Sister’s Wedding

[AKAotherwise]

My sister has chosen her late father’s brother to walk her down the aisle and not our dad who has brought her up since she was 3.

Her dad had addictions and died and she had only sporadic contact with his family. The uncle would turn up at Christmas and birthdays sent by the grandparents who were too upset to see her on these occasions.
She and my dad have got on but she always introduced him as ‘step’.
When she went to university there was an inheritance that was in the uncle’s name so he is clearly a moral person.
My parents and I are so upset and i just don’t want to go. It’s up to her though isn’t it? I can’t sleep I am so upset. Her other half-sister will also be a bridesmaid but I think we should be closer because of our mum and growing up together. Her cousin will be as well but not my dad’s cousin.
Would you be happy?

* You are so privileged to have grown up with both of your parents and need to realise that. You can't understand her feelings.*

^This with bells on.

Try and look at this from her perspective!

It's so true that when you plan a wedding you realise how selfish others really are.

You are completely out of order to think you should have any say in this. I don't know why you would even care - it's her wedding. As for not going to the wedding...well that is just very unkind. And likely to permanently ruin your relationship.
It's up to your dad how he feels, and hopefully he is adult enough to understand her possible reasons and not take it personally.

Your only job, as her half-sister, for her special day is to support her completely understandable decisions.

This isn't about you.

She's not dismissing your father by having someone else walk him down the aisle and it's unhelpful emotive language to use to describe her choices. Your father does not have the right to walk her down the aisle and if he thought he did then he is the one at fault. I really feel sorry for your sister. It's obviously really hard for anyone in the family to hear and respect her and I think this will cause massive resentment unless you can start to do so.

It’s nothing to do with you. You’ve no idea how she feels. I’m assuming she is doing this to honour her dad who can’t be there to walk her down the aisle. Not to hurt your family. She has relatives who exist on the other side of the family. I get it. Sometimes we don’t want to think about that but that’s her business and her right.

My STEP dad has raised me like his own since i was 2. Am i grateful? Of course. Do i call him dad? never. I also "get on" with him. And no he wasn't my choice to walk me down the aisle.

You have no idea how it feels like to grow up without your parent. You are lucky.
But please don't judge your sister. And stop thinking like you and her should feel the same way about people and life. You are not the same. And her way is not "wrong" just because you can't comprehend it.

Trust me, she is trying her best to stay true to herself and not offend anyone at the same time.

I would be mortified and very disappointed if my step sister had made such comments about MY wedding choices.

I think you and your parents are bordering on very dangerous territory as becoming toxic to her. You may not understand her reasons but she certainly does. Even if her dad was an addict, he was still her dad. And now he has passed. So the next best link she feels to him is her uncle. Can you really not see why she might chose him?
And whats your issue with calling your dad 'step'? That's who he is.
I feel threatening not to go to her wedding is just plain wrong.

Omg can never understand why Anyone gets so upset or has such strong opinions on someone else’s bloody wedding - it’s just a ceremony and a day out about the couple - nothing to do with anything else.

You just go and enjoy the day surely as a guest. The drama of it all it’s ridiculous

@AKAotherwise

Genuinely grateful for responses. I will totally go to this wedding but I cannot believe that a man she has known for 3 decades and has raised her and treated her as his own since she was three years old has been dismissed like this.

Has it occurred to you that you may not know the full story? Her experiences and feelings are her own. You obviously can't relate as you haven't had them.

Stop putting your own feelings on her. It's HER day.

You need to learn to be supportive, at the moment you're not at all.

I understand your upset, she didn't feel like a half sister or a step daughter, and she's acting as though her late father's family are as/more important than yours.

However she thought she could rely on and trust your family, the bond of upbringing being so strong. The late father's family must seem so much more tenuous, and she's trying to strengthen it by any means she can.

It's such a shame this has brought up such feelings of rejection. Have you asked her in a non judgemental way why she is doing it?

She and my dad have got on but she always introduced him as ‘step’.

This is the crux of it. You, and your parents, want her to think of your dad as her dad. She doesn’t. She doesn’t seem to dislike or resent him - she just sees him as her mum’s husband, who she gets on with.

It is telling that you dislike her referring to her stepdad as such, and also refer to her as your sister, whilst referring to her father’s other daughter as her half-sister. It’s okay to qualify that relationship on her father’s side, but you see yourself as a sister with no half - and your dad as a dad with no step.

Your family’s response to your sister’s choice is tears, threats of non-attendance and dramatic statements about crying yourself to sleep over it all. Not once do you seem to have thought about what your sister wants. Has it ever occurred to you that maybe threatening not to attend her wedding because you don’t like your family’s roles in it is exactly the kind of action that might make her feel like the second-best stepdaughter?

For people asking about this sentence:

When she went to university there was an inheritance that was in the uncle’s name so he is clearly a moral person.

This is only how I’m reading it, but to me, there is an unsaid follow-up here. ‘He is clearly a moral person... so why won’t he do the right thing now and step aside and let MY dad give MY sister away?!’

Because let’s face it - Me, My and Mine are the words and priorities that come through loud and clear here. Which might explain why the OP has only made one brief follow-up post - because she didn’t quite get the ‘OMG your poor dad!!! ’ responses she was expecting.

@picklemewalnuts

I understand your upset, she didn't feel like a half sister or a step daughter, and she's acting as though her late father's family are as/more important than yours.

However she thought she could rely on and trust your family, the bond of upbringing being so strong. The late father's family must seem so much more tenuous, and she's trying to strengthen it by any means she can.

It's such a shame this has brought up such feelings of rejection. Have you asked her in a non judgemental way why she is doing it?

I think this is one theory, that could be true, but I don't think it's a given that it's anything to do with subconsciously seeking approval. For many people that lose their parents, weddings throw up a lot of feelings on the subject, because it's a right of passage for them to be involved there. Completely aside from how strong her relationship with OPs family is or isn't, this girl has likely thought about her biological dad a lot growing up, and simply wanted to focus on honouring him in terms of who walks her down the aisle.

@AKAotherwise

Genuinely grateful for responses. I will totally go to this wedding but I cannot believe that a man she has known for 3 decades and has raised her and treated her as his own since she was three years old has been dismissed like this.

She's not dismissing anyone, she clearly wants her uncle to walk her down the aisle to honour her dead father. Have a bit of compassion and understanding fgs, you were lucky to have your dad around for all your life

@IceCreamAndCandyfloss

Very easy to look at a situation from your own point of view. Many children don’t have the same view of a relationship that the parents or half siblings do.

She shouldn’t have to choose someone unrelated to her to play an important role in her wedding just because her parent chose to be in a relationship with them.

He's not just 'someone unrelated' though, is he? He's the person who actually did the parenting, who put in the dad work. Makes him dad in my book. And it's depressing to see how many posters don't value that at all.

As most people have said, it's her choice and you have to go with it. I do wonder though how she'd feel if your dad, her stepdad, stopped behaving like a dad, didn't come to birthday gatherings, didn't plan to leave her any part of his assets, because she's 'not his daughter'. I bet she wouldn't feel happy about that.

Sorry OP but with the greatest respect, it's not your wedding. Nor is it your dad's.
Although it's hurtful to him, and by default you, it will be hurtful and cause even more of a divide if you don't go.
I am not having my dad walk me down the aisle, in fact none of my family are invited as we are NC. So I asked a very good friend to walk me down the aisle.
I didn't want to pick between my elder nephew's on DPs side or his bro in laws or brothers either. So mate it was.
When it's your wedding, you can choose.

Wanting connection to biological links for her wedding is not dismissing the man that raised her. There are two seperate relationships and love for one doesn't take away from the other. If she was "dismissing" your dad he wouldn't even have an invite. Clearly she views him as family, just not quite in the way you think she should. That is your issue, not her issue.

My cousin did a similar thing at her wedding, not choosing step-father to walk her down the aisle. Her mother tried to interfere and it all got pretty heated! Everyone ended up suffering; my cousin, her mother, her step-father, the replacement aisle-walker...
In hindsight it would have been much better if they had all just respected her decision. It's her day after all!

I cannot believe that a man she has known for 3 decades and has raised her and treated her as his own since she was three years old has been dismissed like this

Maybe she is sick of your family trope that she is meant to be grateful for being "taken on" by her stepfather, and your dismissal of her actual family background and her relationships?
You refer to your dad as "our dad", he's not her father. Leave her alone to have her own relationships as she wants!

Your parents threatening not to go to her wedding because she chose her uncle says a lot more than you realise. How horrible and controlling of them.

@AKAotherwise

Genuinely grateful for responses. I will totally go to this wedding but I cannot believe that a man she has known for 3 decades and has raised her and treated her as his own since she was three years old has been dismissed like this.

Should you still be reading. You have to let go of that! It will only hurt you more in the long run! Look how you are still communicating about it

this wedding - not her wedding, mys sister's wedding this wedding

All that rasied her, treated her like his own. That's great, she was lucky to have him as a step dad. But she had a dad of her own and wants to cherish him at her wedding!

Dismissed? Has she told him he can't attend the wedding? That she hates him? You, and possiby your mum and dad, seem to be looking for an excuse to berate her.

You are her sister. Your mum is her mother. How could you treat her like this? You are making her an outsider, pushing her away - in your minds if not out loud in real life.

Is that what you want?

Does she have to do what you think is right in order for you to love her?

Just stop!

He's not just 'someone unrelated' though, is he? He's the person who actually did the parenting, who put in the dad work. Makes him dad in my book. And it's depressing to see how many posters don't value that at all.

As most people have said, it's her choice and you have to go with it. I do wonder though how she'd feel if your dad, her stepdad, stopped behaving like a dad, didn't come to birthday gatherings, didn't plan to leave her any part of his assets, because she's 'not his daughter'. I bet she wouldn't feel happy about that.

@PullTheBricksDown
We don’t know what kind of parenting he did... All we know is that his step-daughter “got on” with him and has chosen someone else to walk her down the aisle.

Given the OP’s tone and sneeriness toward her sister’s family and choices it’s quite possible the grudge grew up as the abject outsider in that family. She has never called him Dad or referred to him as Dad - that’s very telling.

If the step-dad stopped attending his step-child’s birthday gatherings then that would say far, far more about him than her.

The OP has quite clearly downplayed her sister’s relationship with her Dad’s family given the bride is sufficiently close to have her other half-sister and cousin in the bridal party.

So your half sister isn’t doing her wedding how you want it, and you’re so upset you can’t sleep.

YAB MASSIVELY U

Just because someone raised you does not mean you are close and want them to walk you down the aisle. OP I think you are way out of line getting upset with your half sister for this.