Bare with me. This is something I longed to get out for a while now, but kept hidden as I thought things were getting better.
I have two sisters, one twin sister and one older sister. My older sister is turning 34 this year, so the same age as my fiance.
Ever since I was little she hated me, mostly because I was often very sick - I had pneumonia almost every month and if there was a good month without pneumonia, I got something else that kept me in bed and off kindergarten/school - and she was jealous of the attention I would get. It got so far that I was scared of being sick, because I didn't want my parents to give me the attention she wanted. I pretended I was feeling fine to the point where I had to be taken to the hospital because of an asthma attack while having to deal with pneumonia. Sob sob sob - I have since talked about this a lot with my man and know that being sick is not my fault and pretending I am not sick out of fear of attention is just gonna cause the sickness to be worse than it would be if it got treated.
Fast forward to the start of the relationship with my husband-to-be.
My big sister never liked any of my boyfriends, but she tolerated my ex, because he was going to become a rich man in the future and to my sister, money is everything in life. When we broke up, she was furious. She told me multiple times that I am stupid and that I should have never done that. After about a month or two of being with my fiance, back then boyfriend, we changed our status on Facebook to in a relationship and linked each other. Both my brothers' comments were "oO", but my big sister started to cuss out my man and myself. She repeatedly said that I am stupid for doing this, that I am naive and that life doesn't work that way. I deleted all her nasty comments that she not only left on the relationship status change, but also all around my facebook page. After I had done that, I noticed that she put a multitude of passive aggressive posts about my relationship on her facebook, never saying any names so she could always say she meant someone else. I deleted her off facebook, because I simply was done with her. After years of torment, I didn't want her to ruin the one good thing in my life.
She then noticed that a friend of my man posted a link to a Hitler parody on his facebook - which obviously means my fiance is a Nazi. It didn't matter that it was not him, but some random friend who posted this link to his facebook and that he has not been on facebook in months before we changed the status, the only important information was that he is a Nazi and she has to warn my dad about him, which of course she did. She called my dad at work and told him everything, meaning "Stephen is a Nazi". My family is polish and my dad's father fought in the 2nd world war, so this information would cause trouble and she knew this. My dad was the bigger person and asked my twin if this was true and to explain to him how this facebook thing works. Luckily, my twin is more savvy in matters regarding computers and websites, so she quickly noticed that it was a friend who posted this and that Stephen not even reacted to it (I later found out, he had not even noticed it, so long has he not been on facebook).
My whole family thought I was being silly - deleting your own sister off facebook? Are you not siblings anymore? I told them very clear that she is still my sister, but that this does not mean that I have to let her abuse me and that I am done talking to her. Everyone was mad at me for it. Then the time for my first visit came and I was super excited!! I promised my father I would email him as soon as I would arrive, because I wasn't sure about the phone charges and didn't want to end up with a huge bill for a 2 minute call. He said that was perfectly fine, so that was what I did. My dad didn't think it was important to tell the rest of my family that I arrived safely so my big sister saw her next chance to make me out to be the worst person ever. We have a family group on whatsapp where she kept on going about how stupid I am, blablabla. I noticed the over 90 messaged when I turned wifi on at the airport on the way home and left that group, because I am not going to listen to her shit constantly.
When I came back I had a nervous breakdown. All the abuse and all the things I had done to myself just came out in a stream of frustration and once everything was said, my brothers, my twin and my parents realized that this person I am with, is a good man who treats me well and for once makes me feel like I am worth something, so they gave him a chance. My big sister came around when I came home with a ring on my finger, because now this person was going to be her brother-in-law. She started to be nicer towards me and I was actually thinking that things were going in the right direction - though she still owes my fiance an apology for calling him a Nazi to stir up trouble.
Fast forward to today. My mom told me that to this day, my big sister is making fun of my fiance's job and thinks he is a lesser person because of it. His official work title is "meat clerk" at Stop&Shop in CT, which basically means he is a butcher in a supermarket. He has been at his job for 14 years, never skipping a day, always doing his job, six days a week, even on weekends with only 2 weeks off work a year (I think!). In fact, his boss is so fond of him, he keeps trying to persuade him to get a car and a license so he can become the manager of the seafood department, which would bring a huge raise with it. Nonetheless, to her being a butcher is a shitty job that only redneck idiots do. So because he is not a lawyer or a doctor, he is stupid and worth nothing. This is how my sister thinks and not just her, her pretentious husband thinks so as well who, by the way, didn't finish high school and is now a carpenter...?
I never once judged her on her life decisions, nor did I even mention them. Not when she dated a tattoo artist to get free tattoos, not when she left her son with us, while she was dating, and here it comes, a Neo-Nazi and not when she got pregnant by a man who was engaged to another woman. It is her life and I helped her through each of these situations, is it not fair to expect her to do the same? I don't even expect her to like my fiance, just tolerate him. Yet I am the one who was debating on asking my brother's girlfriend on designing the first pages of my guestbook, because she didn't do the invitation for my big sister's wedding and I didn't want her to feel bad about it. I was going to do it myself, so she didn't feel like our brother's girlfriend likes me more than her. She only didn't do the wedding invitations, because my big sister NEVER ASKED HER, she simply ASSUMED she would do it. In the end, I went with my gut feeling and asked her. This is my wedding and my brother's girlfriend is AMAZING at writing and drawing! She told me she was honored that I asked and told me that she is so happy that I trust her this much! I feel really good about this.
I am honestly scared to invite her to my wedding. Seriously. She would have the money to actually fly out there and be with us, but I am scared she would make a fool out of me and herself, ruining my day. I am considering not inviting her. I don't want her to make a list of things that are not to her liking and afterwards deduct points for everything that she didn't like. She did that for the wedding of a close friend and I don't want to hear what she thought sucked. It is my special day and I want it to be the way I want it to be. I am scared of her even seeing pictures of it, because I am so scared of what she will think of my dress, my fiance and our wedding as a whole. It is not healthy to be scared of the opinion of another person, who only brings negativity into my family's life and mine.
I think this is why it bothers me so much. I wanted to let go of all the grief she had caused to be give her the benefit of the doubt and move on and then I hear that she didn't change one bit. That she judged me for leaving my ex, that she thinks my fiance is no good and that she is absolutely against our relationship and wedding. It hurts.
I don't know where I wanted to go with it, but it needed to come out. I am sick of it. The whole family, WHOLE FAMILY, doesn't want to spent any time with her anymore as she is always causing trouble and she doesn't even realize it. She is one of those people who always see themselves as the victim, even when they are picking on other people and I am just so sick of dealing with it. I have enough on my plate and want to go on.
When you stop looking down on me, YOUR family and our life decisions, we can start building a relationship again, until then I am simply done.
Though not to the same extent, I've also dealt with a condescending sister who looks down on many of my decisions. It's not fun at all.
With that being said, I thing PiedPiper makes a good point. Will your sister make an even bigger fuss if she isn't invited to the wedding? Either way, it's completely unfair for you to be treated that way. It's going to be your big day, and you deserve to be treated like a princess! I hope everything works out so you can enjoy your day
I'm still trying to cope with it myself.