I want some impartial advice on how to build a better relationship with my sister, if it's possible. I'm getting married in summer and I'd really like her to come, but given how she's behaved to me in the past, I want to lay down some firm ground rules.
Background: she's 14 years older than I am so when I was growing up she felt more like a fun young aunt than a sibling. At least, she could be fun. Friends at school used to tell me how lucky I was to have such an amazing sister. She could also be cruel. Sometimes I'd go to sleep over at her flat for a treat and I'd dread the evenings, because by about four p.m. she'd start drinking. By teatime she'd be drunk and telling me what a disappointment I was, how spoilt, how selfish. I was only nine years old the first time I can remember this happening. I would always say I was sorry and ask what I'd done wrong, but she'd just shout and scream that I knew what I'd done and I was a liar. Whenever she said something particularly unkind she'd preface it with, "I'm very good at reading people, so you can't lie to me," or, "I always tell the truth, so I've got to say this." The thing she'd "got to say" was always nasty. The most memorable incident came when I was 14, after our grandma died. I'd been very close to her and I was devastated. My sister was kind and supportive at first, but then she told me our grandma had confided in her on her deathbed that she was so disappointed in me and how spoilt and lazy I'd become. Until now I'd believed my sister, but I knew our grandma too well to think she could ever have said such a thing to or about any of her grandchildren. I realised then that my sister was trying to hurt me by poisoning my memories and making me doubt that Grandma had even liked me. I just didn't understand why.
She is still struggling with alcoholism. The whole family knows about it now. She has a tempestuous relationship with a lot of people, constantly picking fights. It's hard to keep track of who she is and isn't speaking to. It changes all the time. The last time I saw her was at a family funeral in 2017. This is ostensibly because we live hundreds of miles away from each other, but really because I've accepted that she bullied me as a child and would probably try to bully me again given half the chance.
I still don't want to leave her out of a family event like a wedding, but I do want to make it clear that it isn't a stage for whatever drama she's in now, and that the days where she'd tear strips off me and I'd sit there desperately trying to placate her are done. I don't want to tolerate that any more. I just don't know the best way to deal with this - tell her straight and risk an outburst, or wait and see how she behaves on the day? How would others handle it?