If you saw a bridesmaid crying ugly tears (not necessarily happy) what would you think?

[Friko]

So I’m really worried that I am going to look like I am crying sad tears when my sister gets married. And it may look like I don’t approve. I’m not upset at her choice. I’m glad she’s found someone who has made her happy. The wedding is only a month away and I’m getting nervous!

anytime I think about her actual wedding ceremony I get very emotional and sentimental.

We have had a very tough time. My mum was diagnosed with cancer so our childhood and 20s have NOT been carefree. Mums cancer has returned 7 times. Each time one of us had to move in. And we’ve had to help out with finances. We have an amazing light/fun friendship despite it all.

It’s just the end of a chapter. I was always hoping we could share that carefree experience as single, unmarried people but it wasn’t to be. I now it’s going to happen in the next stage in our life. But it’s just sad that this chapter is closing and we never got to right any of the wrongs of you know? Our adolescence is kind of done in a way.

I know these things we wanted to do will happen but it won’t happen the way we had planned/hoped

Could you try to reframe your thinking? How lovely that after the battle you have all been through, your mum will be there at your sisters wedding. Your sister is building her family and perhaps your new BIL can be support for your mum to allow you and your sister to take a break and enjoy a carefree weekend knowing that there is someone there for your mum.

Yes your sisters life may change, eventually as children may come along but this won’t happen straight away.

She’s getting married she isn’t dying! You can still do those things?!

Bloody hell, you’ve had some horrible replies! Ita not like you’re going to be wailing!

I cried watching Harry and Meghans wedding on TV fuck knows why now and I get emotional thinking about DD getting married, and she doesn’t even have a fiancé yet!!!!

Try to cry it out as much as you can before hand, give it lots of thought and process it all as much as you can. Then on the day the adrenalin of the whole thing will probably get you through. Oh, and take a nice hanky.

With respect, you are making this all about you. How you will feel, how you will react, how sad you are (about something unfortunate that happens to lots of people) etc etc etc. Which tells me that those who get the impression that you would be attention seeking by 'sobbing' would be right.

I’m talking about my perspective and the source of my emotions to strangers on the internet. So I am talking about myself 🤷

I wouldn’t think much of it if I saw a bridesmaid but I would gently recommend counselling might help you make your peace with how things have turned out.

It’s completely normal to find comfort in imagining better times when things are hard but reality can never match that and things can’t often be put right. I was a young carer, my dad died at 12 and I left home at 16 so I missed out on travel and feeling carefree too and it felt so unfair. Therapy really helped me to accept how the chips fell and feel less sad about it all.

EDIT: posted prematurely!

I can control myself enough to not ugly-cry when it's not appropriate, especially when it would make me look like a dick and mar someone's special day.

I think you may be over romanticising about your early 20s and plans. It's impossible to know what life would have been like without caring for your mum, and naturally you're probably imagining a better life than you would have had.

I see where you are coming from. Try to get it all out before the wedding, and enjoy the day as a celebration for your sister and her husband.

I would have thought that crying at a sisters wedding is fine. What do you mean by ugly tears?!

With respect, because your sister chose a different path.
You need to accept that she wanted different things.

Why would you be crying sad tears

it’s a wedding. Be happy for her. She has found love

sounds like you need to broaden your horizons a bit

My husband’s sister cried (sobbed, bellowed, etc, I can hardly overstate how extreme it was) like she was at his funeral, and she likes me. It was so so so embarrassing. Please try not to. 😬

I think you can and must control yourself here OP.

You can choose to see it as mourning an experience that's lost (apparently), and worry about crying ugly tears.

Or you can choose not to.

It's up to you. You speak with such finality, as though something has been lost forever. It hasn't, or at least not in a way that every person on the planet doesn't experience. We can none of us go back to our youth, and many many many of us regret or mourn serious things that have happened to us - and none of us can go back in time.

Que sera, sera. You can dwell on it, get a bit tipsy and ugly cry and be morose. Or you can choose not to - you can choose to look forward.

It sounds like you’ve (both) been through a tremendous amount. I absolutely don’t blame you for being sad.
That said, try to persevere, and give your sister a wonderful day. You two are obviously close, so I can imagine a lot of feelings will come up for you.
However, there are some great breathing techniques that help with keeping calm. As someone who cries easily, I have found some techniques that stop me from sobbing uncontrollably, at moments I would rather not.
Deep breathe, concentrate on breathing through your nose, and hold your gaze up. Look on YouTube for guided breathing techniques.

Is it possible they might be better?

I echo pp about seeking therapy so you have space and support to come to terms with your Mum's many years of illness and possible death, and the effect it has on you. You'll then be far less likely to 'cry ugly tears' at a public event in someone else's honour.

You also seem to have very fixed ideas about experiences that you feel you were entitled to, that you and your sister missed out on. That'd be worth exploring too, as very little in life is ours by right, and holding on to some imagined life lost will keep you stuck.

How long has your sister been with her fiancé? Assuming it’s at least a couple of years if they are now getting married. Surely these changes happened when she first got in a relationship with him, her getting married isn’t really going to be any different to the whole time she’s been with him, surely?
Im sure you’ll still be able to go on girls weekends away with her and have fun with her, she’s not moving to the other side of the world. And if you think her getting married is bad, just wait until she has a baby!

I’m not sure why people are being so knobbish about this OP I think I get what you mean. You got through tough times by picturing a kind of delayed carefree fun teenage time with the two of you doing things you couldn’t do when you were that age. Getting drunk/going on hol/dating/maybe house sharing or whatever. But she’s now settling down and you’re realising that you’ll never do that stuff with her.

Well two things - one is that if she’s your first person to get married it’s hard to believe but married people do actually stay young, sometimes it feels like such a grown up thing that they’ll suddenly overnight become too sensible. Book one of those weekends away in now before she has any kids. And the second is that you can still do those fun single people things, just with your own friends and report it all back to her. You’ll be ok. At the wedding try to concentrate on the joyful facts eg that your mum is there to celebrate with you both.

And, my mum passed 18 months ago. My sister now has terminal cancer. If my niece was to marry I still wouldn’t cry ugly tears. Don’t make the day about you. Cry ugly tears to your friends, who are the family we choose

Honestly, it does seem a bit weird and (sorry) self centred that your dominant feeling about your sister getting married is sadness that you’ll never have certain experiences as single girls together. It’s also quite a negative perspective.

Shouldn’t your dominant feeling be happiness for her? Especially as you’ve both had a rough few years. Doesn’t that happiness override any sadness about things you’ll now never do as singles? I would hope so?

If you saw a bridesmaid crying ugly tears (not necessarily happy) what would you think?

I’d think poor bride. Please control yourself and don’t do it to her.

Keep yourself in the background as much as possible.

I was 16 when my sister got married and I was happy for her but also sad in some way, as though she was “leaving” our family, changing her name etc. She’d also recently had a baby and her role in my life shifted from decade older sister/mother figure to being a mother of her own baby.

My sister cried at my wedding last year, possibly because she felt the same way, or maybe the occasion just got to her. It probably didn’t help that her marriage had recently ended, and I’d recently had a baby. It’s like we’re passing ships - just as that chapter of her life ended (marriage, children now older) I was starting out with a baby and marriage of my own.

No one judged me and no one judged her.

I think the ‘occasion’ builds it up to be more than it is. Your relationship with your sister won’t change. Unless you were planning on weekends away where you shag random blokes, her being married and you being in a relationship won’t change your experience. You say you’ve never had a weekend away, get one booked in. There’s nothing stopping you!

Is your sister being forced into this marriage - as all you write about is doom and gloom, unable to do this that and the next thing.

Do not make your sister's very special day about you - in any single way.

You do not have to be a bridesmaid if you can't cope.