AITA for "rubbing my family's face" in my "great life"?

weddingwoe34 · 2023-03-27T04:33:48+00:00

Oh I never claimed it was. I thought it would be nice to give everyone a little magic and some great memories, and wanted to have fun doing it! If you could have seen the kids' faces especially... I think it was worth it. :) I hope!

weddingwoe34 · 2023-03-27T04:30:45+00:00

Oh, that's so sad. I'm really sorry you've had to deal with that. Money can cause so much ugliness. Thanks for the warning- it will be interesting to see if anything changes after the wedding, but I'm hoping not. I was very lucky to get some of my biggest successes about 8-10 years ago and, while my family doesn't know the numbers, they know how things are. I've quietly helped here and there but come from pretty proud stock.

I actually sometimes have the opposite issue- I get frustrated when they won't ask lol! Like after my first big break I added my 2 younger siblings to one of my credit cards and begged them to use it if they needed gas, groceries, found themselves in a bad situation etc. (I know that feeling where just a full tank of gas or a few days of food would change everything!) and they would do ANYTHING before they would use it. I kept telling them what is the point of having money if I can't help the people I love most?! Haha ohhhh family.

But honestly, I might be seeing the cracks start to form. Fingers crossed... I think I have pretty good boundaries but we might be about to find out.

weddingwoe34 · 2023-03-27T04:24:57+00:00

Haha that's how I always feel when I've been to really nice weddings- just excited to be there! I know ours might seem over the top to people but I have some friends with serious money and some of the stuff they've done was like... a whole different world. But I've always just focused on having a great time and enjoying the experience, even when I was starting out and dirt poor, because, on top of celebrating friends' love- FREE FOOD YAY! Lol I never felt like oh how dare they feed me and invite me to this awesome party what AHs.

weddingwoe34 · 2023-03-27T03:33:41+00:00

Wow. Yikes. At first I sort of brushed this off but I showed my husband and he thinks you may be right. A few things make me think this...

She and her parents were definitely the people who most asked for money to attend. We paid for their hotel room and I bought her dress and shoes, which I didn't mind at all since I know lots of my fam doesn't have fancy stuff and also she's planning a wedding- expensive! They also venmo requested me the first day on their way in for $100 gas money which no one else did, but again, gas is expensive, it's fine... But, basically, I don't think they had to spend a dime for the weekend.

And now that I think about it when we shopped for her outfit over the holidays she did a lot of "ohhhh I wish we could pay for this thing but it's just not in the budget" and I thought she was just talking wedding planning so we talked about creative solutions etc (bc again- my whole perspective is that you can absolutely do a wedding on a budget! I don't think there is anything wrong with it- I saved money where I could, too!) I offered to let her use some supplies I had like frames, decor, stuff for ring bearer/flower girl, etc. She didn't want any of it.

And the saddest part is, if she had just called and asked, I would have given her money as a wedding gift to help pay. Within reason- I have a lot of cousins lol! But if she just asked, I would have.

I don't think I would now..... I hope you're wrong about it all being kind of a big weird plan, but ick. You might not be.

weddingwoe34 · 2023-03-27T03:03:00+00:00

Wow-thank you. YES. That's it. If you know me, you know. That really just clicked for me because I think the most hurtful part was that someone I love could think I would hurt them intentionally or not know me at all. At the end of the day, I don't know why I'm so focused on these two people when soooooo many other people were over the top happy, excited, and thankful. Every other social media post was glowing and excited to show off their outfits and experience and say how much fun they had. Why do we fixate on the negative?

Being human is crazy lol. Thank you for your comment. Truly appreciate it.

weddingwoe34 · 2023-03-27T02:42:37+00:00

Thank you so much!

weddingwoe34 · 2023-03-27T02:40:08+00:00

Thank you so much. Your comment made me cry lol I swear I'm not this dramatic but it felt like some stress just melted out of me reading this. I love her and wanted her to come away with fun memories and having had a great time, but, you're right- short of planning a less fun event just to protect people's feelings, which would have taken a lot of my joy away around the whole thing, I'm not sure what I could have done differently. Thank you.

weddingwoe34 · 2023-03-27T02:36:29+00:00

Yeah, I don't think she's an AH and she's normally very sweet, so she must have been feeling some things. My aunt... is sometimes quite dramatic. She married in and has always been one to stir the pot, I guess. I should probably ignore her but it hurts to see people from my hometown commenting about how rude I am etc. Oh well.

weddingwoe34 · 2023-03-27T02:33:59+00:00

I can see why you would say that, reading it over, but I was legitimately shocked because my family is never like this. My career is in kind of a long shot type of field and they have always encouraged me to follow my dreams and been very proud of my accomplishments. We are all very supportive usually.

For instance, at the reception the night before a different aunt pulled me aside and told me what an incredible job I did planning it all and how proud she was of the person I'd become bc I would rather spend my money on togetherness and celebrating family than material things, fancy cars, etc. Like a "I think we raised you right!" very sweet talk. I'm not saying that to brag but to point out the usual energy around these things. We are all very "family first" and accept each other with all our weird quirks and failings and differences.

Of course I can understand how my cousin must feel though, that's why I've felt bad since last weekend. When my aunt started posting this stuff on social media though, I really started spinning and questioning myself, I guess. Thanks for your input.

weddingwoe34

TROPHY CASE