Woman Tells Her Parents They Can't Come To Her Son's Birthday Party Because They Don't Like Her Brother's Wife
“My brother definitely appreciates my support in his own way.”
Drazen Zigic Family dynamics can be incredibly difficult to navigate, and when there's fighting within a family, things only become more complicated. Often stemming from a place of emotion, love, and resentment, family feuds hold the potential to truly damage long-term connections and strain relationships that are supposed to be unconditional.
One woman on Reddit posted the story of her own family's dynamics, which recently devolved from strained to completely toxic.
The woman admitted to ‘banning’ her parents from her son’s birthday party because they despise her brother’s wife.
“So my (30F) little brother is 23 … I will call [him] Blake,” she started her post. “A few months ago, Blake eloped with his girlfriend Shay (19F). Our parents and my three sisters … were LIVID. Like unusually angry.”
As her brother’s older sister, she couldn’t help but feel confused—she didn't understand why everyone was so angry about the surprise marriage.
"I spoke to him, and to me, it seemed like he and his girlfriend loved each other very much and just made the rash decision to elope in Vegas."
“Like yeah, it was a little silly, but I don’t understand why they’re so angry about it,” she continued. “Blake and Shay are a very wholesome and, dare I say, perfect couple. They very obviously love each other, live together, and split the bills; both study very good degrees and have two cats.”
After her 23-year-old brother eloped with his now-wife, his parents stopped inviting her to things — actively isolating them from the family.
“I’ve always said you can’t put a timeline on life. If they wanna do marriage earlier than usual, who cares?” the woman wrote.
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Apparently, their parents do. Despite that sentiment, she admitted their parents have continued to harbor hostility towards Shay, purposefully leaving her off guest lists and referring to her only as Blake's "girlfriend," not wife.
“I’ve tried to tell my parents that they are pushing Blake away, and soon they can expect to never hear from him again, but they don’t seem to care,” she added.
With 15% of adult children admitting their relationships with their parents are “strained or poor,” it’s not surprising that many commenters are wary of this dynamic. Many parents struggle to cultivate healthy relationships with their adult children by overstepping boundaries or failing to provide respect.
When it came time to plan her son's birthday party, the woman decided to invite her brother and his wife, to the chagrin of her parents.
Despite “loving [Shay] before the elopement,” she wrote that her parents' cruel behavior hasn’t settled or gone away, putting her in a bind as she planned for her son’s upcoming birthday party.
“I sent the guest list in a family [group chat] and my parents saw that Shay was invited," she wrote. "They demanded that she be taken off, but I refused. They were acting in a way that made me suspect they were going to make a scene there, so I banned them.”
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Not only was she worried about ruining her son’s birthday with unnecessary family drama, but she was also concerned about sacrificing her bond with her brother. Her parents made the decision to isolate him for getting married, but she refused to make the same mistake.
“They are infuriated. They are threatening to show up anyway and think I have no right to ban them for someone ‘who isn’t part of the family,'" she added. "My parents are demanding an invite and an apology.”
Commenters passionately defended this woman, calling her parents “immature and disrespectful.”
“They clearly didn’t get the memo that children grow up,” one user wrote. “Everyone deserves to have a supportive sibling like you.”
Ultimately, nobody deserves to lose their family over someone they love. While everyone has their own preconceived notions about what marriage, family, or a relationship "should" look like, your family should support you regardless. If they don’t, it’s not worth wasting time and energy trying to convince them to.
Zayda Slabbekoorn is a News & Entertainment Writer at YourTango who focuses on health & wellness, social policy, and human interest stories.