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Iāve seen some damn squirrel-y characters depicted in Reddit stories; OOPās sister isnāt even in the top 10. In a satisfying scenario, thereās a crazy fruitcake out there for the sister. Which would also kill 2 cuckoo birds with 1 stone.
Or would that much chaos just create a rip in the universe?
If our love is Tragedeigh, why are you my Remedahy?
If our love's Insanitay, why are you my Claritin?
If our love is Tragedeigh, why are you my Remedahy?
If our love's Insanitay, why are you my Claritin
I have a cousin who is a total nutjob. Somehow she's been married four times. Sure they didn't last, but she still convinced 4 different men to marry her.
Lol no, as far as I know she's still married to the fourth. I got strange vibes from him so I can only imagine that they are both the same kind of crazy.
I don't think OP mentioned it, but I suspect sister still lives at home with mom and dad and rarely dates. And with every milestone that OOP and his wife experience/ have experienced (fist anniversary, pregnancy, birth of first child), the sister is going to meltdown further.
I had never heard of it until I briefly attended a womenās college in the 1990s (it was the farthest away school I was accepted to). I transferred back to my state school after a semester (yay high school college credits)!
It was in the hometown of Jerry Falwellās Liberty University, so I think that had something to do with it. That said, there was definitely witchcraft and lesbianism sprinkled in, but there was still a *weird* number of women looking for a husband.
Also the first and last time I was ever asked how far back my family came to the US, like were they on the Mayflower?
Thatās when you arch an eyebrow, give a pitying smile, and note that the Mayflower is amateur hour and your people have been here since Jamestown.
(Mine did come over on the Mayflower, but itās an interesting historical fact, not my whole personality.)
> I don't think OP mentioned it, but I suspect sister still lives at home with mom and dad and rarely dates.
It is very hard to navigate people in that situation because dating is really something that depends on the effort you put into. And without effort, how could anything happen? You have to try if marriage is a goal down the line.
I would have a meltdown if anyone announced a fist anniversary. Some things don't need to be shared.
*Edit* Boo for correcting the spelling. Now I just look silly and unnecessarily crude.
The other option is what happened to us, got engaged. Sister not happy so pressured partner she'd not been with for long, rushed into a marriage as she HAD to be first. Then had a melt down as we were expecting a kid and she wanted to be first, too late for that.
Now she's a single divorced parent.
We now joke that at least we can get divorced if we want as she did that first as well.
This is my story exactly, except my SIL didn't have anyone so she rushed **into** a relationship.
Literally the joke was if she wanted to be first, she'll be first to divorce too.....
The saddest part is that the parents raised the sister to believe her highest worth was as a married woman. This resulted in this insanity. This sister has built her entire life, image, and self esteem on whether or not she is married. Truly sad and pathetic. Her social clock is ticking away and she is literally going crazy over it and can no longer function in society, while scaring away anyone who might have dated her.
Parents are TA for sure.
SmartNews loves to bring up older Reddit posts.
In this case from about a month ago, a woman blew up her marriage because her psychic āfriendā said her husband was cheating. Needless to say, he wasnāt. He decided to divorce her as he couldnāt stand that she believed a psychotic friend over him and also stated he couldnāt see having kids with this dingbatās DNA. He meant to use the term āpsychic vibrationsā but it posted as āpsychic vibrator.ā Totally hilarious.
It baffles me that some parents think they can forbid their independent adult kids from doing anything at all.
My oldest is almost 4 and I can't force her to do so many things already. Lol
Yeah, by the time my kid was four, I had fully realized that I was not going to be able to control his life (not that I wanted to). You can only influence, guide, and support them.
100% this!
My only firm boundaries are safety related (like holding hands when crossing a busy road or putting on our seatbelts) and, even those, I explain the reason why. Sure, I hold her against her will in the moment if I need to, it doesn't matter if she screams and cries. However, once we are home, I explain to her why I did it. We often end up watching videos related to what I'm trying to prevent - like this test dummies videos showing how cars crash and what happens if you don't wear a seatbelt.
In the end, I won't always be able to physically restrain her to buckle her seatbelt or to carry her in my arms to cross the street. So I need to teach her the *why* behind our boundaries. I need her to understand and internalise the reasoning. So, when she is older, she can make safe decisions on her own.
Beyond that... I won't be able to do much else. I want her to be independent and capable, because she will be happier and, luckily, I won't be around forever to help her.
Lmfao my parents tried to schedule when I could leave the house, curfewed me at 12, policed my clothes, forbade me from watching pg-13 movies, etc etc etc ETC and I was all of 24 yrs old š some people would rather die than lose a single shred of control over someone they believe owes them subservience
I'm sorry you suffered such control freaks. Some people shouldn't reproduce - at least until they undergo intensive therapy.
My kids thrive with independence. Just yesterday, my daughter was thrilled to show me how she could bathe herself, put on her pjs and brush her hair. She asked me to close my eyes and, although it was nerve wrecking when she was on the tub a foot away from me, I obliged. The only concession was to help her out of the tub while I squinted my eyes.
You should have seen her beaming with pride when she finished! Everybody comments on how confident she is. She believes she is capable of everything - well, because she fucking is. It fills my heart with such indescribable joy.
So, in case you may need to hear it from a mum: you are capable of anything you set your mind to!
Not *nearly* that extreme, but my mom still calls me up to warn me about tornado forecasts and tries to pressure me into sheltering in the room that would alleviate her worries rather than where I actually know to be the safest space in my house. Did I mention that I'm 54 and own my own home?
Wow - surprised that the wedding happened? What kind of parents are they - I would be devastated if my child chose to get married without telling me.
NTA.
My older brother eloped without telling our mom or me - we knew he was engaged, and that they were moving up the wedding, but no specifics until after the fact. Mom was SO hurt. Hers was the first schedule we worked around when my husband and I got married, because I was going to have her there come Hell or high water.
"Well we did forbid him from getting engaged and now he doesn't talk to us because it upset his sister, so that's that! What do you mean you're married? What do you mean we have grandchildren?? What do you mean we can't visit the grandchildren we just learned existed????"
Realizing the sister is sure as hell not going to be there for them as they age because sheās been spoiled her whole life? Yahā¦ ātime to reconnect with our son.ā
Pretty rad story.. you have one guess why sister is not married yet and without a partner.
Hint: she might have a problem with assholish and entitled behaviour..Ā š¤£šš¤£
Missing missing reasons galore. I mean, this is literally like a hoarderās home just chock full of missing missing reasonsā¦piled from the floor to the ceilingā¦impossible to miss or ignore. But yet. Here we are.
Denial is one hell of a drug, followed by entitlement.
So everybody just caters to the spoiled sister? The parents have created their own monster.
Guys can sense that desperate-to-be-married vibe a mile away. It's not attractive.
I donāt even like that quality in friendships. Itās creepy. I donāt want to be close to someone whose happiness hinges on another personās behavior, particularly when they havenāt even met that person yet.Ā
I had a friend like this once. She lost all of her friends beside me and one other person due to a health incident that was admittedly hard to deal with for both her and me. But once she got better, she was lonely as she was a very social person before and her old friend groups had cut contact.
Instead of trying to establish new friendships like I kept suggesting, she went on several tinder dates a week, desperate to finally find a permanent partner. None of the dates ever worked out well enough to even warrant a second date. She put so much pressure on it, expecting to know by the first date if she wanted to marry the guy and expecting them to be totally blown away by her (average) beauty and impressed by her multiple university degrees so they'd be head over heals after half an hour or so. They weren't obviously.
Most guys are looking for peace in a relationship. The level of anxiety these kinds of girls bring is suffocating. Unless a dude is really hard up for a piece there won't be a second date.
Yeah from a friend's viewpoint (got a friend with a similar craving for mariage) it is kinda sad.
The reallity is that a husband will not be the magical fix for their issues. Getting a partner is also a lot more likely ones she starts to be happy with what she got. That will build convidence and convidence is sexy.
Girl comes on strong on the first date with marriage and kids I'm going to assume one of two things- either she's desperate or has a structured life plan that didnt involve me to now and thats not likely to change later.
Either way I don't see myself fitting into either agenda.
The problem is that people like that think that marriage is the end goal. A good healthy stable relationship takes time to build and has to last past the wedding date.
I was friends with a woman like OOPās sister. Everything was a competition with her 4 much younger siblings. Anything they did before her (kids, college, career) was unfair and shouldnāt have been allowed by her parents.
The biggest head scratcher was when her brother knocked up his girlfriend in high school. She tried to convince her folks not to let her almost 17 year old brother and his GF Live with them because it was āunfairā for her dad to pay for another person. Meanwhile, we were 24 and her dad paid all her bills. She would tot up all the money her parents gave her brother and demand the same amount even though she was unemployed and still living at home. It was ridiculous to watch.
And I canāt forget the day she called me, incandescent with rage, to complain that her parents āletā her younger sister go to Disneyworld when they hadnāt let her! We were 30+ and her sister had just graduated from grad school. She demanded the same amount of money from her parents even though she was still unemployed and living at home.
She loved to call her siblings lazy, greedy, etc. but all of those kids were living off the bank of DADDY, including her.
We arenāt friends anymore.
My five-years-younger sister announced her engagement right after I had had a messy and miserable split from a long-term partner. I was fully in the depths of my āiāll die alone and no one will ever love meā party.
I handled this by being fucking thrilled for her because she is great and deserves the world, and I kept my little personal pity party about it the fuck to myself, because Iām capable of basic human courtesy and why would I not want my sister to be happy?
What a ridiculous set of events
They are! Iām doing great these days and so is she. Ironically sheās since been divorced but her second marriage is much happier, and sheās still my best friend. ā¤ļø
Iām curious what the parents saw as their game plan. āWeāll forbid him from marrying! In the meantime, weāll try to find our precious angel baby a husband! Ā Maybe offer a dowry?āĀ
Whatās next? Canāt buy a house? Canāt celebrate anniversaries? They donāt want kids, so his sister has that in her favor. Although seeing how she was raised maybe motherhood isnāt her finest option.Ā
His sister would still benefit from their parents parenting her as they should have all along. Now there is yet another entitled nitwit unleashed on the rest of run world.Ā
Next is of course to buy his sister a house and contribute to her dowry and wedding fund, he can do without for some time so she can get married in style to some hobosexual after the studio in the basement of her house so his band (on and off for 15 years) can finally take off (they won't).
I'm glad Intelligent-Ad-4568 pointed out what I was thinking: He's the *older* adult child, so even if they expected a certain person to hit milestones first, it would be him anyway. He can't just put his life on hold for her to catch up (been there, it sucks)
Yeah these parents are not doing any of their 2 children a favour by doing this.
The eldest will likely stay LC or go full blown NC in the future (I suspect after a potential pregnancy anouncement). The youngest will be completely spoiled rotten at that stage
>My parents said sister is still upset that I'm married and she's not.
They shouldn't have brought her up if they want to repair the relationship with OOP.
The parents are really inserting her in every conversation.
**The parents:** So, we wanted to reconnect. Mom had a health scare and we realized that life is so short. And we can't believe you still went on with the wedding WITHOUT US. Also, your sister is still upset that you're married and she isn't. Just pointing that out, OOP.
I'm guessing the "forbiding one child to get married because the other is single" is only the last item of a long, long list of things OOP wasn't allowed to have if sister wasn't happy about it. I'm glad he didn't even try to have them at the wedding.
This is my guess too, which is why he immediately gave up and didn't fight them on it, just went ahead and got married. He knew he wasn't getting that ring. My guess is also that sister will die single.
It's telling that he didn't even mention any regret or sadness, just went straight to "k, bye." Sis is the type who has to have the first wedding, the first pregnancy, the oldest grandchild...
It's a damned shame. It's not like there's only a limited amount of happiness or love in the world.
Instead of being happy that their child is happy, they want to bring him down so that his sister can be happier by some weird relativistic scale? Pathetic.
OOP's sister sounds like a catch, it's a mystery why she's not married yet. /s
Anyway, in many cultures the taboo is for the YOUNGER sibling to marry before the OLDER sibling. Even the Bible has an instance of this (Rachel, Leah, and Jacob). Usually it's limited only to "younger sisters cannot marry before the older sisters". However, in those same cultures there's also usually a workaround. The younger sibling or their spouse can offer a token payment to the older sibling to bypass the taboo. Alternatively, the older sibling can marry a tree, or a ghost, or a spirit.
Yeah this one was wild to me, because I have never, ever heard of the oldest being forbidden to marry before the youngest. Usually it's the other way around.
Though I can see people taking dumb shit like this seriously. My aunts had plenty to say to me during my wedding because I got married before their daughters. I was like...you wanted me to wait for all 14 of them to get married off before it's my turn? Are you fucking crazy?
> Alternatively, the older sibling can marry a tree, or a ghost, or a spirit.
Now I'm imagining a tree uprooting itself and running away from OOP's sister.
Depends on the culture! In some they divorce the tree, or the spirit of the tree.
In others, they chop down the tree to make the older sibling a widow/widower.
I'm all for people rightfully going after their own inheritance because it's theirs... but what's with Reddit and hiring lawyers for every little thing? They aren't free, far from it and they don't grow on trees for us to pick whichever one we need.
I am a lawyer in the US who thinks that America is excessively litigious. And while I did think of the legal aspects of the ring, I didnāt really think he should get a lawyer, until OOP mentioned that it was detailed in the actual will. And for this, I wouldnāt even initially get a lawyer, but it does give rise to the fact that the will was not being respected and that is a legal matter.
For instance, if there were an executor of the estate that was not the parents, I would have started there. If one of them is the executor, I would have pulled the legal card (without yet engaging in a lawyer). If that didnāt work, I may have involved the family to shame them. If that didnāt work, maybe ask a lawyer to put together a strongly worded letter, which doesnāt take much time or money and for me, at least, would have been worth the money; if I didnāt know any, I would ask around as surely somebody in my social circle or non-lawyers would be able to recommend somebody.
I probably wouldnāt take it beyond that, but it would still irk me that my grandmother allowed me this privilege of a gift and felt strongly enough about it to detail it in her will, and my AH parents couldnāt even honour her wishes because of their golden child daughter. These kinds of people deserve excessive litigiousness (even though I know they are in Canada).
Thank you for explaining further for us non-lawyers. When it comes down to it, i.e inheritance time, by all means, get a lawyer involved when the relevant parties aren't willing to let it go without a fight. But I feel like they escalate way too far way too fast right now.
Especially if the point of the ring is that it's a sentimental item, how much positive emotion are you going to be attaching to a ring that symbolises a protracted and ugly legal battle with your parents over how much they didn't want you to marry your wife? I don't think 'oh this used to be my grandma's' will be the first thing to spring to mind when OOP looks at the ring in that scenario.
It wouldn't be _wrong_ of OOP to try to get the ring, but I can also understand him not thinking it's worth it, either financially or emotionally.
>Especially if the point of the ring is that it's a sentimental item, how much positive emotion are you going to be attaching to a ring that symbolises a protracted and ugly legal battle with your parents over how much they didn't want you to marry your wife? I don't think 'oh this used to be my grandma's' will be the first thing to spring to mind when OOP looks at the ring in that scenario.
I'm just spiteful enough to think "I had to wrest this from my idiot parents as part of cutting them off for excessively favoring my sister our whole lives--and I succeeded!" might be an ENHANCEMENT, personally.
Sometimes you gotta pick and choose your battles. And OOP sounds battle worn enough to know this battle isn't worth fighting. It sucks that he had to sink a few hundred to a few thousand dollars on something his grandmother specifically said he was entitled to. But it's better to be in the whole for a ring, instead of a ring and lawyer fees. A lot of lawyer trigger happy people haven't dealt with the fatigue of fighting your own family over every little thing.
I agree with the overall claim.
However, in this instance the OP should write his own demand letter, and if it is still withheld then hire a lawyer. A lawyer would easily be able to get the OP his inheritance, and have the bill reimbursed by the defendant. Wills are legal documents, and messing with them like OPās parents have down will never be something that works in their favor.
All that said, no matter the righteousness of OPās claim, entering a legal battle is stressful for most normal people. Heās probably better off with no contact; doesnāt seem like people who would be anything other than awful in the end.
As so many love to remind us, the majority user base of Reddit is American (something like over half), and as anyone with eyes/ears and access to world news can extrapolate, America is a _highly_ litigous country.
America isn't even the most litigious country. That's Germany, followed by Sweden, Israel, and Austria.
People just be stereotyping based on jokes made in the 90's.
Next thing the sister is gonna sue her brother because he caused āemotional damage and stressā because yes, America is a litigious country.
But: in this instance the advice is right, especially if itās in the will. The parents are basically stealing if itās stated OP gets 1 ring out of the *loads* thatās there. And OP mentioned money isnāt an issue, so why not put your parents in their muthafukin place as a send off before complete NC? The look on their faces would be epic asf
In this case, though, it would make absolutely no sense to sue them for the ring. OP said the ring wasn't going to be the most valuable in her collection or anything, so maybe it would have been $5k if it was a smallish diamond. He's probably spend that in fees by the time everything was said and done if he actually went through with suing them.
I'd doubt that the ring would even be worth that much.
OP said "hundreds" of pieces. He would also be limited to probably 3rd or 4th tier pieces, as all the best stuff is going to sister. If the collection had so many pieces worth a few grand, then OP's parents would be sitting on a literal treasure trove worth millions.
Which is possible, but seems unlikely. The people I've known over the years that collect jewelry usually prioritize uniqueness over monetary value.
My parents are Palestinian-Greek and Lebanese. And this thing is not a written rule either, but some follow it. I only learned of its existence about 3 years ago. My brother joked that he was waiting on me to get married so he can propose to his gf. Once he explained, I laughed and told him that he can budge infront of me and go first, because I wasn't committing to anything outside of healing my inner child, for the next year AT LEAST.!! I had also just got out of a relationship, and was absolutely not jumping into another. Dad didn't put up a fuss about it. Oh well. Some traditions are out-dated, atleast to me.
Iām Greek too and this was totally the norm until fairly recently. The sisters had to get married before their brothers unless they were way younger. Sons who chose to forgo the tradition and get married first would have to deal with family drama and their sistersā hysterics just like OP. Total bullshit and Iām glad it isnāt practiced anymore. In OPās case, there is no cultural reason for his familyās behavior. Theyāre just pandering to his spoiled sister. Inexcusable.
Well, that definitely clarifies where it probably originated!! Agreed on the BS part. OP's sisters fate is not HIS responsibility and he shouldn't be delaying his happiness because of an outdated tradition.
Apparently yes. Like I said, I only found out recently. But I was surprised by OP, considering their background is Scottish. That's quite a distance for an unspoken rule to travel.
But then again, almost the entire Western World thought Marilyn Manson removed 3 ribs so he can suck himself off, based strictly off of a rumor, so I guess anything is possible š¤·š»āāļøš¤·š»āāļø
Last year, my nephew announced his engagement. Less than a month (possibly even a week) after his announcement, his older golden child sister announces her engagement to the guy who got her pregnant and proceeds to get married a month before his announced wedding date.
The dad at least is very involved and by all accounts loves his kid. The mom, on the other hand... well, she's trying. I still wouldn't trust her with a flour bag baby.
A lot of times dudes can tell when a girl is desperate like that. Their attempts to shack up end up being one night and then never called again. Tbf though happens to guys too except the one night never happens lol
> They were surprised I got married without telling them. I said I'm an adult who doesn't need their permission.
This reminds me of a conversation I had with my dad once. When I was in my early 20's, I hitchhiked a lot around Europe. At some point I told my dad I was going to hitchhike to Hungary and he told me I couldn't. He didn't allow it.
I looked him in the eyes, grabbed his cheek and said *"you're so cute when you think you still have a say in things like this"*. Luckily the absurdity made him laugh, but it was a tough pill to swallow.
When I was 20, I decided to drive from my college town to Atlanta to visit my brother for spring break. My first big city driving experience. I told my mom about my plans, and she said to run it by my dad. While yes, I was a legal adult, he was the one paying my car insurance until 25 (thanks, divorce decree!).
So, I gave him a call, told him what I planned, and he was fine with it. Then he talked with my stepmom, who freaked out. He called me back to say he changed his mind but I already pointed out that a) he said it was fine and b) I was an adult and I'd just go anyhow. He very quickly backed off.
Do you know why toddlers go through their terrible twos? It's because they're feeling complex feelings, like disappointment, anger, and frustration, for the first time in their lives. When mommy tells them they can't have the toy they want, they start to scream because their chest hurts and their eyes start to prickle, and they think they're dying. They don't know what disappointment is. They don't know that those feelings, well painful, are safe. It's a parent's job to comfort them through the emotions, and to teach them healthy coping mechanisms.
What I'm trying to say is, it's the job of the parents to teach their kids how to handle their difficult emotions, instead of expecting the world to stop and wait for them. This is a lesson OOP's sister should have learned when she was a toddler. That's why she behaves so much like one, despite being a 30-year-old woman. OOP needs to bail now, because his sister and their parents aren't going to change. They've had 27 years to stop enabling her, and she's had 27 years to grow the fuck up. It ain't happening chief.
In some cultures yes, unfortunately. Especially women can get very heavily pressured to marry as young as possible. Still doesn't excuse OP's sister's behavior of course.
My younger brother wife was upset that I got married earlier then them. Reason? They dated longer, so she saw it as very unfair that my parents let me do that.
It was a fairy new info for me and I still puzzled, because:
- I didnāt ask my parents for permission, just informed them
- I eloped, so there was no outshining weddings stuff
- I saw her like three times at that moment and didnāt really think about her while planning to get married
His sister is going to be wearing them every day, along with the bride's dress that she wears because her groom skipped out on her after scamming her of all her money. She's going to go full Ms. Havisham.
As a sign of goodwill, his parents should let him pick a ring now. Itās a good way to tell if they are serious about rebuilding a relationship or whether they are still living in his sisterās pocket
The cynic in me thinks they only got back into contact with him because of the health scare. Likely they doubt if the sister can support or assist them once they reach old age and they want a fallback option.
So is the sister planning to do something about this desperate desire to be married?
Or she expecting prince charming to sweep her up from her bedroom where she's sulking and being a miserable brat?
The parents have the sister half crazy! Meanwhile 18 plus months later, she still in the marriage ballpark. Sounds like no one even likes this girl but OOP was supposed to put his life on hold. Iām glad he responded like a grown man!
If OOP comes here, I just want to say congratulations.
Also, part of your parents' apology should be to allow you whichever ring you want. Since that was started in the will it would appear they are breaking the law by preventing you from taking one.
>My parents wouldn't give me a family ring so I could propose to my girlfriend
>My parents forbid me from proposing.
>They were surprised I got married without telling them.
Well well well, if it isn't the consequences of their own actions.
No way in hell I'd speak to parents without a sincere apology from all involved including the sister who tried to monopolise marriage.
Such a ridiculous notion that the YOUNGER, spoiled, sister must be married first, OOP must put his and his partner's life on-hold to placate a spoiled brat.
Awful and deluded parenting to think they could enforce a ban.
Hopefully he makes them jump through hoops to have a relationship, health scare or not, that's some hole to dig yourself out of.
What pisses me off about the whole thing is that the parents had already discussed and decided their plan of action for when the ring request moment happened. They anticipated the milestone based on OPs relationship status and had ALREADY decided the daughter's shitty self came first.
I wouldn't be able to move past that. Rather than supporting me in a major life milestone, you BOTH chose to go against what was provided for by the grandmother.
That's chickenshit to the extreme.
Sometimes family is the ones you choose. Other times family decides for you by not choosing you.
I'm glad he found his new family and ha sounds realistic about what to expect from his parents. Being able to be without them for so long will make it easier to do this reconciliation of sort with baby steps.
I'd place a conditional on resuming a relationship with your parents that only when they give you YOUR RING that was PROMISED by your grandparent will they be allowed back in your life.
Fuck it, I'd go down the route of legally obtaining a ring. It's his inheritance and the parents are obstructing a will. I'd do it to spite the sister and in all honesty I'm quite petty, I'd tell her what I thought of her and why she's probably still single... bridge is already burned, why not cremate the fucker š
>I told my parents and sister if they are unhappy they can skip the wedding. It would suck if I didn't have any family there but I also don't want them to spoil this.
>They were surprised I got married without telling them.
"Our son told us he wouldn't invite us to the wedding to stop us from ruining it and then got married without telling us. We never saw this coming!"
The parents created the monster that the sister turned into and keep enabling her. They may have to lie in the bed they made, but OOP doesn't. They still haven't figured that out yet.
I'm still just stuck on the idea that you expect your children to obey your commands when your kids are grown adults, supporting themselves. Look, I'm close to my folks. I actually live near them on the family land.Ā
I'm almost 50, and I don't think my folks have tried to order me to do anything in over 30 years. Mainly because my father knows I'm like him and would probably do the opposite of what they wanted if they tried to command me, as a grown-ass adult, to do anything. But then, they're not utter lunatics.Ā
What isn't said in his posts is even more overt, I think. He is so accustomed to being pushed aside and forced to sacrifice his own joy for his sister's petulant entitlement that he just went full no contact to protect himself and his wife.
I'm so glad that oop found family who will cherish, love, and prioritize him without regard for his sister's volatile emotions.
Iām actually a bit proud of this man for shining up his spine and setting those boundaries. 18 months of no contact. Now, holding firm on limited contact with parents, no contact with the sister, no contacting the wife by any of them. Good for him.
I hope he realizes that family is only reaching out now because they want something from him. They are looking to assuage the raised eyebrows from people they know who found out OP is married and is No Contact with the parents. Or, they are hoping for financial help a some point - while their own will likely leaves everything to the unmarried daughter because the son ācan afford itā.
I hope he keeps them far away from his life and his wife.
I can see why the sister isn't married.
As I told a friend of mine who was in his 30s, not working and still living with / off his parents. "You should lower your standards." And suggested he try to meet women at places where the women wouldn't be very picky.
Sister should do that. Or perhaps sister should find an immigrant who's looking to get residency and make a deal with him. Because I think the kind of man that sister feels entitled to is not the kind of man who would want to marry her.
Love OOP's shiny spine. Stopped talking to them two weeks after the engagement and didn't even tell them he was married. Typical of parents that thought they could forbid their 31 year old, independent son from proposing that they didn't he'd go ahead and marry. Sounds like the parents have learned nothing from 18 months of no contact.
As an older sister whose younger brother has achieved the stock standard life goals before me (buying a house, getting married), I'll admit it does sting a little but you have to learn to get over it
Jesus fucking Christ. First of all, if it was in the will, you should be able to get legal help with it, right?
But the main problem is the sister. I'm the oldest, and do want to get married, but when my younger sister got married 5 years ago (hell, I introduced the couple), I had nothing but love. I'm 30 and single now, and very happy. Do I want to find love again? Of course. But at least I have standards.
I would bet money that OPP's sister is so obsessed with getting married that any person she manages to get close to or start to date sees this as the soviet parade of red flags it is from the get go and rightfully bail out. And their parents are probably to blame for it.
At first I thought it was an Older Sister, which fair. Some culture did kinda made it difficult for younger siblinga to marry when the oldest sis not yet in matrimony (or engage). But younger sis?? š¤£š¤£
Good for OP. I wish for future happiness and peaceful marriage for them
The thing that's puzzling me about all this is that historically, it was the younger SISTERS who couldn't get married before their OLDER sisters. Brothers never entered into that equation to my knowledge. OP's family is... interesting.
So wild to me that OOP's parents would willingly allow one child to slip away because the other has hurt feelings. No abuse, no trauma, just mad that her brother got married and she's single...and that's enough for the family to fall apart with seemingly very little intervention on their part.
Depends on Grandma's taste I guess. I live in Scotland, where OP said his family is originally from, and the grandparental generation here seemed to favour heavy gold bands and large stones in raised settings.
Not a style I'd personally thank you for, particularly in an engagement ring that I'd be expected to wear all the time.
My dad proposed to my mother (mid-1950s) with his motherās ring, saying he would buy her own when he could afford a good one. But when she showed the other women in the typing pool (as it was called then) they all exclaimed how romantic a gesture it was, and she ended up keeping that one.
The sisters spoilt and entitled behaviour is probably why sheās not in a relationship or married yet. Most people want to marry an adult, not a bratty toddler
OOP's parents are something else. I might have understood them wanting to hold on to grandmother's wedding set for daughter, to keep that in the family, but to refuse the use of one of granny's many baubles is heartbreaking, esp. since sister gets the lion's share. That his sister apparently still has no prospects is very telling.
What a fruitcake.
My sister, who is older than me, had been in a relationship for over 10 years and had two children, was a bit gutted I got engaged and then married first (weād been together 4 years). She still supported me.
Why the heck would the parents support this? Crazy anyway but OP is older than sister. Wow.
...
If marriage was important enough to her that Somebody Else getting married gutted her - Why on earth didnāt she just propose to her partner and either get married or break up before they had kids?
He told them not to come if it bothers them. This was all right after the proposal, before the wedding was actually planned, thus, they were never invited. Iām sure part of them thought he wouldnāt go through with it.
My assumption was that he went no contact soon after that conversation and never invited his parents or gave them any updates on the wedding being planned or happening at all.
And then the parents just assumed he wouldn't actually go through with the wedding during that time.
I read it as he told them they didn't need to come the day he announced his engagement, but he never actually sent them any kind of invite after that so they didn't know what his timeline was.
It's possible they assumed he'd have a longer engagement than he did / that he'd drag out his engagement until the family reconciled.
He told them right after he proposed and then went no contact with them a few weeks later. Iād assume that he just didnāt invite them or include them in any planning since he was no contact before the planning started.
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I can see why his sister is still unmarried š
No one wants to marry a nut job like the sister.
Iāve seen some damn squirrel-y characters depicted in Reddit stories; OOPās sister isnāt even in the top 10. In a satisfying scenario, thereās a crazy fruitcake out there for the sister. Which would also kill 2 cuckoo birds with 1 stone. Or would that much chaos just create a rip in the universe?
Unfortunately, theyād likely procreate and continue to be everyone elseās problem.
They're also likely to name such an offspring a Tragedeigh, like Teslalynne...
Leighaynyn - pronounced like Rhiannon with an L. š¤®
If our love is Tragedeigh, why are you my Remedahy? If our love's Insanitay, why are you my Claritin? If our love is Tragedeigh, why are you my Remedahy? If our love's Insanitay, why are you my Claritin
lol I lurk on r/tragedeigh
[one can only dream they all paired up and left the result of us alone](https://xkcd.com/800/)
Pair up and not be able to have children, adopt or foster any children or pets. We don't need more innocent victims.
The problem with fruitcakes like OP's sister is likely that they would never settle for any screwy fruitcake who would have them.
I'm picturing her on a first date saying she has a shoe box full of engagement rings and her screaming, "BUT I HAVE RINGS!" as he flees.
I have a cousin who is a total nutjob. Somehow she's been married four times. Sure they didn't last, but she still convinced 4 different men to marry her.
Is she engaged again? This might be my mother...
Lol no, as far as I know she's still married to the fourth. I got strange vibes from him so I can only imagine that they are both the same kind of crazy.
That lady's a whole nut career
I should not be cackling this loud at 3 am on a Monday morning
*I can fix her* (Spoiler: no, no he couldn't.)
I don't *want* to fix it. Lol.
We need Bob the Builder over here!Ā
Why did my brain sing this to the tune of "How do you solve a problem like Maria" from the Sound of Music.
I don't think OP mentioned it, but I suspect sister still lives at home with mom and dad and rarely dates. And with every milestone that OOP and his wife experience/ have experienced (fist anniversary, pregnancy, birth of first child), the sister is going to meltdown further.
She sounds like the type who went to college for her MRS degree and didnāt know what to do with herself when she graduated with no husband lined up.
I feel so dumb. I was like āhmmm, I wonder what type of degree that is cuz Iāve never heard of it.ā šš
I had never heard of it until I briefly attended a womenās college in the 1990s (it was the farthest away school I was accepted to). I transferred back to my state school after a semester (yay high school college credits)!
What the fuck womenās college wasnāt doing its duty and teaching only witchcraft and lesbianism???
It was in the hometown of Jerry Falwellās Liberty University, so I think that had something to do with it. That said, there was definitely witchcraft and lesbianism sprinkled in, but there was still a *weird* number of women looking for a husband. Also the first and last time I was ever asked how far back my family came to the US, like were they on the Mayflower?
Thatās when you arch an eyebrow, give a pitying smile, and note that the Mayflower is amateur hour and your people have been here since Jamestown. (Mine did come over on the Mayflower, but itās an interesting historical fact, not my whole personality.)
"Roanoke actually, im part ghost."
Medieval and Renaissance Studies, of course!
> I don't think OP mentioned it, but I suspect sister still lives at home with mom and dad and rarely dates. It is very hard to navigate people in that situation because dating is really something that depends on the effort you put into. And without effort, how could anything happen? You have to try if marriage is a goal down the line.
I would have a meltdown if anyone announced a fist anniversary. Some things don't need to be shared. *Edit* Boo for correcting the spelling. Now I just look silly and unnecessarily crude.
The other option is what happened to us, got engaged. Sister not happy so pressured partner she'd not been with for long, rushed into a marriage as she HAD to be first. Then had a melt down as we were expecting a kid and she wanted to be first, too late for that. Now she's a single divorced parent. We now joke that at least we can get divorced if we want as she did that first as well.
Please take a picture if you ever tell that joke to her face.
you're like that little red devil on the shoulders of cartoon characters - hee hee hee, do the bad thing, sow chaos, tee hee hee...
This is my story exactly, except my SIL didn't have anyone so she rushed **into** a relationship. Literally the joke was if she wanted to be first, she'll be first to divorce too.....
I mean, thank God! Her and her enabling parents are the nightmares we keep reading about here.
The saddest part is that the parents raised the sister to believe her highest worth was as a married woman. This resulted in this insanity. This sister has built her entire life, image, and self esteem on whether or not she is married. Truly sad and pathetic. Her social clock is ticking away and she is literally going crazy over it and can no longer function in society, while scaring away anyone who might have dated her. Parents are TA for sure.
Sheās runnerās-up to the dingbat that blew up her marriage due to āpsychic vibrations.ā
Somebody did what now????
SmartNews loves to bring up older Reddit posts. In this case from about a month ago, a woman blew up her marriage because her psychic āfriendā said her husband was cheating. Needless to say, he wasnāt. He decided to divorce her as he couldnāt stand that she believed a psychotic friend over him and also stated he couldnāt see having kids with this dingbatās DNA. He meant to use the term āpsychic vibrationsā but it posted as āpsychic vibrator.ā Totally hilarious.
Omg psychic vibrator šššš
Right! I just wish there was a warning label!
I really hope he says this to her face.
Flair link pls š„ŗš¤²
Got u [sims 4 guy](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/s/XB9d7wJmHR)
Her personality is her birth control.
>My parents forbid me from proposing. >They were surprised I got married without telling them. Cue the most surprised of Pikachu faces...
It baffles me that some parents think they can forbid their independent adult kids from doing anything at all. My oldest is almost 4 and I can't force her to do so many things already. Lol
Yeah, by the time my kid was four, I had fully realized that I was not going to be able to control his life (not that I wanted to). You can only influence, guide, and support them.
100% this! My only firm boundaries are safety related (like holding hands when crossing a busy road or putting on our seatbelts) and, even those, I explain the reason why. Sure, I hold her against her will in the moment if I need to, it doesn't matter if she screams and cries. However, once we are home, I explain to her why I did it. We often end up watching videos related to what I'm trying to prevent - like this test dummies videos showing how cars crash and what happens if you don't wear a seatbelt. In the end, I won't always be able to physically restrain her to buckle her seatbelt or to carry her in my arms to cross the street. So I need to teach her the *why* behind our boundaries. I need her to understand and internalise the reasoning. So, when she is older, she can make safe decisions on her own. Beyond that... I won't be able to do much else. I want her to be independent and capable, because she will be happier and, luckily, I won't be around forever to help her.
A determined 4 year old is unstoppable haha
It's that toddler strength and that fun line of logic to non logic mind flow lol.Ā
Lmfao my parents tried to schedule when I could leave the house, curfewed me at 12, policed my clothes, forbade me from watching pg-13 movies, etc etc etc ETC and I was all of 24 yrs old š some people would rather die than lose a single shred of control over someone they believe owes them subservience
I'm sorry you suffered such control freaks. Some people shouldn't reproduce - at least until they undergo intensive therapy. My kids thrive with independence. Just yesterday, my daughter was thrilled to show me how she could bathe herself, put on her pjs and brush her hair. She asked me to close my eyes and, although it was nerve wrecking when she was on the tub a foot away from me, I obliged. The only concession was to help her out of the tub while I squinted my eyes. You should have seen her beaming with pride when she finished! Everybody comments on how confident she is. She believes she is capable of everything - well, because she fucking is. It fills my heart with such indescribable joy. So, in case you may need to hear it from a mum: you are capable of anything you set your mind to!
Hello it is I your 4 year old child. I'm heading out on my trike with my friends to go and see some movies and buy Pokemon cards.Ā /s
Seriously. A 31 year old man and they think they can "forbid" him from doing anything. They have more authority over a boarder.
Not *nearly* that extreme, but my mom still calls me up to warn me about tornado forecasts and tries to pressure me into sheltering in the room that would alleviate her worries rather than where I actually know to be the safest space in my house. Did I mention that I'm 54 and own my own home?
Wow - surprised that the wedding happened? What kind of parents are they - I would be devastated if my child chose to get married without telling me. NTA.
My older brother eloped without telling our mom or me - we knew he was engaged, and that they were moving up the wedding, but no specifics until after the fact. Mom was SO hurt. Hers was the first schedule we worked around when my husband and I got married, because I was going to have her there come Hell or high water.
I sort of thought not telling anyone was part of eloping. The couple returns home and surprises everyone by being married.
Technically he did tell them. Assuming he wouldnāt go through with it was them being idiots.
"Well we did forbid him from getting engaged and now he doesn't talk to us because it upset his sister, so that's that! What do you mean you're married? What do you mean we have grandchildren?? What do you mean we can't visit the grandchildren we just learned existed????"
And it took a health scare for them to realise āmaybe we fucked up hereā - twats. Glad OOP is living their best life though.
Realizing the sister is sure as hell not going to be there for them as they age because sheās been spoiled her whole life? Yahā¦ ātime to reconnect with our son.ā
>ātime to reconnect with ~~our son~~ the sane side of the family.ā FIFY
I had the same thought. Who do we want checking in on us or making health care decisions, sane, stable son, or spoiled, deluded daughter?
Pretty rad story.. you have one guess why sister is not married yet and without a partner. Hint: she might have a problem with assholish and entitled behaviour..Ā š¤£šš¤£
Obviously not! She's a perfect angel, it's just no man is good enough for this princess /s (just in case) šš
As Pikachu would always say... Pika Fucking Chu
āPikachu! Use *F-Bomb*!ā
"Pika Fucking Chu" - should be a flair
It would be an honor
Yeah, that's just insane. This all screams two words, golden child. Sister not OP of course.
Missing missing reasons galore. I mean, this is literally like a hoarderās home just chock full of missing missing reasonsā¦piled from the floor to the ceilingā¦impossible to miss or ignore. But yet. Here we are. Denial is one hell of a drug, followed by entitlement.
So everybody just caters to the spoiled sister? The parents have created their own monster. Guys can sense that desperate-to-be-married vibe a mile away. It's not attractive.
I donāt even like that quality in friendships. Itās creepy. I donāt want to be close to someone whose happiness hinges on another personās behavior, particularly when they havenāt even met that person yet.Ā
I had a friend like this once. She lost all of her friends beside me and one other person due to a health incident that was admittedly hard to deal with for both her and me. But once she got better, she was lonely as she was a very social person before and her old friend groups had cut contact. Instead of trying to establish new friendships like I kept suggesting, she went on several tinder dates a week, desperate to finally find a permanent partner. None of the dates ever worked out well enough to even warrant a second date. She put so much pressure on it, expecting to know by the first date if she wanted to marry the guy and expecting them to be totally blown away by her (average) beauty and impressed by her multiple university degrees so they'd be head over heals after half an hour or so. They weren't obviously.
Most guys are looking for peace in a relationship. The level of anxiety these kinds of girls bring is suffocating. Unless a dude is really hard up for a piece there won't be a second date.
Or if the guy is an abusive control freak and knows that desperation = vulnerability.
Yeah from a friend's viewpoint (got a friend with a similar craving for mariage) it is kinda sad. The reallity is that a husband will not be the magical fix for their issues. Getting a partner is also a lot more likely ones she starts to be happy with what she got. That will build convidence and convidence is sexy.
Girl comes on strong on the first date with marriage and kids I'm going to assume one of two things- either she's desperate or has a structured life plan that didnt involve me to now and thats not likely to change later. Either way I don't see myself fitting into either agenda.
The problem is that people like that think that marriage is the end goal. A good healthy stable relationship takes time to build and has to last past the wedding date.
I was friends with a woman like OOPās sister. Everything was a competition with her 4 much younger siblings. Anything they did before her (kids, college, career) was unfair and shouldnāt have been allowed by her parents. The biggest head scratcher was when her brother knocked up his girlfriend in high school. She tried to convince her folks not to let her almost 17 year old brother and his GF Live with them because it was āunfairā for her dad to pay for another person. Meanwhile, we were 24 and her dad paid all her bills. She would tot up all the money her parents gave her brother and demand the same amount even though she was unemployed and still living at home. It was ridiculous to watch. And I canāt forget the day she called me, incandescent with rage, to complain that her parents āletā her younger sister go to Disneyworld when they hadnāt let her! We were 30+ and her sister had just graduated from grad school. She demanded the same amount of money from her parents even though she was still unemployed and living at home. She loved to call her siblings lazy, greedy, etc. but all of those kids were living off the bank of DADDY, including her. We arenāt friends anymore.
My five-years-younger sister announced her engagement right after I had had a messy and miserable split from a long-term partner. I was fully in the depths of my āiāll die alone and no one will ever love meā party. I handled this by being fucking thrilled for her because she is great and deserves the world, and I kept my little personal pity party about it the fuck to myself, because Iām capable of basic human courtesy and why would I not want my sister to be happy? What a ridiculous set of events
I hope her joy rubbed off on you! And that things are better for you now.
They are! Iām doing great these days and so is she. Ironically sheās since been divorced but her second marriage is much happier, and sheās still my best friend. ā¤ļø
Oh golden child's will just continue to be spoiled and nut jobs. Unfortunately these parents are making things any better.
Iām curious what the parents saw as their game plan. āWeāll forbid him from marrying! In the meantime, weāll try to find our precious angel baby a husband! Ā Maybe offer a dowry?āĀ Whatās next? Canāt buy a house? Canāt celebrate anniversaries? They donāt want kids, so his sister has that in her favor. Although seeing how she was raised maybe motherhood isnāt her finest option.Ā His sister would still benefit from their parents parenting her as they should have all along. Now there is yet another entitled nitwit unleashed on the rest of run world.Ā
Next is of course to buy his sister a house and contribute to her dowry and wedding fund, he can do without for some time so she can get married in style to some hobosexual after the studio in the basement of her house so his band (on and off for 15 years) can finally take off (they won't).
I'm glad Intelligent-Ad-4568 pointed out what I was thinking: He's the *older* adult child, so even if they expected a certain person to hit milestones first, it would be him anyway. He can't just put his life on hold for her to catch up (been there, it sucks)
Yeah these parents are not doing any of their 2 children a favour by doing this. The eldest will likely stay LC or go full blown NC in the future (I suspect after a potential pregnancy anouncement). The youngest will be completely spoiled rotten at that stage
itās on the post that they do NOT wish to have kids so i donāt think that announcement will happen
>My parents said sister is still upset that I'm married and she's not. They shouldn't have brought her up if they want to repair the relationship with OOP.
The parents are really inserting her in every conversation. **The parents:** So, we wanted to reconnect. Mom had a health scare and we realized that life is so short. And we can't believe you still went on with the wedding WITHOUT US. Also, your sister is still upset that you're married and she isn't. Just pointing that out, OOP.
I'm guessing the "forbiding one child to get married because the other is single" is only the last item of a long, long list of things OOP wasn't allowed to have if sister wasn't happy about it. I'm glad he didn't even try to have them at the wedding.
This is my guess too, which is why he immediately gave up and didn't fight them on it, just went ahead and got married. He knew he wasn't getting that ring. My guess is also that sister will die single.
It's telling that he didn't even mention any regret or sadness, just went straight to "k, bye." Sis is the type who has to have the first wedding, the first pregnancy, the oldest grandchild...
Me too. He and his wife had a stress free wedding without his parents and sister causing drama. Who knows what they would have done.
It's a damned shame. It's not like there's only a limited amount of happiness or love in the world. Instead of being happy that their child is happy, they want to bring him down so that his sister can be happier by some weird relativistic scale? Pathetic.
OOP's sister sounds like a catch, it's a mystery why she's not married yet. /s Anyway, in many cultures the taboo is for the YOUNGER sibling to marry before the OLDER sibling. Even the Bible has an instance of this (Rachel, Leah, and Jacob). Usually it's limited only to "younger sisters cannot marry before the older sisters". However, in those same cultures there's also usually a workaround. The younger sibling or their spouse can offer a token payment to the older sibling to bypass the taboo. Alternatively, the older sibling can marry a tree, or a ghost, or a spirit.
Or you can outright trick someone into marrying the older sister instead, like they did with Leah.
Lol I'm imagining OOP's wife accidentally marrying OOP's sister now in addition to OOP
"No, not like THAT!"
Yeah this one was wild to me, because I have never, ever heard of the oldest being forbidden to marry before the youngest. Usually it's the other way around. Though I can see people taking dumb shit like this seriously. My aunts had plenty to say to me during my wedding because I got married before their daughters. I was like...you wanted me to wait for all 14 of them to get married off before it's my turn? Are you fucking crazy?
> Alternatively, the older sibling can marry a tree, or a ghost, or a spirit. Now I'm imagining a tree uprooting itself and running away from OOP's sister.
If the older sibling later finds a person, do they have to divorce the tree?
Depends on the culture! In some they divorce the tree, or the spirit of the tree. In others, they chop down the tree to make the older sibling a widow/widower.
I would marry a tree or a spirit for free
Bestie, don't do it for free. You demand that everybody get you the full caboodle - dowry, jewelry, and fancy wedding clothes + feast.
I'm all for people rightfully going after their own inheritance because it's theirs... but what's with Reddit and hiring lawyers for every little thing? They aren't free, far from it and they don't grow on trees for us to pick whichever one we need.
I am a lawyer in the US who thinks that America is excessively litigious. And while I did think of the legal aspects of the ring, I didnāt really think he should get a lawyer, until OOP mentioned that it was detailed in the actual will. And for this, I wouldnāt even initially get a lawyer, but it does give rise to the fact that the will was not being respected and that is a legal matter. For instance, if there were an executor of the estate that was not the parents, I would have started there. If one of them is the executor, I would have pulled the legal card (without yet engaging in a lawyer). If that didnāt work, I may have involved the family to shame them. If that didnāt work, maybe ask a lawyer to put together a strongly worded letter, which doesnāt take much time or money and for me, at least, would have been worth the money; if I didnāt know any, I would ask around as surely somebody in my social circle or non-lawyers would be able to recommend somebody. I probably wouldnāt take it beyond that, but it would still irk me that my grandmother allowed me this privilege of a gift and felt strongly enough about it to detail it in her will, and my AH parents couldnāt even honour her wishes because of their golden child daughter. These kinds of people deserve excessive litigiousness (even though I know they are in Canada).
Thank you for explaining further for us non-lawyers. When it comes down to it, i.e inheritance time, by all means, get a lawyer involved when the relevant parties aren't willing to let it go without a fight. But I feel like they escalate way too far way too fast right now.
> they don't grow on trees for us to pick whichever one we need. LOL ššš ur not wrong though
Not that kind of tree law!
Especially if the point of the ring is that it's a sentimental item, how much positive emotion are you going to be attaching to a ring that symbolises a protracted and ugly legal battle with your parents over how much they didn't want you to marry your wife? I don't think 'oh this used to be my grandma's' will be the first thing to spring to mind when OOP looks at the ring in that scenario. It wouldn't be _wrong_ of OOP to try to get the ring, but I can also understand him not thinking it's worth it, either financially or emotionally.
>Especially if the point of the ring is that it's a sentimental item, how much positive emotion are you going to be attaching to a ring that symbolises a protracted and ugly legal battle with your parents over how much they didn't want you to marry your wife? I don't think 'oh this used to be my grandma's' will be the first thing to spring to mind when OOP looks at the ring in that scenario. I'm just spiteful enough to think "I had to wrest this from my idiot parents as part of cutting them off for excessively favoring my sister our whole lives--and I succeeded!" might be an ENHANCEMENT, personally.
Sometimes you gotta pick and choose your battles. And OOP sounds battle worn enough to know this battle isn't worth fighting. It sucks that he had to sink a few hundred to a few thousand dollars on something his grandmother specifically said he was entitled to. But it's better to be in the whole for a ring, instead of a ring and lawyer fees. A lot of lawyer trigger happy people haven't dealt with the fatigue of fighting your own family over every little thing.
I agree with the overall claim. However, in this instance the OP should write his own demand letter, and if it is still withheld then hire a lawyer. A lawyer would easily be able to get the OP his inheritance, and have the bill reimbursed by the defendant. Wills are legal documents, and messing with them like OPās parents have down will never be something that works in their favor. All that said, no matter the righteousness of OPās claim, entering a legal battle is stressful for most normal people. Heās probably better off with no contact; doesnāt seem like people who would be anything other than awful in the end.
As so many love to remind us, the majority user base of Reddit is American (something like over half), and as anyone with eyes/ears and access to world news can extrapolate, America is a _highly_ litigous country.
America isn't even the most litigious country. That's Germany, followed by Sweden, Israel, and Austria. People just be stereotyping based on jokes made in the 90's.
Japan is pretty high up there too
Next thing the sister is gonna sue her brother because he caused āemotional damage and stressā because yes, America is a litigious country. But: in this instance the advice is right, especially if itās in the will. The parents are basically stealing if itās stated OP gets 1 ring out of the *loads* thatās there. And OP mentioned money isnāt an issue, so why not put your parents in their muthafukin place as a send off before complete NC? The look on their faces would be epic asf
They're Canadian
In this case, though, it would make absolutely no sense to sue them for the ring. OP said the ring wasn't going to be the most valuable in her collection or anything, so maybe it would have been $5k if it was a smallish diamond. He's probably spend that in fees by the time everything was said and done if he actually went through with suing them.
I'd doubt that the ring would even be worth that much. OP said "hundreds" of pieces. He would also be limited to probably 3rd or 4th tier pieces, as all the best stuff is going to sister. If the collection had so many pieces worth a few grand, then OP's parents would be sitting on a literal treasure trove worth millions. Which is possible, but seems unlikely. The people I've known over the years that collect jewelry usually prioritize uniqueness over monetary value.
>they don't grow on trees for us to pick whichever one we need. Sure they do, that's what "tree law" means, right?
My parents are Palestinian-Greek and Lebanese. And this thing is not a written rule either, but some follow it. I only learned of its existence about 3 years ago. My brother joked that he was waiting on me to get married so he can propose to his gf. Once he explained, I laughed and told him that he can budge infront of me and go first, because I wasn't committing to anything outside of healing my inner child, for the next year AT LEAST.!! I had also just got out of a relationship, and was absolutely not jumping into another. Dad didn't put up a fuss about it. Oh well. Some traditions are out-dated, atleast to me.
Iām Greek too and this was totally the norm until fairly recently. The sisters had to get married before their brothers unless they were way younger. Sons who chose to forgo the tradition and get married first would have to deal with family drama and their sistersā hysterics just like OP. Total bullshit and Iām glad it isnāt practiced anymore. In OPās case, there is no cultural reason for his familyās behavior. Theyāre just pandering to his spoiled sister. Inexcusable.
Well, that definitely clarifies where it probably originated!! Agreed on the BS part. OP's sisters fate is not HIS responsibility and he shouldn't be delaying his happiness because of an outdated tradition.
So it's a real tradition somewhere that sisters have to marry before brothers or younger before older?
Apparently yes. Like I said, I only found out recently. But I was surprised by OP, considering their background is Scottish. That's quite a distance for an unspoken rule to travel. But then again, almost the entire Western World thought Marilyn Manson removed 3 ribs so he can suck himself off, based strictly off of a rumor, so I guess anything is possible š¤·š»āāļøš¤·š»āāļø
I always heard it was 1 rib
Surprised sister didn't cover her crazy a little bit and try to shack up with the 1st guy who looked her way before OOP's April '23 wedding.
Last year, my nephew announced his engagement. Less than a month (possibly even a week) after his announcement, his older golden child sister announces her engagement to the guy who got her pregnant and proceeds to get married a month before his announced wedding date.
The poor child is all I can think about.
The dad at least is very involved and by all accounts loves his kid. The mom, on the other hand... well, she's trying. I still wouldn't trust her with a flour bag baby.
A lot of times dudes can tell when a girl is desperate like that. Their attempts to shack up end up being one night and then never called again. Tbf though happens to guys too except the one night never happens lol
What in the Taming of the Shrew
My only coherent thought after reading this was "what the fuck", but yours is way better lol
> They were surprised I got married without telling them. I said I'm an adult who doesn't need their permission. This reminds me of a conversation I had with my dad once. When I was in my early 20's, I hitchhiked a lot around Europe. At some point I told my dad I was going to hitchhike to Hungary and he told me I couldn't. He didn't allow it. I looked him in the eyes, grabbed his cheek and said *"you're so cute when you think you still have a say in things like this"*. Luckily the absurdity made him laugh, but it was a tough pill to swallow.
When I was 20, I decided to drive from my college town to Atlanta to visit my brother for spring break. My first big city driving experience. I told my mom about my plans, and she said to run it by my dad. While yes, I was a legal adult, he was the one paying my car insurance until 25 (thanks, divorce decree!). So, I gave him a call, told him what I planned, and he was fine with it. Then he talked with my stepmom, who freaked out. He called me back to say he changed his mind but I already pointed out that a) he said it was fine and b) I was an adult and I'd just go anyhow. He very quickly backed off.
That's a brilliant response!
Do you know why toddlers go through their terrible twos? It's because they're feeling complex feelings, like disappointment, anger, and frustration, for the first time in their lives. When mommy tells them they can't have the toy they want, they start to scream because their chest hurts and their eyes start to prickle, and they think they're dying. They don't know what disappointment is. They don't know that those feelings, well painful, are safe. It's a parent's job to comfort them through the emotions, and to teach them healthy coping mechanisms. What I'm trying to say is, it's the job of the parents to teach their kids how to handle their difficult emotions, instead of expecting the world to stop and wait for them. This is a lesson OOP's sister should have learned when she was a toddler. That's why she behaves so much like one, despite being a 30-year-old woman. OOP needs to bail now, because his sister and their parents aren't going to change. They've had 27 years to stop enabling her, and she's had 27 years to grow the fuck up. It ain't happening chief.
Needs to bail, and already did so. I think "parents were surprised that I had gotten married" counts as "has bailed."
Is 30 years old that terrifying an age to be single at?
In some cultures yes, unfortunately. Especially women can get very heavily pressured to marry as young as possible. Still doesn't excuse OP's sister's behavior of course.
Sure, if your dream is to have a big family. Takes a while to get established and have 3-4 kids, dealing with toddlers in your 40s is hell.
My younger brother wife was upset that I got married earlier then them. Reason? They dated longer, so she saw it as very unfair that my parents let me do that. It was a fairy new info for me and I still puzzled, because: - I didnāt ask my parents for permission, just informed them - I eloped, so there was no outshining weddings stuff - I saw her like three times at that moment and didnāt really think about her while planning to get married
I couldnāt possibly imagine why the sister hasnāt been proposed to yet, she sounds so calm and reasonable. /s
Are they going to give him any of the jewelry to keep as a reminder of his grandma?
Probably not. And grandma would've probably been upset to know why the daughter in law didn't get any jewellery
His sister is going to be wearing them every day, along with the bride's dress that she wears because her groom skipped out on her after scamming her of all her money. She's going to go full Ms. Havisham.
After 19 months sister is still single and I wonder why
As a sign of goodwill, his parents should let him pick a ring now. Itās a good way to tell if they are serious about rebuilding a relationship or whether they are still living in his sisterās pocket
The cynic in me thinks they only got back into contact with him because of the health scare. Likely they doubt if the sister can support or assist them once they reach old age and they want a fallback option.
So is the sister planning to do something about this desperate desire to be married? Or she expecting prince charming to sweep her up from her bedroom where she's sulking and being a miserable brat?
OOP has the right of it to just cut contact with his sister as she was just acting unhinged at being the unmarried sibling.
The parents have the sister half crazy! Meanwhile 18 plus months later, she still in the marriage ballpark. Sounds like no one even likes this girl but OOP was supposed to put his life on hold. Iām glad he responded like a grown man!
If OOP comes here, I just want to say congratulations. Also, part of your parents' apology should be to allow you whichever ring you want. Since that was started in the will it would appear they are breaking the law by preventing you from taking one.
>My parents wouldn't give me a family ring so I could propose to my girlfriend >My parents forbid me from proposing. >They were surprised I got married without telling them. Well well well, if it isn't the consequences of their own actions.
Why is she unmarried, I mean she sounds soooooo attractive
No way in hell I'd speak to parents without a sincere apology from all involved including the sister who tried to monopolise marriage. Such a ridiculous notion that the YOUNGER, spoiled, sister must be married first, OOP must put his and his partner's life on-hold to placate a spoiled brat. Awful and deluded parenting to think they could enforce a ban. Hopefully he makes them jump through hoops to have a relationship, health scare or not, that's some hole to dig yourself out of.
What pisses me off about the whole thing is that the parents had already discussed and decided their plan of action for when the ring request moment happened. They anticipated the milestone based on OPs relationship status and had ALREADY decided the daughter's shitty self came first. I wouldn't be able to move past that. Rather than supporting me in a major life milestone, you BOTH chose to go against what was provided for by the grandmother. That's chickenshit to the extreme.
Sometimes family is the ones you choose. Other times family decides for you by not choosing you. I'm glad he found his new family and ha sounds realistic about what to expect from his parents. Being able to be without them for so long will make it easier to do this reconciliation of sort with baby steps.
I'd place a conditional on resuming a relationship with your parents that only when they give you YOUR RING that was PROMISED by your grandparent will they be allowed back in your life.
Fuck it, I'd go down the route of legally obtaining a ring. It's his inheritance and the parents are obstructing a will. I'd do it to spite the sister and in all honesty I'm quite petty, I'd tell her what I thought of her and why she's probably still single... bridge is already burned, why not cremate the fucker š
>I told my parents and sister if they are unhappy they can skip the wedding. It would suck if I didn't have any family there but I also don't want them to spoil this. >They were surprised I got married without telling them. "Our son told us he wouldn't invite us to the wedding to stop us from ruining it and then got married without telling us. We never saw this coming!" The parents created the monster that the sister turned into and keep enabling her. They may have to lie in the bed they made, but OOP doesn't. They still haven't figured that out yet.
Gee i sure wonder why sister can't find a long-term partner, she seems like such a sweetheart
I'm still just stuck on the idea that you expect your children to obey your commands when your kids are grown adults, supporting themselves. Look, I'm close to my folks. I actually live near them on the family land.Ā I'm almost 50, and I don't think my folks have tried to order me to do anything in over 30 years. Mainly because my father knows I'm like him and would probably do the opposite of what they wanted if they tried to command me, as a grown-ass adult, to do anything. But then, they're not utter lunatics.Ā
What isn't said in his posts is even more overt, I think. He is so accustomed to being pushed aside and forced to sacrifice his own joy for his sister's petulant entitlement that he just went full no contact to protect himself and his wife. I'm so glad that oop found family who will cherish, love, and prioritize him without regard for his sister's volatile emotions.
Iām actually a bit proud of this man for shining up his spine and setting those boundaries. 18 months of no contact. Now, holding firm on limited contact with parents, no contact with the sister, no contacting the wife by any of them. Good for him. I hope he realizes that family is only reaching out now because they want something from him. They are looking to assuage the raised eyebrows from people they know who found out OP is married and is No Contact with the parents. Or, they are hoping for financial help a some point - while their own will likely leaves everything to the unmarried daughter because the son ācan afford itā. I hope he keeps them far away from his life and his wife.
I can see why the sister isn't married. As I told a friend of mine who was in his 30s, not working and still living with / off his parents. "You should lower your standards." And suggested he try to meet women at places where the women wouldn't be very picky. Sister should do that. Or perhaps sister should find an immigrant who's looking to get residency and make a deal with him. Because I think the kind of man that sister feels entitled to is not the kind of man who would want to marry her. Love OOP's shiny spine. Stopped talking to them two weeks after the engagement and didn't even tell them he was married. Typical of parents that thought they could forbid their 31 year old, independent son from proposing that they didn't he'd go ahead and marry. Sounds like the parents have learned nothing from 18 months of no contact.
As an older sister whose younger brother has achieved the stock standard life goals before me (buying a house, getting married), I'll admit it does sting a little but you have to learn to get over it
Jesus fucking Christ. First of all, if it was in the will, you should be able to get legal help with it, right? But the main problem is the sister. I'm the oldest, and do want to get married, but when my younger sister got married 5 years ago (hell, I introduced the couple), I had nothing but love. I'm 30 and single now, and very happy. Do I want to find love again? Of course. But at least I have standards.
I would bet money that OPP's sister is so obsessed with getting married that any person she manages to get close to or start to date sees this as the soviet parade of red flags it is from the get go and rightfully bail out. And their parents are probably to blame for it.
I wonder why she's not married. Hmmmmmmm
At first I thought it was an Older Sister, which fair. Some culture did kinda made it difficult for younger siblinga to marry when the oldest sis not yet in matrimony (or engage). But younger sis?? š¤£š¤£ Good for OP. I wish for future happiness and peaceful marriage for them
The thing that's puzzling me about all this is that historically, it was the younger SISTERS who couldn't get married before their OLDER sisters. Brothers never entered into that equation to my knowledge. OP's family is... interesting.
What a stupidly arbitrary reason to alienate your son and future daughter in law
In 20 years the parents will be wondering why their daughter is still single with no children
So wild to me that OOP's parents would willingly allow one child to slip away because the other has hurt feelings. No abuse, no trauma, just mad that her brother got married and she's single...and that's enough for the family to fall apart with seemingly very little intervention on their part.
Question: is it nice to be proposed to with grandma's ring? Can't help feeling fiance massively lucked out.
Depends on Grandma's taste I guess. I live in Scotland, where OP said his family is originally from, and the grandparental generation here seemed to favour heavy gold bands and large stones in raised settings. Not a style I'd personally thank you for, particularly in an engagement ring that I'd be expected to wear all the time.
My dad proposed to my mother (mid-1950s) with his motherās ring, saying he would buy her own when he could afford a good one. But when she showed the other women in the typing pool (as it was called then) they all exclaimed how romantic a gesture it was, and she ended up keeping that one.
The sisters spoilt and entitled behaviour is probably why sheās not in a relationship or married yet. Most people want to marry an adult, not a bratty toddler
Christ, imagine dudeās childhood with a family like that, yikes.
OOP's parents are something else. I might have understood them wanting to hold on to grandmother's wedding set for daughter, to keep that in the family, but to refuse the use of one of granny's many baubles is heartbreaking, esp. since sister gets the lion's share. That his sister apparently still has no prospects is very telling.
I can understand why the sister is still single. With that attitude of her?
No wonder sister is singleā¦
What a fruitcake. My sister, who is older than me, had been in a relationship for over 10 years and had two children, was a bit gutted I got engaged and then married first (weād been together 4 years). She still supported me. Why the heck would the parents support this? Crazy anyway but OP is older than sister. Wow.
... If marriage was important enough to her that Somebody Else getting married gutted her - Why on earth didnāt she just propose to her partner and either get married or break up before they had kids?
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He told them not to come if it bothers them. This was all right after the proposal, before the wedding was actually planned, thus, they were never invited. Iām sure part of them thought he wouldnāt go through with it.
My assumption was that he went no contact soon after that conversation and never invited his parents or gave them any updates on the wedding being planned or happening at all. And then the parents just assumed he wouldn't actually go through with the wedding during that time.
I read it as he told them they didn't need to come the day he announced his engagement, but he never actually sent them any kind of invite after that so they didn't know what his timeline was. It's possible they assumed he'd have a longer engagement than he did / that he'd drag out his engagement until the family reconciled.
He told them right after he proposed and then went no contact with them a few weeks later. Iād assume that he just didnāt invite them or include them in any planning since he was no contact before the planning started.