So upset by elopement

[Jaffacakedigestive]

I found out today my DSis eloped at the weekend & married the father of her children. I'm so so upset. Not by her wedding, people can have whatever wedding they choose, but by the fact she never told anyone? My poor mum does so much for her & we all speak daily. I thought we were close but obviously not and I feel like all the trust has gone.
AIBU to be hurt?

Because they didn’t want the exact response you’ve been having all over this thread — your complete inability to understand that it’s not about you! and that it’s not your place to situate it as some kind of ‘trust test’!

In an otherwise good relationship, you really shouldn't make this about you. Feel your feelings but don't let it ruin your relationship with your sister. There are probably some very good reasons they decided to get married the way they did.

Agreed. The OP’s sister didn’t trust her not to reorient the entire event as being all about her, and she appears to have been right. Better to have the low-key wedding you want, uninfected with drama, disappointment etc, and deal with the consequences later.

Or you do what DH and I did and not tell anyone for years, after which it leaked out because DH forgot we hadn’t told anyone in our home country — people find it more difficult to get outraged about not being told about something that happened seven years earlier.

YABU
You seem to have taken a very extreme position. I don’t follow that just because she chose to do a no fuss legal partnership with her now husband that she can never be trusted?
what she did was about her and her partner. Why should she have to consider you? Does everyone in your life have to run their decisions past you for your approval?
id like to think i would be very happy for my sister if she chose to do this and would not make it all about me. She has not betrayed you - she is living her life as she wants to.

I know a few people have done it. Mostly when they are established couples with children and it has often been done for legal or tax purposes and they don’t want a fuss.Have you asked her why they did it that way? If you want, why don’t you offer to throw a party for them and celebrate that way?

“Could’ve helped and supported them with excitedly”.

How arrogant to assume they need your excited help, that’s probably exactly what they didn’t want or need.

Do you excitedly support them when they get an ISA or update their wills? Does it “sting” when they make other decisions that only actually affect their own household, or just the ones society has told you that you deserve to be fed and watered at?

Everyone has an opinion on weddings and frankly, it’s fucking boring. No wonder everyone is just going off and doing it.

She probably trusted you enough to think you’d react to her lovely news with love and support.

Can she trust you to love and support her unconditionally?

Your sister would probably be more upset than you if she knew you had put the whole story out in here for us, the public, to view .

“Her own mother” has always told you to just go away and do it. Yet now you’re trying to stir the shit because that blessing to go and do it as you want apparently comes with strings attached?

Grow up

Exactly!

I can see why the sister eloped tbh.

My Uncle did this, my Dad was very hurt that my uncle had not trusted him enough to tell him. I wanted to elope too - but I knew my Dad would be gutted so we did tell people but we invited no one and that has still come back to bite me by my sister who said she’d never forgive me. Ironically it was her demanding and controlling nature that made me want a family free wedding. I have no regrets and I have told my sister this - she can feel whatever she wants about it I literally do not care, we got the day that suited us - our life, our marriage. Call me selfish - I don’t give a fuck!😁

Confused as to why people think I should be organising a family celebration/meal when she obviously didn't want one?

Did she invite you to the solicitors when she signed the deeds for her house? Were you at the registrars office when she registered the births of her children? Did you all gather round when she signed her Wills and Powers of Attorney?

Eloping to get married is just a legal arrangement like all of the above, which I presume you haven’t been devastated to miss.

If she invited some people and left you out then I think that’s reasonable to be upset, but she’s just gone and signed a legal contract with her now husband - nothing more. I presume she didn’t tell you before as you would have been upset and she might have give in and invited you, which she didn’t want.

FWIW My brother and sister in law did something similar 53 years ago and they are still together. 2 children in the 40's and 2 lovely grandchildren.
They did it because of religious reasons but my late parents never forgave them viewed my sister in law through gritted teeth.

Well, I assume that’s partly what’s going on here, a kind of petty revenge. ‘You didn’t tell me you were getting married?? The TRUST IS GONE!! I will now try to get people on the internet to agree that you’re awful.’

All this moaning about "decency" and "loss of trust" and "hurt" is really ridiculous. You are her sister. There's no "decency rule" that says that siblings, no matter how "close" they supposedly are, need to be informed about major life decisions before they happen. And you call your mother "poor" because she's done tons of things for your uncallous unfeeling cruel sister who having lived with her partner and had children with him, has the temerity to seal that relationship legally in some sort of low-key ceremony without "informing" her mother. How has this decision affected either you or your mother or your relationship with your sister (other than in your head)? She's not "made a major life decision" here. That's already been done when she decided to have children with her now-husband. They've just decided to make their relationship legal. They were under no obligation to include anyone else in that ceremony. It's just you and mother feeling excluded. Did you or your sister feel the need to inform your mother that you were trying to get pregnant? Do you require her to check in with you before she decides to move somewhere? Really, you're acting like you're about 8 years old: "it's not fair!!!"

Okay, each to their own. Personally I can think of little worse than a sibling or family member at an event such as giving birth.

The wonderful thing about being an adult is that we can choose how we live our lives. Maybe she sees the wedding as a chance to redefine boundaries, it being about her immediate family - her husband, children and herself. Your views and wishes along with your mothers are secondary in this as she is presumably a fully functioning adult.

Yeah, with every post from the OP, it's increasingly clear why the sister didn't want the OP or her mum getting involved. The "I'm so so upset", "I can't trust her anymore", "how could she do it to her own mother" and "her poor mum does so much for her". Oh and of course the act of putting it on a major social networking site where it could be picked up by a tabloid newspaper and splashed to the world. Yes, genuinely confusing why the sister didn't tell them and decided to keep part of her life private.

My goodness.. this is all about you, isn't it.

Explain why her living her life is a betrayal of your trust?
Good grief woman, have you never had something that you just wanted to keep for yourself. Something that was huge in your life and was no one elses issue that you could hug to yourself until you chose to surprise people.

It may be time to take stock of where you end and she begins. You may be close but you aren't joined at the hip.

This 100%

If I was getting married quietly with no fuss and no family invited, I think I’d tell everyone after the event too. If you tell them beforehand then you have a million questions and a lot of excitement and opinions. Relatives would be phoning or messaging you on the day. That’s the very opposite of quietly with no fuss.

Yep that’s what we got - I can’t believe you aren’t inviting mum and dad they must be devastated- every fucking day it was something else. My family are a crowd of people who think their opinion matters and they know the best way to do everything. My wedding day was a day they were not being invited to comment on - seen too many people compromise their day to suit everyone else - it was the one day I refused to allow them to dictate - no matter how well meaning they think they are.

People will say you’re being unreasonable, it’s not about you etc. In the real world families tell each other things and I would be upset too

Forgive me but surely if she’d told people it wouldn’t be elopement ? Wanting to have your wedding the way you want it, without the usual interferences and having to pander to difficult friends and relatives is fine IMO. I wouldn’t have jumped straight to it indicating underhanded behaviour in other ways.

I know it's not about me, which is why I haven't said any of this to her. But when she phones me twice a day to share the absolute minutei of her day every day (whether I want to listen to it or not) it's bloody weird to not mention the fact they've decided to book to go away & get married!