I’m not using an alt account because uh, well i’m not. Brother, if you know my reddit user name and follow me… eat your heart out.
My brother announced earlier this year that he was getting married. I was incredibly excited for him and honestly it has been a long time coming. I still am excited for him, and he and his fiancée are a great couple.
For a bit of context, my brother and I come from a pretty close knit extended family, and we have been close with our cousins for as long as we can remember. We are also among the last of “the grand kids” to be getting married. For the last 15 years (since 2011), every sibling has been a part of every wedding party in every wedding in our family. My brother and I have always been reasonably close, not like super duper close, but we talk to eachother regularly, play dnd together online once a week and we both make an effort to keep in touch and talk about life. He is definitely more extroverted than i am, and i have always been more awkward than he is. He has also repeatedly brought up being in my wedding party when I get married for the past 15 years- to the point he would be offended if I even considered not making him a “best man” or “just a bridesman”. Prior to yesterday, it never even occurred to me that we wouldn’t be in eachothers wedding parties.
So yesterday, brother calls me and says he wants me to “do a reading” during the ceremony, because he “wants to include me” in the ceremony. A reading. A damned reading. My presence in his wedding party apparently is negotiable. Its not even like it is a traditional wedding, its in a park and a friend of the fiancée will be officiating- not clergy.
At this point i am livid, I feel betrayed… but I also have mixed feelings.
I understand that it is my brother and his fiancée’s wedding, that they deserve to have the ceremony that they want and give people the roles that they want to give them. But at the same time, he doesn’t want me by his side on his special day. He doesn’t want me in his wedding party pictures. I will be the first sibling in our entire extended family to be excluded from the wedding party. Apparently our relationship means a lot less to him than I thought it did… a lot less to him than it did to me.
Again, I know its “not about me.” Its his wedding and I do respect that. I will do this reading with grace and play any role he asks of me. I will do everything in my power to make his special day wonderful. But… if im not important enough to him to be with him on his special day, than he isn’t important enough to be a part of my life. All choices have consequences, and while I will support any choice he makes… the cost of this particular choice will likely be our familial relationship. I am basically at the point where I am done with him and our relationship will be nothing more than merely cordial from here on out.
My mother is useless. She just keeps repeating, “you should be honored you were asked to do a reading.” But honor, stems from family tradition and obligation and it cuts both ways. I am looking to be the first sibling excluded from a wedding party in the last 15 years. Why should I be the one bound by honor and duty and not anyone else. Don’t get me wrong, I do not typically stan tradition, but the hippocrisy of only applying duty and honor to me is infuriating.
Where it gets complicated, is i feel like my brother deserves to know that if he goes forward with this… it will be at the cost of our relationship. But at the same time if I am only included in the wedding because he feels forced to, that is potentially even more damaging to our relationship. Its something that needed to be organic and i run a huge risk as just coming across as trying to force my way into a wedding party. I want to save our relationship, but I don’t know how, and I can’t move past his decision to exclude me (read: included in an incredibly sidelined way) from one of the most important days of his life. How can I broach this with him and not poison the well more than it already has been?
I need help processing this, figuring out how to navigate this effectively, and reach acceptance of being left out of my brother’s special day.
Tl;dr
Brother doesnt want me in his wedding party. I am trying to deal with our relationship apparently meaning a lot less to him than I thought it did and the relationship meant to me.
Comments
Is there a wedding party?