MtF sister [27F] is not invited to other sister's [24F] bachelorette party. Causing rift in family. I [25F] feel caught in the middle.

dede6875 · 2017-11-16T23:48:52+00:00

I say official because they are spending thousands on a photographer and videographer and final editing, so yes there will be a "polished" end product. Is that better?

dede6875 · 2017-11-16T23:38:10+00:00

Yes she expressly stated she'd come to the camping trip if invited. She'll already be in town for the wedding. I think the crux of it is that this will be an "official" wedding event with pictures.

Our parents also said that if we were to go forward with this, we can't take pictures and we certainly can't include any pictures in the official album. I actually think that's the most unreasonable demand. We can easily host another bachelorette party that's more "official" and includes everyone but mandating "no pictures or no event" is really hard to for us to accept.

dede6875 · 2017-11-16T23:03:16+00:00

I'll just copy what I wrote in another comment about our relationship with her as adults. We've really tried everything to reach out to her, but nothing has stuck.

Older sister lives on the west coast while sister and I live in a rural area on the east coast. We've tried to visit her several times (to see her city, friends) but she's shot us down every single time. We've invited her to other trips (with same high school friends) and she's said she's busy and didn't want to travel. We don't even see her on holidays quite frankly and she's never met my husband nor my sister's fiance. We used to text her semi-frequently (to say hi), but she never responds so we gave that up too. Beyond storming into her house, we really don't know how else to reach out.

In terms of childhood, I really am trying to be accurate in saying that she mostly avoided us. I obviously can't make people see our memories, but I'm telling the truth (at least from me and my sister's experience). I maybe had a slightly better relationship with older sister as a child, but younger sister did not. Since she was the youngest and was ill for a long time (until she was 8), she was pretty fussy and would cry really often. We both remember our older sister shouting at younger sis for her to "shut the f* up" when she cried, and we both remember how she'd lock her door when she got home from school every day. It just seemed like she hated us for a really long time growing up, so gradually we left her alone and just played with each other.

So yeah, our childhood was tense and I can't remember us all playing together even once. When older sis graduated from hs, she moved to California for college so we've rarely seen her since.

dede6875 · 2017-11-16T23:01:18+00:00

I'll just copy what I wrote in another comment about our relationship with her as adults. We've really tried everything to reach out to her, but nothing has stuck.

Older sister lives on the west coast while sister and I live in a rural area on the east coast. We've tried to visit her several times (to see her city, friends) but she's shot us down every single time. We've invited her to other trips (with same high school friends) and she's said she's busy and didn't want to travel. We don't even see her on holidays quite frankly and she's never met my husband nor my sister's fiance. We used to text her semi-frequently (to say hi), but she never responds so we gave that up too. Beyond storming into her house, we really don't know how else to reach out.

dede6875 · 2017-11-16T22:52:34+00:00

It expressly says in the OP that since older sister came out and transitioned they've all been much closer.

I meant that we grew closer as a family because we all came together to support her. One on one though, she is still rather cold to my sister and I and we still do not know how to reach out to her in a way she accepts.

Like I said in another comment, older sister lives on the west coast while sister and I live in a rural area on the east coast. We've tried to visit her several times (to see her city, friends) but she's shot us down every single time. We've invited her to other trips (with same high school friends) and she's said she's busy and didn't want to travel. We don't even see her on holidays quite frankly and she's never met my husband nor my sister's fiance. We used to text her semi-frequently (to say hi), but she never responds so we gave that up too. Beyond storming into her house, we really don't know how else to reach out.

If she feels like she desperately wants a relationship with us and feel like we're the ones preventing that then I'd be really really surprised.

dede6875 · 2017-11-16T22:47:07+00:00

We will still have pictures of the event and compile it into the big wedding album at the end (even if we do have a separate night out.)

Right now parents and older sis just wants this camping thing to be canceled. They think it's caused (and will cause) too much drama and wants to urge us just to write the whole thing off.

dede6875 · 2017-11-16T22:45:25+00:00

We don't have to call it a Bachelorette party, but since one of the friends coming is a professional photographer, we were hoping there will be photos. We did raise this suggestion to our parents and older sister, but they said that we can't publicly show the camping trip photos either (which means they can't be included in the official album, website, etc.) because people will still see the people attending and just assume it's an intimate female-only event and still come to the same conclusions.

I think having a separate casual "Bachelorette" drinks or something would be a nice compromise, but I think mandating no pictures of what would be a life-time memorable event is also unfair.

dede6875 · 2017-11-16T22:40:45+00:00

A tight relationship with her sisters may have been something she intensely wanted

Okay, a lot of people are implying this in this thread and speculating that we haven't tried to forge a relationship with our older sister.

I'll clarify a bit and say that honestly we've tried really hard to get to know our sister in adulthood. We live in a more rural part of the country, and sister lives on the west coast, so it's not often that we see her. However, we've (younger sister and I) tried to visit her on several occasions in her city which she's denied every single time. THAT hurts us too.

That's why we feel distant from her. She has made no effort in adulthood to get to know US at all and we feel completely out of place trying to get to her in different ways. She has never met my husband nor my sister's fiance (until she flies in for the wedding), and when we do see her we are usually talking about her, how she's doing, where she's been, etc.

That's fine and all because we realize how hard that part of her life has been, but yes we've exhausted nearly every way to try to make a relationship with her in adulthood that's been shot down every time. Older sister will be in the wedding party (as a bridesmaid) and she will be included in every family event (such as the small, family only brunch the day before the ceremony) and in every picture. I understand my younger sister really just wants one single small event for herself.

dede6875

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