Goodstorie

I’m 35 female and my sister Carol (name changed) is 29 female, and she got married about 4 months ago. I was unfortunately not invited to the wedding, and neither was the rest of my family. It was very disappointing for me because all my life Carol and I have always been close, but for some reason around the time of her wedding, she started turning into a total bridezilla. If I’m being honest, she started acting very differently as soon as she had a ring on her finger, and within a couple of months, around the time the invitations were being sent out, she contacted me to let me know that I wouldn’t be receiving one because of my son’s wheelchair condition. It was incredibly insensitive and disrespectful of her, so I didn’t even make a big deal out of it to anybody. I just decided to cut her out of my life completely after that incident.

I have two kids, my 12-year-old son and my 8-year-old daughter, and both of them had been pretty close with their aunt, so this had been a huge shock to me. My son had been in an accident about 2 years ago, and unfortunately, he has been in a wheelchair ever since because of the severity of his injuries. He has been undergoing physiotherapy, and we are hopeful that one day he’ll be able to walk unassisted once again. But until then, he has the wheelchair, and I think people should be respectful of that. When Carol called me up a couple of months ago and told me that she had made up her mind that she was not going to be inviting me and the rest of the family to the wedding because of my son, I realized that she and I have turned into very different people, and there was no going back after this.

The Wedding Photo Excuse

I had obviously been very surprised because even the explanation that she had offered for something like this was just so lame. She had told me that she was concerned about how her wedding photos would turn out if my son was invited because she believed that him being in that wheelchair would ruin the pictures. I mean, there was a pretty easy solution to that: she could just ask the photographer to avoid including my son in the pictures if that’s really what she wanted. But I did not bother to make that suggestion because even that in itself was pretty insensitive and a horrible way to think. So after that phone call with her, I told her that I was completely fine with not being invited to the wedding, and I left it at that.

After that, I didn’t really mention that to anyone apart from my husband because I knew that if I spoke about this to other people, there would be a lot of drama, and that’s something I wanted to avoid. Given the sensitive nature of the topic, I didn’t want my son to be dragged into any of this, so I let it go. In the months leading up to the wedding, even though I knew that I was uninvited, I put up a happy front whenever I was around my parents and Carol. She did the same as well, so people were quite surprised when I did not turn up at her wedding, and a lot of folks reached out to me to ask why I hadn’t been there. Even then, I did not tell anybody the truth, and I just told them that my father-in-law had fallen really ill, and our family needed to be there for him, so I couldn’t attend. Nobody asked any further questions, including my parents and my brother-in-law, Kevin.

The Truth Comes Out

Things only came to light recently when all of us reunited for my cousin’s engagement party. Since we were all in one place, Kevin decided to corner my husband and me at one point and told us that he had been really disappointed that we hadn’t turned up at the wedding and neither had we shown up afterwards. He said that he could understand that my father-in-law was unwell and that’s why I couldn’t attend, but he expressed his disappointment with the fact that even after the wedding, we hadn’t bothered to interact with them, and since we had had a good relationship, he couldn’t understand this behavior. And that was true. Kevin and I had always been on good terms in the past since Carol had been with him for almost 4 years before they decided to get married, so just like my husband, even he had pretty much become a part of the family, and we had been good friends.

I tried to apologize to him and tell him that we would make it up to him somehow because I did not want to talk about the real reason that I hadn’t attended or been in touch with them, and I kept trying to dismiss it. But he wouldn’t budge. He insisted that he knew for a fact that there was something wrong, and he wanted to know if he had been the one who had done something to offend or whatever. Kevin is a generally sweet guy, so after a certain point, my husband and I just decided that we were going to tell him the truth about the real reason we had decided not to attend because he deserved an explanation. Also, I really didn’t want him to think that he had messed up somehow and that’s why we hadn’t attended, because then he would end up blaming himself.

So I told him about the phone call that I had received from Carol a couple of months before their wedding and how she had told me that she did not want me there with the rest of the family because of my son. I told him that I did not want to create any drama before the wedding, which is why I had kept it all to myself for the past few months, and since I’m really sensitive about my son, it was difficult for me to even talk about this. He was shocked when I told him the reason, and he told me that he could totally understand why I hadn’t brought it up with anyone and why I had chosen to stay away from Carol ever since this happened. Kevin even went on to apologize to me on his wife’s behalf and told me that if he had any idea that she was going to say something like this, he would have put a stop to it before she could even consider making that phone call. He was extremely apologetic about the whole thing, and for the rest of the party, I could see that Carol was shooting me dirty looks because the entire time after our conversation, Kevin was sitting with me and my husband and ignoring her. He was by our side the entire time, and I could tell that he was very disturbed by what he had just learned. I don’t even blame him; even I would be really horrified if I had found out that my partner had been acting this way with their own sister.

Family Fallout

Anyway, after the party was over, all of us headed home, and I really didn’t think that I would have to discuss this again so soon, but here we are. Yesterday, almost 3 days after the party, my parents called me and told me that they had found out the real reason why I hadn’t attended my sister’s wedding and said that they did not want to get involved in this but they just wanted to warn me that Carol was expecting a huge fight with Kevin. Kevin and Carol were extremely upset because ever since I told Kevin the truth, he has been insisting that she go for therapy because he believes that she’s extremely cruel and heartless. They have been fighting non-stop because Carol thinks that she did the right thing because otherwise her wedding would have been a bust, which is just a really stupid thing to think, and I’m definitely with Kevin on this. I do agree that she’s really cruel.

My parents said that they did not want to take any sides, but they just wanted me to know that she was blaming me for sabotaging her marriage by telling Kevin what had happened all those months ago and trying to turn him against me just to get revenge. I personally think that it’s ridiculous that she’s blaming me, and my parents did say that they did not want to take any sides at least four or five times during our conversation, but for some reason, it does feel like they agree with Carol and that’s why they had called me to tell me about how she was feeling in the first place. I’ve spoken to my husband about it, and he doesn’t think that I have anything to feel sorry about, but I just want to get a second opinion. Am I the A-hole for telling my sister’s husband the real reason why I hadn’t attended their wedding and throwing her under the bus?

Confronting My Parents

Hey, so I decided to talk to my parents about this situation in general because it was really bugging me that they had tried so hard to make it seem like they were not going to and yet, in spite of that, they had made it a point to reach out to me and tell me about what Carol was going through, even though they really didn’t have to do that. If Carol had wanted me to know, she could have just reached out to me herself, and we would have dealt with it amongst ourselves. If my parents did not want to get involved, they could have just chosen not to get involved at all. I don’t know why, but it just felt like a tactic to make me feel guilty for telling Kevin the truth and creating trouble in their marriage. So I decided to ask them about their intentions and just confront them because I needed to know what was going on. So I visited them earlier today and told them what had been going on in my mind.

Initially, they denied everything, and they just told me that they did not want their two daughters to be fighting, so they just thought that they would tell me what was going on with Carol, and maybe I would take the initiative to sort it out. That was also very confusing because if they really wanted somebody to take the initiative to sort it out or whatever, it meant that they were indirectly getting involved, and they could have told Carol to try and talk to me instead of coming to me themselves. So that really did not make sense to me, and the fact they were trying to manipulate me was really annoying. So I told them to be honest with me because I’m not a fool, and I could figure out what they were thinking.

After that, my parents decided that they were going to be honest and told me that a part of them did believe that it was kind of my fault for telling Kevin the truth because I really did not have any reason to do so. Months had passed since that incident, and everyone was over it now, so I had no reason to dig it all back up and create trouble in her otherwise happy marriage just to get back at her. I found that very offensive because honestly, I had no such intention of creating trouble in her marriage or whatever. I was not going to gain anything from doing something like that, and it was insulting that my parents also thought that I was trying to do that. I didn’t mind that Carol was trying to make it look like that because obviously she was the one who had created the situation, so she was going to do whatever it took to make herself look like the victim. So I expected this from her, but not from my parents, especially after they kept harping on about how they did not want to pick sides. I got really upset, and I told my parents that if this was what they thought of me, it was very obvious that they were on Carol’s side and not on mine.

I also told them that it was really insensitive of them to think that I was the bad guy for telling Kevin the truth and completely overlooking the truth itself, which was just horrible. I also told them that I wouldn’t have told Kevin the truth if he hadn’t insisted on getting to know what had gone wrong that day. But now, since everything was out anyway, at least I knew where my parents’ priorities were. They did not seem to care in the slightest about the fact that their younger daughter had said that she did not want their grandson at her wedding for something that was totally out of his control. My parents knew for a fact that I was really sensitive about my son and his injuries because that was a really traumatic time for the entire family, and for them not to care about something like this, it was just crazy, and I couldn’t believe that they were being so nonchalant about it and trying to make me look like I was overreacting. They tried to argue with me and tell me that they did care about their grandson, but ultimately it was Carol’s wedding, and if she didn’t want our family there because of the wheelchair situation, they couldn’t help it, and they believed that she was perfectly within her rights to not invite certain people. And I do agree with that; she was perfectly within her rights to not invite us, but I’m also perfectly within my rights to take offense to that, and if I decided I was going to distance myself from her and never speak to her again because of this, even that was completely fine.

Most importantly, if I decided that I was going to tell her husband what she had done to prevent us from attending the wedding, even that should be totally fine with everyone because if she had made the decision, she should have the guts to stand by it. My parents started telling me that I was making a huge deal out of this and told me that I had no reason to talk to Kevin about what had happened and create drama out of nothing, even after I brought up all these valid points. After that, I did not see any reason to continue talking to them, and I just left because it was obvious that they were picking sides now, and I just didn’t want any part of it. I came back home about an hour ago and discussed this with my husband, and he told me he was glad that I had decided to take a stand for myself, not just by confronting my parents today but also by telling Kevin the truth earlier. So now nobody else’s opinion matters to me anymore.

My Son’s Understanding

I had blocked Carol everywhere recently because I really did not want her to be able to contact me. It’s been about a week since the party and 3 days since I had my fight with my parents. Currently, everyone is blocked because I’m really not interested in speaking to any of them. Everyone except for Kevin, of course. Him and I haven’t spoken yet since the party, but I don’t see any reason to block him either. Anyway, since I had blocked everyone, Carol decided to reach out to my son on Instagram and tell him to put her in touch with me because she needed to discuss certain things with me. I was not very happy about it when I found out from my son that she had reached out to him. He was also pretty confused himself because for the past couple of months, we have hardly ever spoken about or spoken to his aunt, and even though he doesn’t know exactly what had gone wrong, he still has a slight clue that things are not well between us. He might be a kid, but he’s really bright and picks up on all these things, and in the past few months, he has asked me about what’s going on with me and my sister several times, and I’ve always managed to dodge the topic. But this time, he started to insist on finding out what was going on because Carol had mentioned that I had blocked her, and my son knew that it was an extreme step, so he told me that he really needed to know what was going on.

At first, I thought I wasn’t going to tell him, but then I decided not to keep any secrets from him, so I told him about the real reason that we had skipped his aunt’s wedding. And I knew that it would hurt him, but I couldn’t hide things like this from him forever, and I was also kind of afraid that if I didn’t tell him, he might have found out some other way because even if they can’t get to me, they can still get to my son. He’s turning 13 in a few months, so I thought that he was old enough to figure out whether he wanted to maintain a relationship with his aunt after this or not on his own. I wanted him to be able to make that choice, and so I thought it would be better to just let him know.

Honestly, I had no idea what to expect after I told him what his aunt had said because I know that even if I’m the one who’s very sensitive about the injury and stuff, he’s obviously going to be 10 times more sensitive about it himself. Surprisingly though, he took it quite sportingly. He told me that he was really thankful that I had kept this information from him for such a long time, even though he kept insisting on finding out, and he also thanked me for letting him know at this point since the curiosity of the entire situation had kind of been getting on his nerves. But now that he knows the real reason that we had skipped his aunt’s wedding and hadn’t been in touch with her for so long, he can totally understand why I had blocked her. I obviously tried my best to make sure he was fine because I did not want him to feel like he was being rejected by his family, and I even had a lot of second thoughts about telling him in the first place because I felt like I had burdened him with this unnecessary information. But the more I spoke to him, the more I realized that my son was a lot more mature than I thought, and he told me that eventually he definitely would have found out somehow because this fallout seems like something the family isn’t going to be easily able to move on from. He also told me that maybe other children in his position wouldn’t have liked to hear something like this, but he preferred honesty because he has dealt with enough trauma for a lifetime so far. This kind of petty behavior doesn’t really faze him anymore.

Hearing him talk about this and putting on such a brave face, even though I knew for a fact that him and Carol used to get along earlier, made me really happy because I knew that my husband and I had raised him right. So I’m honestly very glad that I decided to be honest and transparent with him at this point. Ever since this has happened, I’ve tried to gauge if he’s actually okay with everything or if he’s just putting on a front for our sake, and it seems like he really doesn’t care what his aunt thinks. I know that deep down he must be hurting a little at least, but we are all there for him. Obviously, I love him, his dad loves him, and most importantly, his sister is always there for him. He has friends who have never left his side and have always tried to include him in everything. His teachers are also exceptionally kind to him, and I know that with time, all his wounds will heal, be it the physical ones or the emotional ones. I know that he will be just fine, and even if he isn’t, we will all still be there for him, and that’s something that I’m certain about.

Carol’s Apology and Baby Plans

Hey, so before I start talking about what has happened, I would just like to address some concerns that people had about my decision to tell my son the truth. My son and I have always had a very open and transparent relationship, and my parents, my husband, and I believe that honesty really is the way to go for his benefit. I had tried my best to hide the truth from him for a really long time because I didn’t want to hurt him, but now that he had insisted upon it, I felt obliged to tell him because even if he hadn’t found out from us, he might have spoken to his grandparents or whatever, and eventually things like this do tend to come out in ugly ways, and it would have been much worse if Carol herself had decided to tell him. And it wouldn’t have been unlikely because she had already reached out to him to tell him that I had blocked her, so who knows, she might have gone ahead and told him the reason for our fight as well because she clearly did not have any qualms about dragging him into something that he was not involved in, and I know that she doesn’t have the sensitivity to deal with these things, so it was better for him to hear it from us rather than anyone else. I stand by the decision that I have made, and as long as my family is fine with it, I think it’s okay to have dealt with it the way that I chose to.

Anyway, now I’m coming to what happened with Carol this evening. My family and I had all been at home, and Carol showed up all of a sudden. I knew that there was some drama about to go down, so I decided to send my kids to hang out with the neighbors because in case Carol decided to say anything weird, I didn’t want them to be able to hear it. As soon as the kids had left, she started telling me that she was very upset about my decision to talk to Kevin about what had happened and said that I had no reason to do that. She said that she thought it was really vindictive and petty of me, and now because of me, she hadn’t even been able to speak to Kevin properly for the past couple of days because he refused to talk to her or entertain any discussion with her until she agreed to go to therapy. Every time she tried to talk to him and explain herself, he would just end the discussion or walk away from it, or it would inevitably end up in a fight, and she was getting sick of it. She also felt that he had gotten sick of her as well and had started actively avoiding her by coming back home as late as possible just so that he wouldn’t have to interact with her after work. Personally, I really didn’t see anything wrong with what he was doing, and I probably would have acted the same way.

And after she was done venting, I told her none of this was my fault. I refused to be held responsible for something that I hadn’t done and told her that if she had just been a good person, she wouldn’t have had to be worried about her own actions. It was her guilty conscience she was projecting onto me by calling me vindictive, petty, and vengeful and whatnot. Deep down, she knew that she was the one who had messed up, but she was not ready to accept it, so she was trying to make me out to be the bad guy here and pinning the entire blame of the situation on me. I thought that she was going to argue more after that, and she seemed ready to come up with some reply, but all of a sudden she just broke down and started sobbing on my couch. My husband and I were both really surprised because we definitely didn’t expect that. We just stood there awkwardly while she cried because we didn’t even know what to do. It was so unexpected. Eventually, I decided to go and sit beside her but did not console her or say anything. I just sat there beside her and waited for her to calm down a little, and then eventually she started apologizing and told me that I was right and she had realized a while ago that it had been really insensitive and disrespectful of her to say what she had said.

Also, the reason that she had been taking it so hard was because now that Kevin knew the truth, he had decided to put their plans of having a baby on hold indefinitely, and that’s why he wanted her to go to therapy because he thought that the way she had treated her nephew was so heartless, he couldn’t trust her to be a good mother right now. That had really shattered her because she had been totally ready to become a mother and had been looking forward to it ever since she got married, but now it seems quite unlikely to happen anytime soon in the future, and that’s why she’s been so frustrated and angry about everything, and instead of facing the situation, she had been trying to run away from it and to find a scapegoat of sorts. So far, it had been me, but the more she thought about it, the more she failed to find anybody to blame but herself for how things have turned out, and she told me that she was really sorry about everything.

At that point, I didn’t know what to say because I had been expecting another huge fight, but she was apologizing to us now. So eventually my husband and I just looked at each other and told her that we did forgive her, but we really would suggest she get therapy because obviously her behavior in the recent past had been quite unreasonable and disturbing. It really wasn’t like her to act like this, and maybe Kevin did have a point: she was probably not ready to be a mother yet. It was harsh but to the point, and then she cried some more after that, and I finally did console her a little because I felt bad for her. But after that, while she was leaving, I told her that I would still like to stay no contact for a while. I wasn’t over everything that had happened, and I guess she understood that, so she just didn’t say anything about it and told me that she would keep her distance from me. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future if we are ever going to be able to reconcile or not, but for now, I’m content with how things are. I haven’t spoken to my parents since I had my fight with them, and even if I do end up reconciling with my sister, I don’t think I’ll be doing the same with them.

With my parents, it was never a very clear-cut case of a golden child, but they did have a soft spot for Carol always, and they tried to keep it subtle, but over the years, I have picked up on certain things, and I know that according to them, since I’m older, I’m always supposed to make all these sacrifices and do all the forgiving and just be generally more lenient. But I don’t think I’m going to be playing that role anymore. For me, nothing is more important than my family, and by that, I mean my husband and my kids, so if people don’t value them, it means they don’t value me because we are one unit, and I’m not forgiving anybody who has been disrespectful towards my son anytime soon. After his aunt had left, I did tell him that she had apologized for whatever she had said, and now it’s up to my son whether he wants to forgive her or not. He did tell me that it doesn’t bother him whether she apologized or not because he decided that he’s not going to let anything affect him in the first place, so the apology really doesn’t make any difference, and he’s fine with whatever. I think that’s a nice and chill way to go about it, but he’s still young, so I don’t know how long he’ll feel that way.

Son’s Progress and Future Hope

Hey, so there’s been a huge development, and I’ve been sharing it everywhere, so I decided to share it here as well. It’s been 3 years since I posted my last update, and recently my son has been able to start walking with the help of crutches. He still needs some help getting around, and he’s getting used to moving around without the wheelchair, but he’s getting better slowly but surely. Of course, he still does need the wheelchair when he gets exhausted, but we have been told that we can hope for more progress eventually, and maybe someday soon he’ll be able to walk again without any help. It is a really exciting time for our family, and we are overjoyed.

Carol and I are not exactly in touch constantly like we used to be earlier, but we do speak sometimes. Like recently, I did reach out to her to congratulate her on the baby, and a couple of weeks ago, she reached out to congratulate me on the progress that my son had made when I shared it on social media. Yeah, she finally had a baby with Kevin. They had been in counseling and were gradually able to work things out. Things are not the same between us anymore, but she has apologized to both me and my son, and maybe someday we will be able to go back to how we used to be, but this works for now. My parents and I are still not on talking terms, and I’m totally fine with that. I’m happy with my life, and now that my son’s getting better, I’m even happier than before.