To exclude sibling from wedding due to their lifestyle choice?

[Salitnan]

This will be incredibly identifying to anyone who knows my family and quite controversial but it’s such a bloody niche situation that nobody can relate to and it’s hugely stressing me out. I’m not writing this as ragebait or to troll, it is a genuine situation I am dealing with.

I’m getting married next year. My partner of 5 years is from a very traditional, right-wing Eastern European country. My partner however is very tolerant and chill, as are most of his immediate family who also live in Western countries.

We’ve decided to get married in his home country, as it’s very affordable there and we can have a beautiful package in an area of outstanding natural beauty, and he can invite his dear godparents who he adores (and they adore him) who are scared of flying.

This is all well and good but one of my family members is presenting an issue. My brother (who is an adult in their mid-20s) has a learning disability. This is not a problem, but in the past year they have come out as transgender. This has been a massive struggle for us as there were no signs previously and it came out of nowhere, and they have insisted they are going ahead with the transition and they self-harm if anyone misgenders them or politely reminds them of etiquette in public places regarding toilets, or wearing appropriate clothing for a social situation etc. It has been extremely hard work for my aging parents, he lives with them full time. The learning disability alongside being transgender makes them massively vulnerable and they get stared at in public and often started on when in the city centre by lads, and they aren’t aware of their vulnerability. They insist on dressing incredibly provocatively (wig and heels, provocative clothes) as they say they feel insecure otherwise, and when I have tried to explain to them that women don’t necessarily dress like that, they self-harm. They insult people in public, not to their face, they will say it to my mum (will whisper in her ear “he looks like a twat”), but sometimes people have overheard and started on him and my mum has had to explain about his disability and fend them off.

I’m already in therapy to deal with complex feelings towards them from how they dominate my parents lives and how I felt neglected as a child due to the focus on them and their vulnerabilities. The recent coming out as transgender has brought up a lot of old resentment I had towards him which I had buried, and I’m trying to have the therapy so that I can have a bond with him going forward, but I can’t help but feel a sort of anger at him, and I hate myself for it.

Back onto the wedding topic - I’ve realised I simply don’t want them at the wedding. My fiancé’s family are nice people and wouldn’t be a danger to my brother but many of my fiancé’s extended family members are from a small isolated village in a Catholic Eastern European country and he will be stared at like a hawk, whispered about. To he quite frank he will stick out like a sore thumb with his clothes and hair. As awful as it sounds I will be embarrassed by him and on edge, and won’t be able to enjoy my day. My partner says he’ll notify everyone in advance that my brother will be there and what to expect but I just really can’t be doing with the stress of it all. It’s not just family it’s the the staff in the hotel, other members of the public around who might be drinking, and they will need to stay in the country a few days around the ceremony so lots of opportunity for things to go wrong. They have severe social anxiety due to their learning disability and have been known to sneak alcohol as a way to deal with this and this further increases their vulnerability as they lose their filter and say their mind in front of people.

I did try to compromise and said to my mum I’d be happy to have them if if they would be willing to tone down their dress in order to come to the wedding - dropping the wig and toning down their clothes, but they have become angry at this suggestion and have refused.

I’ve told my mum it may be the case that I can’t invite them, and therefore my parents can’t come either as they are his carers. My mum says she understands and we can have a do later on back in the UK.

I just want my day to not be dominated by him. I also don’t want to have to change the wedding plans that me and my partner are happy with just to suit him. Am I an awful person?

So you're saying that if someone has a learning disability, we can't risk assess them and take steps to avoid them if they present a credible risk of harm?

Having a protected characteristic doesn't mean the person's behaviour has to be tolerated, no matter what. It doesn't give someone the legal right to behave abusively or in a threatening way, and for it to be discrimination if it isn't tolerated.

Your attitude is, frankly, dangerous, and I really hope that the OP doesn't take your posts to heart.

It must be hard when you're losing the argument.

Very worthwhile contribution .

No. Not tolerated, managed. Unless we go back decades and lock 'em away?

I never ever suggested that anyone was at risk of an atrocity.

That's a twisted fucked headed move to uphold your bullshit narrative.

The OPs parents are being abused and the brother needs an intervention with his violent behaviour.

But you are trying to make out I have prejudice rather than can recognise that all parties need help and support to stop matters spiralling.

My point is that virtue signalling acrobatics from people like you claiming to protect are doing more harm than good to the very people who need an early intervention and help to prevent situations where you end up with the OPs brother ending up in a much worse situation.

But you know this. You just think pushing your virtue signalling is more important.

Lalala

The ad homenium attacks are not being made by me.

How do you manage a large adult male who is laying his hands on a woman?

As for locking someone away - unfortunately, this has had to happen when it's been shown that someone has no understanding of the impact of their actions upon others.

I really don't understand why some are so keen for the brother to attend this wedding, with the likelihood that he will behave badly or be downright violent. Can you imagine in years to come, guests aren't taking about how beautiful the bride was, how happy they both were, what a lovely speech from the groom instead they remember her brother behaving appallingly. I know this won't happen as he won't be attending, but is that what some want?

Again, you are twisting peoples words (in a deliberately dishonest way IMO), in order to try to manipulate the narrative.

I think you have 1. No experience of trying to deal with a violent man, and 2. No understanding of what discrimination and safeguarding actually mean. 3. A total lack of empathy for the OP and the situation she is in.

Certainly, the way you have repeatedly minimized the threatening behaviour of this man makes me hope the OP pays your posts the attention they deserve- that is, none.

This an awful situation op. You're not unreasonable in the slightest, id not want them at my wedding either let alone the whole Eastern European element too. With the alcohol he'd be a liability and he shouldn't be invading womens toilets spaces inside or outside of the uk. Disability aside, your brother is an AGP

And how do you propose to manage someone who is a danger to himself and others? Please enlighten us all because I’m sure you have all the answers

If someone has capacity mentally and they commit a violent attack they have commited a crime and can be jailed for it. Threats to kill are a crime.

If he doesn't have capacity but is threatening to kill he is still demonstrating a threat to public safety in legal and care terms.

The 'locking away' isn't something I would want - but there are duties of care and criminal conduct considerations which are already in play.

His LD is not irrelevant. It just means he would be dealt with in a different manner depending on his capacity. If he doesn't have capacity he doesn't have the ability to decide he's trans though and definitely shouldnt be treated like that with that in mind and considerations should be given to controlling his internet access whether he likes it or not.

Sometimes caring for someone involves a situation which they don't like but is better in the long term than the alternative of allowing the issue to spiral and fester.

Yes. There was a specific case in our area where someone with a learning disability committed a terrible crime, but received a light sentence because of their previous unblemished record and youth. (However, there had been warning signs.)

On release, they committed the same crime against another person. This time the reports stated that they had no understanding of the impact of their actions and they were locked up in a facility for the criminally insane. They are unlikely to be released.

Fwiw the way the police treat people with learning disabilities and mental health problems are utterly appalling. It is likely if he makes threats to kill again he is liable to get arrested pending an assessment of his capacity. This alone is a situation he will really want to avoid. He can not do it.

There is every chance, given everything he would be deemed to have capacity and this is the assumption you have to go on as the default unless there is already an order in place about his lack of capacity (his parents would be receiving his PIP payments not him).

Threats to kill carry a maximum custodial sentence of ten years.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Vict/24-25/100/section/16

Why should a person who has a learning disability be allowed to commit a criminal act without institutional intervention?

There is still a victim who has been affected and there is still behaviour that needs to be addressed.

The choices at this point are criminal detention, mental health detention or further ongoing intervention which acknowledge that the current behaviour has crossed a line of acceptability which puts others at risk.

Doing nothing and virtue signalling should not be considered an option, as the behaviour will only repeat.

"it was only a butter knife" doesn't cut the mustard in this situation.

It's a form of denial which is harming the vulnerable person concerned.

There's a lot on this thread, so I haven't read all of it, but reading between the lines, the parents here sound a lot like my mum, in the way she dismally failed to deal properly with my mentally-ill sister.

I suspect the parents are too ashamed to ask for help, and are just struggling to deal with everything themselves, which means that care and help for the brother that could help him live a better life isn't happening. This is certainly what happened with my sister, who went undiagnosed and unassisted for a very long time, until she completely spiralled out of control. My mum was absolutely insistent on bringing her everywhere, which made both my wedding and my graduation absolutely buttock-clenchingly stressful, because she was so unpredictable, and prone to violent outbursts. She couldn't help it, and wasn't getting the help she needed (thankfully she's getting it now), but that didn't make anything any easier for me. Like the OP, I was neglected while my parents constantly crisis-managed whatever mess my sister managed to get into.

Now I have a choice in the matter, and I'm old enough to be assertive about it, and my manipulative and over-emotional mum has passed away, I'm no-contact with my sister, and I would have done it a lot earlier if I hadn't felt so pressured to grin and pretend we were a happy family. It's not ableist to say "I can't be around this person, and I'm not happy with the risks they present". If someone genuinely can't control their behaviour in social settings, and runs a risk of being violent or confrontational, it's perfectly reasonable to want to exclude them.

It also sounds to me like the parents haven't done anywhere near enough to challenge the brother's behaviour, and he's bullied them into submission. Sometimes, poor behaviour goes unchallenged, and all that subsequently happens is it escalates, and it can get a lot worse. When I was a teenager, there was a boy in my church youth group who clearly had a lot of mental health issues, which seemed to have been undiagnosed. He was desperate to be the centre of attention all the time, and would make up all sorts of tall tales. It was clear he had a lot of issues and often demonstrated inappropriate behaviour, but because the church leadership were keen to be accepting and kind, they never challenged it. As he got older, it got far worse, and he's done some very, very creepy things, including stalking mutual female friends, and got into a lot of trouble for sending inappropriate texts to a teenage girl. In the light of this knowledge, I don't want anything to do with him any more, and I'm angry that no-one ever said to him, "FGS, just stop being weird". Letting him get away with it all, with no consequences, was a terrible thing to do.

Oh you poor love and your parents too. Absolutely YANBU to say he can't attend the wedding. He'll ruin it .

'I never ever suggested that anyone was at risk of an atrocity'

You kind of did

'The inquiry found that there was an institutional problem that didn't just apply to the perp in the Southport case. It was an observation that at an institutional level risk assessments were not being done properly for fear of offensive and being accused of being prejudiced. This is the exact same mistake as being demonstrated on this thread.'

'The same mistake as being demonstrated on this thread'. You likened the situations. You could've chosen any crime and compared but you chose one where an actual violent offender committed an atrocity. If you don't think Southport is relevant why say it is, then say it isn't?

If I had a disabled db and was in 2 minds about inviting him to my wedding so sort opinions I'd be much more disturbed by your demonisation than I would be by someone like me saying 'oh come on, choose somewhere your parents and db can attend'.

Sometimes that management means excluding them from situations that they can't deal with.

This is a horribly difficult situation OP, I’m so sorry.

I think I’d have a small wedding in the UK and not invite your brother.

I don’t think I’d want to get married in the right wing Catholic country (I am from a Catholic background / ethnicity myself) and I also wouldn’t want my brother to be there in his provocative clothing, if he would drink alcohol and say inappropriate things. Not because he had learning difficulties but because he’s just in a bad space right now.

I would keep the wedding small to make this seem less of an exclusion.

@Gloriia

do you think OP should have her brother move in with her and look after him herself when her parents are no longer able to?

Again, the OP is quite specific about the sort of wedding she wants. Why is she not allowed to have that? If it's a big Catholic do that's her choice.

If there's no Balkans wedding at all, then the OP's husband-to-be loses out.

There is a vast difference between 'extremely right wing' and small 'c' conservatism. A great deal of Europe is Catholic or Orthodox Christian. This hardly equates with Hitler, Franco or Mussolini and conflating them is only diluting the real seriousness of the former. It actually leaves people, particularly
vulnerable people, more exposed to its excesses.

As for the suggestion that the location is only desirable because it's 'instagrammable', this is about the least 'bridezilla' wedding thread I've read on MN. The family of OP's future DH lives in that country. It's an entirely understandable choice. I do agree that adult social services are a good idea, but given the manipulative behaviour OP describes I suspect it's one that won't get off the starting block.

The rest of this post is a general reply, not relating to this particular PP. The snide insinuation elsewhere that OP 'doesn't like' her sibling - as if there's a law against that - might have been disarmed when OP frankly admitted it to be true. And why would she? Her sibling has ruled her household for her entire life, which she's had to spend taking a backseat to his wants and needs whilst she receives a lesser portion of parental attention. If they're being honest, most siblings would resent that.

DM may well have chosen to prioritise her disabled child, and having lived by this choice is unlikely now to change her approach. This doesn't mean OP also has to be bound by it. Decisions have consequences, and a consequence of continuing in this vein are that she won't be able to attend her daughter's wedding. She can choose to prioritise her attendance, or make the decision not to. But either way this has to be her call.