A 23-year-old woman is faced with the dilemma of whether or not she should apologize to her stepsister, Maggie, after an explosive altercation, as detailed on Reddit.
*This is a work of non-fiction sourced from social media discussion boards and verified experts/specialists.*
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The 23-year-old author has a stepsister, Maggie, and Maggie’s mother, Miranda’, is married to the author’s father and due to their limited contact along with strained relationships, the two sisters have not been particularly close. The author explains further:
“I grew up mainly with my mother and stepfather so didn’t see Miranda or Maggie that often. Also, Maggie and Miranda have a massive chip on their shoulders about my dad’s extended family so they stopped coming to most group things and I spent a lot of time staying with my grandparent during holidays, so I saw them even less. For various reasons, most of my dad’s family has converged in the same area in the last couple of years so we see each other more often. Maggie got married last year, and I am getting married this summer. The weddings are not close together and not comparable in terms of venue, size, aesthetic, literally anything, but that hasn’t stopped Maggie from comparing them incessantly.”
According to Brides.com, addressing jealous family members during wedding planning may involve validating those feelings and trying to sympathize. The LoveToKnow blog suggests acknowledging the wrongs without taking part in the drama and maintaining a supportive and understanding attitude when dealing with family jealousy.
It was at a family dinner recently that tensions came to a head when the subject of extended family members attending the 23-year-old's wedding came up. The author continues:
“She’s annoyed that my dad offered to pay for mine (I refused) but didn’t for hers. She’s mad that I’m wearing heirloom jewelry for my wedding that she wasn’t offered. She’s mad that extended family will be attending my wedding when they didn’t attend hers. She has gone so far as to say that she should have married my fiancé since she’s closer in age to him and they “skipped” her (she believes my marriage was arranged). It seems to boil down to that she didn’t get the wedding she wanted gratis, and she’s still bitter about it.”
Finally have reached the end of her patience, the author admits that she lashed out at her stepsister, as she explains:
“The subject of a family member came up and their accommodation for the wedding and Maggie chimed in to say how nice it was that they were able to make it to my wedding because they were too busy to come to hers. No one acknowledged what she’d said so she started to talk about the excuse they’d given at a stupidly loud volume so that everyone had to listen. I’m not a confrontational person but a mix of wine and exhaustion took over and I said, ‘No one cared about your wedding a year ago, and they’re not going to start today, so please just spare us’.”
The 23-year-old's outburst was met with an awkward silence until the conversation moved on while Maggie left the table, later too “humiliated” and embarrassed to attend the upcoming wedding. The author concludes:
“My dad is pressuring me to apologize because Miranda is giving him a hard time, as is Maggie. He says I knew how much it hurt Maggie that a lot of the family pomp was not part of her wedding and while she has taken it too far, I went for the jugular and I didn’t need to, because she wasn’t disparaging me, she was just inappropriately expressing bottles up feelings. To me, it felt like she was using my important life event to draw attention to herself which felt unfair and mean-spirited, which is why I reacted the way I did.”
What do you think?
Was the author justified to call her stepsister out for complaining at a family dinner, especially when the author was just trying to talk excitedly with her family about her upcoming wedding, and the stepsister was trying to make it about her?
Or was the author indeed cruel to say something so brutal to her stepsister, and she should indeed apologize for hurting her feelings?
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