk to?
 
Can you get an antidepressant at least a couple of months before you go so that it has time to kick in?
 
ClearWater makes some awesome suggestions. Your mental and emotional health are paramount. If you have a therapist working with them can help you better assess if you have enough “bandwidth” to attend the wedding. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. If you think you may be okay with the ceremony but not the reception or vice versa; do what feels right. Also don’t allow anyone to pressure you to do more than you are comfortable with be it Parents, your sister, extended family. YOU have to make your emotional health a priority.
 
primrose5891 said:
Thank you for your advice. A lot of it is along the lines of what my therapist has discussed with me, and what sounds like the best approach. The thing is,** I don’t know if I can handle ANY amount of time with my whole family at the wedding. Even if I were to go for just the wedding for the reception, I’m afraid I’ll have a breakdown. I’m trying to get over this fear of pain, but it’s suffocating me.**
Click to expand...
Don’t go. Even if your therapist told you to go, reread your posts. Don’t have a nervous breakdown over this.

Ask your counselor how to phrase an acceptable, diplomatic excuse.
 
ClearWater said:
Yeah, sisters are for life.

So, is she supposed to go, be used by her sister…for the rest of her life?
Click to expand...
She doesn’t need to be a bridesmaid, but if the wedding is nearby, she probably does need to attend the wedding as a guest to avoid permanently killing her relationship with her sister. (Unless there’s some sort of heinous offense by the sister that the OP isn’t mentioning, like the groom being the OP’s former fiance.) While her sister may have been very me-me-me of late, that is not uncommon with brides and it’s quite possible that the OP will have a better relationship with her sister in future. It’s also quite natural that the OP’s relationship with her sister is in transition, as the OP’s sister moves closer and closer toward married life. Relationships do often recover after periods of stress.

An hour for the wedding, an hour at the reception, and all done! There’s really no need to do more than that. And expecting a sister to attend a local wedding is not “using”–that’s what close family members do for each other.

If the OP just attends all her sister’s valid attempts at marriage, that should not be too onerous a burden–that will probably work out to two weddings per sister, maximum.
 
Xantippe said:
She doesn’t need to be a bridesmaid, but if the wedding is nearby, she probably does need to attend the wedding as a guest to avoid permanently killing her relationship with her sister. (Unless there’s some sort of heinous offense by the sister that the OP isn’t mentioning, like the groom being the OP’s former fiance.) While her sister may have been very me-me-me of late, that is not uncommon with brides and it’s quite possible that the OP will have a better relationship with her sister in future. It’s also quite natural that the OP’s relationship with her sister is in transition, as the OP’s sister moves closer and closer toward married life. Relationships do often recover after periods of stress.

An hour for the wedding, an hour at the reception, and all done! There’s really no need to do more than that. And expecting a sister to attend a local wedding is not “using”–that’s what close family members do for each other.

If the OP just attends all her sister’s valid attempts at marriage, that should not be too onerous a burden–that will probably work out to two weddings per sister, maximum.
Click to expand...
The OP said that the only time the sister calls her is when she needs something. That’s what I call “using”.

Reread what the OP wrote, how she is so terribly upset, the wording she uses…“dreading”, “torture”, “suffocate”, “breakdown”,

How bad does it have to be in order for her to just make an excuse? Does she have to actually be in a strait jacket?
 
There are also other dynamics, how she feels she doesn’t belong, doesn’t fit in. Besides all that, she may be excluded, ostracized from the entire family, scapegoating? We don’t know.

Does it matter?

She’d rather have an accident or an illness than go. What does that tell us?

Yet, despite all her protests, people on CAF tell her she absolutely must go, or the sky will fall in!

She is talking about possibly having a panic attack. Do you know what that’s like?

Not everybody can handle hundreds of people. Some people are introverts, like small crowds, peace and quiet, go crazy when subjected to this. Some others, because they don’t have this problem, may not understand.

Again, she’s too uncomfortable. I don’t think we should put additional pressure to force, insist that she has to go.
 
ClearWater said:
Don’t go. Even if your therapist told you to go, reread your posts. Don’t have a nervous breakdown over this.

Ask your counselor how to phrase an acceptable, diplomatic excuse.
Click to expand...
I’m just not seeing much evidence of bad behavior from the OP’s family. The sister has been maybe a little self-involved of late, but that’s the extent of the misbehavior that we’ve heard of.

I think the evidence points more in the direction of the OP being depressed (and hence feeling increasingly alienated from her family) rather than the family mistreating the OP. Hence, I would be very concerned about taking any steps to push the family away, because that approach may just give the depression a deeper hold on the OP. She feels depressed and pushes them away (while feeling that they are rejecting her), feels worse and pushes them further away, etc. That’s why I think that her isolating herself from her family is a dangerous move.

I would feel differently if there were clearer evidence of dysfunction and repeated bad behavior on their part, but the OP herself said that previously, she had a good relationship with her family. Hence, I lean toward the theory that it is the OP, rather than her family that has changed.
 
Xantippe said:
I’m just not seeing much evidence of bad behavior from the OP’s family. The sister has been maybe a little self-involved of late, but that’s the extent of the misbehavior that we’ve heard of.

I think the evidence points more in the direction of the OP being depressed (and hence feeling increasingly alienated from her family) rather than the family mistreating the OP. Hence, I would be very concerned about taking any steps to push the family away, because that approach may just give the depression a deeper hold on the OP. She feels depressed and pushes them away (while feeling that they are rejecting her), feels worse and pushes them further away, etc. That’s why I think that her isolating herself from her family is a dangerous move.

I would feel differently if there were clearer evidence of dysfunction and repeated bad behavior on their part, but the OP herself said that previously, she had a good relationship with her family. Hence, I lean toward the theory that it is the OP, rather than her family that has changed.
Click to expand...
And? Okay, say the OP changed.

Whether she changed or whether other changed, the result is the same.
 
OP, it’s your call. Only you truly know what’s going on.
 
If the OP thinks that going to this wedding might put her over the edge, I don’t think she should go is all I’m saying.

We can try to assign blame, but I don’t know if that’d be helpful. For whatever reasons, there is some kind of dynamic which makes it so uncomfortable for her that it’s actually painful.
 
She also said she couldn’t handle being in close proximity to hundreds of people for an extended period of time. Some people can’t handle that but can handle smaller events.

I’ve known people who wait outside, because the waiting rooms are too much for them. So, that’s actually a common experience, to be overwhelmed like that…by everything.
 
ClearWater said:
She also said she couldn’t handle being in close proximity to hundreds of people for an extended period of time. Some people can’t handle that but can handle smaller events.

I’ve known people who wait outside, because the waiting rooms are too much for them. So, that’s actually a common experience, to be overwhelmed like that…by everything.
Click to expand...
If she does it right away, I think she can call her sister, tell her that she’s been over and over this with her therapist, and as much as she wants to be there for her sister, the thought overwhelms her and she needs to step down as a bridesmaid, because she can’t guarantee she will be able to do it. Then play it by ear as far as going to the wedding.
 
What the OP absolutely must NOT do is to fret about this secretly until the wedding nears, and then jump ship close to the wedding for reasons that did not come up at the last minute. That would be a very rude way to handle the honor of being asked to be a wedding attendant, and it would take an unusually gracious bride to forgive it. No, if you are forced to go back on accepting a request to have a role in a couple’s wedding, it had better be a good reason and you had better notify the couple ASAP. To do otherwise is extremely rude and would rightly be taken as self-centered and insensitive, if it could have been avoided.
 
I didn’t read all the replies, so perhaps someone else has said the same thing I’ll say.
I can’t begin to know what it’s like to have siblings, I was raised as an only child. I did raise two children, both boys. So I have a little clue as to how siblings work in my children.

If you don’t want to go to the wedding, don’t. BUT tell your sister quickly that you won’t be part of the wedding party. You don’t have to talk to her, you can send her a letter or an email. Be kind, be gentle and keep it brief, polite, and positive. Don’t expect a reply.

My boys are not friends now that they are grown. Neither one was invited to the other’s wedding. They survived and it’s not a big deal.
But I’m not into ceremonies either, so it doesn’t surprise me.
What I’m saying is this, you will be fine if you miss your sister’s wedding. She will be fine as well.
Just let her know soonest that you won’t be there.
 
gh4 said:
I didn’t read all the replies, so perhaps someone else has said the same thing I’ll say.
I can’t begin to know what it’s like to have siblings, I was raised as an only child. I did raise two children, both boys. So I have a little clue as to how siblings work in my children.

If you don’t want to go to the wedding, don’t. BUT tell your sister quickly that you won’t be part of the wedding party. You don’t have to talk to her, you can send her a letter or an email. Be kind, be gentle and keep it brief, polite, and positive. Don’t expect a reply.

My boys are not friends now that they are grown. Neither one was invited to the other’s wedding. They survived and it’s not a big deal.
But I’m not into ceremonies either, so it doesn’t surprise me.
What I’m saying is this, you will be fine if you miss your sister’s wedding. She will be fine as well.
Just let her know soonest that you won’t be there.
Click to expand...
No, she must talk to her. You do not accept the honor of being a bridesmaid for anyone, let alone your sister, and then back out by letter or e-mail. Otherwise, “Don’t expect a reply” is GROSS understatement. It is entirely possible that either no one in the family will want to speak to her again or else they will all call her on the phone and give her an indignant earful.

If she can’t do it, she ought to call her sister right away and say so–or, if she lives nearby, she needs to meet with her in person–and she ought to assure her sister that she’s been through it with her therapist and believes she would be too likely to ruin the wedding by looking like Eeyore in the wedding pictures and at the wedding, because she is in such a low place, and she can’t take the chance that she’ll improve before the wedding. The OP has the right to decide she will not do that on her sister’s wedding day.

Then she needs to have a conversation with her sister, because her sister is entitled to have a conversation about it, if she wants. She isn’t entitled to bully the OP, but she ought to be given a chance to speak her heart. A wedding is a lifetime milestone that gathers in the whole of one’s life, one’s family ties, and one’s social ties. Her sister’s wedding day is about her sister and about all that the two of them were to each other while growing up, this is why we have to attend our siblings’ weddings and within reason we have to agree to participate in any way that we are asked to do that we can do, and it is why if we cannot do what our sibling wants us to do, we have to say so in a way that is as close to face-to-face as circumstances allow.

Unless she has cut off contact with her sister or has a serious issue with some other guest who will be there, she has to attend the wedding, if she is able. When a new family member is added to a family–by this, I mean her new brother-in-law–the whole family that can be there has to be there.
 
Thank you, all. You’ve given me a lot to think about and have been very helpful! Thank you especially, ClearWater- you’ve been very insightful and understanding of my situation.
If you do this, would you go alone? Can you bring someone with you who will be supportive to help you through this, so if your family excludes you, you will at least have someone to talk to?
Click to expand...
I wish I did… that would make the wedding less frightening! I’ve lost all my friends and don’t have anyone right now.
Can you get an antidepressant at least a couple of months before you go so that it has time to kick in?
Click to expand...
I’ve tried several antidepressants/anti-anxiety meds over the years, but all of them made me feel worse (other health problems have probably contributed to the meds not working). Cognitive behavioral therapy works best to manage my anxiety.

What I most fear is having a breakdown at the wedding and drawing attention to myself when it should be my sister’s day. It would be easier to take the risk if my sister were someone I felt close to, or had any sort of relationship with. Because I don’t, a large part of me is asking what’s the point of putting myself through this. I don’t foresee my sister and I having any sort of relationship in the future. She’s moving 2,000 miles away. We fell apart several years ago (her choice, for reasons she never told me- she just seemed to lose interest in our relationship and no matter what I tried, I couldn’t make her gain interest again.) I tried to reach our to her several times over those years- every time, she’s closed the door- literally and figuratively.

Anyway, I realize how important this day is to her and that no matter what, she is my sister. After reading through these posts and praying about it, I think I owe it to my family to at least try to attend the wedding. I plan on making sure I have my own means of transportation, so I’ll have a way of leaving whenever I need to. I know no matter how long I stay at the wedding, it won’t be enough for my family- they’re big on appearances. But I feel confident enough in my decision that I won’t let them guilt me into leaving earlier than they would like. Knowing that I can choose when to arrive and when to leave really helps reduce my anxiety a lot. I’ve been thinking about all the scorn and ridicule that Jesus went through, and how many people thought he was nuts. Knowing that He went through that and keeping that in mind during the wedding should help me face whatever happens that day. Also, if I don’t at least make an attempt to go, I know there will be family members who won’t understand, no matter what I say. And there will probably always be a part of me that will wonder if I made the right choice. At least if I go to the wedding and fail catastrophically, I can hold my head high and know that I gave it my all.
 
It sounds to me that you have made the brave decision to go. I think that if you can have a strategy to help yourself cope then it will be the correct decision. Remember that the day is about your sister and not you so that idea can help you to put every thing into proper perspective. You can have a good time in the background of the event. Perhaps you would feel better not being a bridesmaid. Good luck!👍
 
You could try writing your sister a letter, telling her how uncomfortable you feel,etc. And
maybe asking to talk with her on the phone or in person.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top