(Closed) Younger brother getting married (feeling sorry for myself–vent)

• 7SEVENJ9
• 7 years ago

• Wedding: September 2010

I’ve been on the other side – the fiance of the younger brother. I would just give the advice to NOT do what my SIL did, and be a horrendous wench to your brother and his bride-to-be…

In our case, we were 26 and SIL was 28… not a huge difference, and she’s been with her boyfriend only about 6 months longer than us… and we’ve been together 6 years (5 when we got engaged). We both have big families, he has two sisters and I have three brothers, so we decided that it would be best to not ask any of our siblings to be in the wedding, since we felt that we would either have to go all or nothing – can’t just ask one! SIL did not take kindly to this and made what should have been a happy time for us absolutely miserable… and even after the wedding we do not have a good relationship with her because of her actions and behavior.

We recognized that it was not an issue with US that she had, but rather, she had her own insecurities and anger toward her boyfriend and was taking it out on us instead. Unfortunately, I don’t forsee a relationship with her going forward, which is sad to both my husband and me.

Talk to your brother about what you’re feeling, explain that you’re happy for them but that you are feeling insecure about your own situation… but be sure to recognize that it’s not your brother’s fault that you’re feeling that way, that you don’t expect him to put his and his fiance’s plans on hold until your plans come to fruition – be honest and open with them… and have the same conversation with your significant other!

• Isilme
• 7 years ago

• Wedding: May 2016

It’s not quite the same thing, but my BF’s 4-years-younger brother proposed this last fall at the 10 year mark for ebing with his Girlfriend (they started dating in high school), and are only waiting on her to graduate college to go on get married.  Meanwhile, my Boyfriend or Best Friend, who also started dating young and have been past the decade mark, are not engaged, and obviously not married. I kinda went into a state of shock, as this proposal came hard and fast on the heels of several other people close to us, and led to me having a nervous breakdown of sorts.  I tried to be nice and congratulatory in public, but in private I was devastated, and seriously hurting. 

I feel strange now around the Girlfriend, since she’s now one step closer to being ‘real’ family with my BF’s family, and I’m ‘just’ a girlfriend.  I know they feel weird about it, too.  When she and I were both just girlfriends, and only the older sister was married, things were pretty even, and I didn’t feel so out of place.  Now, I feel very much the outsider, the intruder/interloper (no one has said or done anything in any way to amke me feel this way – it’s prerry much all me, I guess).  I just feel as the unmarried, unengaged girl at gatherings now I should defer to her as the soon to be married woman, while I remain somewhat ‘unchosen”.

I felt bad to begin with that I rely on my BF’s family to even HAVE family, as mine is out of the picture, but they’d always accepted me very kindly and have done what they could to help me after my family discarded me.  But there’s always been that awkward, “Where do I fit?” feeling at holidays and other events, like funerals, espcailly when I’m introduced as the family never knows how to introduce me – I’m not ‘really’ family, so I know there are certain points where I will have to go stand with the other outsiders and let the family, which now include the brother’s Fiance, be together.  It’s kind of a line I feel wouldn’t be proper to cross.

It’s morbid, but I know their wonderful, awesome 91 year old grandmother is slowly slipping, and she misses her husband dearly who passed on about 10 years back, and she’s pretty much counting the days until she can see him again, and I know that in ‘official’ lists of survivors and mourners I should not be inlcuded (I used to help write obits at my old job for publication – they have to draw a line at how many names and what counts as family, or they’d have to list the whole town for some people – fiancees count – girlfriends do not) – it’s silly, and shouldn’t matter, but it does. Part of me has a nasty (it’s ugly, I know) hope that I AM excluded from things like the obituary notice and not seated with the family come that horrible day when she’s passed, and my Boyfriend or Best Friend has to take more notice of the fact that status quo is NOT fine, that being married DOES matter.  Please don’t hate me too much for the deep dark thoughts that strike me when I’m uspet. 

So, you’re sad feelings mixed with your pride for your brother are not out of place, and they are understandable. 

• kay01
• 7 years ago

• Wedding: May 2012

Hmm.  I am sure it can be frustrating, but I might try to look on it positively – the younger brother could help encourage the older one to take the plunge.  Better happy couples getting married, setting great examples, than unhappy couples getting divorces.

• Isilme
• 7 years ago

• Wedding: May 2016

@Shirinjoon: I think the hardest part is the lack of control over my own situation.  If this was a matter of me failing to do something then I would step up and fix it.  For example, I have been successful in my career because I worked hard to get to where I’m at.

Exactly!  I am by no means any kind of control freak, I pretty much just live and let live in MSOT things… but when I need to step it up to get soemthing done, even though I am a major procrastinator – I do it.  If it meant 48 hours of straight work on projects before finals, I stayed up, got things turn in, and then enjoyed the sleep that can only cme after being up so long.  If I needed to put more effort in at work, staying late or doing more, it got done, and I tried to do it well.

But this….. this marraige thing is driving me nuts because it’s like high school when you get told to accomplish some assignment with a group, and most of them don’t show up, don’t seem to care about the grade, and they know you’ll do the work anyway because YOU do.  But I can’t get married to have a respected relationship on my own.  There is almost nothing I can do… except wait.  and wait.  and try to give up or decide if leaving is something I could ever do (right now it’s not – and I’m trying to get resigned to realizing I may never have what I really want, but as long as I’m with him, even in this half-assed manner, maybe it won’t matter).  There are so any days when it DOESN’T matter, when I’m just fine and happy to be with him… but then I realize he’s not made that one step, made that actual statement that means he’s made a choice and isn’t just going with the flow.  And I feel sometimes like a little bit of me dies.  I love him. I’m making my comttment to him, even if he can’t to me, but we’ve been together a very long time, and it wold be the same as a divorce to me if I did leave, so for me it’s not really a viable option.  It’d just prove to him it’s only been about a ring and not him at all.  Sigh.

• swtTea
• 7 years ago

• Wedding: October 2011

I’m engaged, so I’m sorry to intrude on the waiting board..but I thought I might just add something that maybe you have not try take control of your personal life.  I’m sorry if this might be obvious. Every relationship is different and the progression of that relationship is dependent on the two involved.

For those who feel they don’t have control over what happens in your personal life…why do you let it? Is the next step hindered by financial hardship? Bad timing? If you’re both ready..you’ll find a solution…TOGETHER!

Have you try pushing it a little?  I’m not advocate that you guilt/manipulate your SO into marriage, but having an honest discussion and seeing where you both stand might help you decide what to do (wait patiently for most of you).  I think at a point in your relationship (and you know when this point is), you’re entitle to say “hey honey, i’m ready to get married, I want to know what it takes for that to happen.”  I was bold when I did just that after months into dating my Fiance..but you know what..my bluntness got my FI thinking about the future. He admited he was caught off guard, and didn’t think he was ready, but he felt strongly enough about me to take that leap to the next level together. I was ready to walk away if he thought about stringing me along..so I would suggest taking the time to do some soul searching.  

You should try to take control of your own life..i know it is easier said then done, but I’ve been through enough to say this… life is short and you shouldn’t wait for it to pass you by.    

• LucyLaLa
• 7 years ago

• Wedding: August 2013

hi shirinjoon,

i have been reading your other posts this week so i reallly feel bad for you about the timing of this. of course you love your brother and want him to have a good life with his fiance, it is just the timing that hurts. i know it must feel weird, what does your bf think.

about one yr ago my bfs younger cousin proposed to his gf…it felt weird at the time, i was waiting then as i am now. the wedding is in two months and its still a little weird but now it is not a shock. i do think i will have minor emotional issues at the wedding which i am trying to mentally prepare for.  but my hope is that it will get my bf thinking that he could get married, to see his younger cousin do it.

sorry no punctuation, it is some prob with my phone posting to the site

• Bostonsmom
• 7 years ago

• Wedding: October 2011

I totally feel for you!! I have been following your posts, and I know this must be one of those bittersweet situations. I just want you to know, that I think you have every right to feel upset, even though you love your bro and want him to be happy! Let yourself be sad/mad however you want to feel for a little while, and then move on! July will be here soon enough!

• wishingonadream04
• 7 years ago

• Wedding: August 2013

I totally am in your shoes. My younger cousin is engaged and took awhile to set a date. Now they have a date and the closer it gets without an engagement for me, the worse I feel. It sucks feeling like this and having to face attending a wedding while still not being engaged to my SO. Don’t get me wrong I love my cousin, but I can’t help feeling angry/sad about it and knowing that most likely we will probably not be engaged by then and havign to deal with people saying things like “you’re next” the whole time. I’m sorry you are going through this and I have been following your posts as well. I hope he realizes what he will be losing if he lets you walk away. *hugs*

• Isilme
• 7 years ago

• Wedding: May 2016

@swtTea:  I know that the OP, Shirinjoon, has posted many times about her conversations with her SO and about how she HAS told him how she feels.  He knows.  She’s trying to be pariten while he appears to be making excuses at times and dragging his feet.  She’s told him pretty much thath she doens’t want to still be wiating come July.  I don’t think you can get much more communication accomplished than that.  So she’s stuck, now, trying not to harp on it each time they see each other.  She’ss tuck waiting for him to make the move.  She has to wait on HIM to make the move at this point, or ‘take control’ by leaving a relationship she loves enough to want to continue into marriage.  That’s the source of the frustration.

My SO and I HAVE talked.  He knows how I feel.  He’s a little but of a mystery to me, as his feelings are more in flux than mine are once a month, sometimes.  I’ve done my part, telling him how I feel, he’s asked me to wait a bit longer, so guess what:  I wait.  I can’t positiviely control the situation in any way to make it go more quickly.  Anything I do could push down the tower of cards of his positive thoughts about marraige that are being built.  I need him to reach a point on his own.   I have no control over how he feels – only HE can control that.  Again, the only “control” I have is whether I stay in my long-term relationship that I’ve built my entire life around, that no one would tell me to leave if we were already married, or whether I go ‘husband huntng’, violating how I feel in the first place.  I don’t want to get married for the sake of getting married… I want to be married to my SO because I love him.  Leaving won’t solve that probelm, at all.  So, I feel I have no direct control, and have to wait on him, just like many, many ladies on the waiting boards.  I can only control myself, and I only have 3 options:

Leave.  Give up.  Pretty much ‘divorce’ my SO, without any of the protection or repsect the word divorce brings simply because we’ve been together so long but aren’t married.  Say to him that I love him so much I want to spend forever with him, so I’m going to leave (that’s what he will take from it) hoping to find another warm body to put a ring on my hand.

Stay, maybe forever hoping he’ll come around – he’s made some recent overtures to this effect, but he’s like a snail, soooo slooow.  I can stay, never really 100% knowing that he may or may not propose, and wisk me off to Vegas or a courthouse and ‘make an honest woman of me’, or whether that little piece of me that hopes each and every holiday will get the best of me, hoping he’ll do it, and being crushed he didn’t.

Give up all hope and stay.  Resign myself to the fact that I am not meant to be married.  Understand that I will be willing to give up on something pretty much any woman I’ve ever known has hopes for, one day.  Realize that since I’m mostly happy with him, it shouldn’t matter, no matter the silly, hurtful jokes people make, no matter the fact that I’ll need to jump through a lot of hoops to garner the same legal protections marriage would confer, realize that the man I love loves me, just not enough to give me his name, and deal with it. 

These are my current options to regain control, while waiting for him to gain control over things he has plenty of power to do, like fix his finances, finish school and decide whether being married is really the kiss of death that he thinks from seeing his parents’ marriage, or if it just means I could finally be happy knowing he’d actually chosen me ans wasn’t just caosting along in life, happy I’m there but not caring if I’m not.

If your SO didn’t shrink away when you pretty much popped your own questions on him, that’s great.  Not all men are so positiviley inclined towards marriage, based on their true age, preceived age, where they are in the lives and their careers, etc.  Not everyone has such a relatively simple walk from dating to engaged to married.  Many, many men these days ceom from broken homes which discourage believe in the success of marriage, they’ve been told that marraige is stupid because yo’re now tied to only one woman forever instead of being a swinging player, that only old people get married, that you have to have kids right off the bat, … there’s a lot going on that makes it hard for some modern men to wrap their minds around, “If I love her, and want to be with her, I really ought to marry her.”

• bells
• 7 years ago

• Wedding: June 2011

I am also on the other side of this my FI’s cousin who is more like a brother to him is several years older than us and has been trying to find his life partner but is currently still single, once we announced we were getting married and Fiance asked him to be the best man, he totally changed his attitude towards us. He outright said it would be weird for him so he refused to be the best man, and his older sister has been very rude to me since then. we wanted her daughter to be our flower girl and she said yes at first but then raised hell and eventually Fiance just asked them to forget it and we replaced her.

We did nothing wrong to deserve an of this except that we got engaged first. I think its unfair and bizarre for them to bear a grudge against us, so please try your hardest to be normal to your younger brother because otherwise you will jus hurt them and alienate them and look even worse and in the end when you finally get married it will be awkward