Hi guys. I have an update on this and need to clarify some points. This will be a bit disjointed but I will try to cover everything. Thank you for your responses.

Firstly my dad is unemployed by choice. Without getting into too much detail my mother is 80% disabled but was capable but in her youth laws changed and she was let go by her company for ridiculous reasons I wont go into. She was encouraged to claim benefits and has been there since. My dad claimed that she needed his support daily as a carer thus he left work and didn’t go back. He is very skilled tradesman without official qualifications , basically one of those guys who can do anything they set their mind to yet he wont work. He would rather sit on his arse for £10 then work for £1000. It goes a lot deeper than this but this is my shame. Compared to my partners family who even after retirement still work part time jobs.

My partner and my sister actually do get along, but my family just do not do anything so there has never been a convenient ‘neutral ground’ for them to meet and my family would not go to my partners house to meet neither would they be comfortable having my partners family over. In fact until I met my partner I had never eaten at a restaurant and my parents had never had friends over to visit so it was so hard to get them to meet and I wasn’t so enthusiastic to begin with. My sister works all the time all over the country so shes never available to meet and is unreliable at the best of times. She only calls when she needs something and is notorious for borrowing money and never paying it back. She currently owes me £800 and owes other members of my family thousands. Shes a nice person and has a heart of gold and was great to me growing up but she just has bad luck and is unreliable.

My partner knows all of this except she didn’t ever see how good she was to me when I was young so all she has to go on is the negative stuff. She is also reluctant to include my sister as a bridesmaid as she doesn’t want to trust her to do anything in the chance she won’t do it. I get why my partner doesn’t want her as a bridesmaid because she just doesn’t know her.

I do not mind if my family doesnt like theirs and so on. To be honest their family has adopted me as one of their own and given me a lot over the years. My family on the other hand (due mainly to my dads unemployment) didn’t have the money to equally contribute to my partner the way her family did to me and my parents are so emotionally crippled they made my partner feel awkward when they met. When we bought the house my fiancees father helped with almost all of it himself or put us in touch with tradesmen when he couldnt do it. They paid for loads of things and really did everything they could to help. My family are feeling insecure right now because they realise that they haven’t done nearly as much for me and my faincee as her family has and they feel like they have been shunted out to one side, but the truth is they did it themselves by not supporting us. I get they simply cant afford to financially support us but they could have put some effort in at least but nothing has come.

My dad on the other hand skilled as he is didn’t even come down to do anything, even though he said he would he just didn’t turn up and offered no explanation.I lost a lot of respect and seeing as I talked him up to my fiancees family him not showing just embarrassed me. Now when it comes to the wedding my faincees family are intending to pay a fair bit of that too so its no surprise my partner gets more influence over the proceedings (not that she excludes me, just that she has a direct line to the accountants:)).

I get why my parents want to push my sister as bridesmaid as I think its more a matter of pride and respect for them in this small thing but at the same time I get why my partner doesn’t want her. She does want her there as a guest certainly just not as one of her bridal party and it is of course her choice after all.

So this leads me to the current situation.

I brought this up with my fiancee, she was very upset and cried a lot thinking my family hates her. She still kept her point though she doesn’t know my sister and doesn’t feel comfortable including her in the bridal party as she is pretty much a stranger. We argued for a while but in the end she suggested that perhaps my sister could do a reading at the wedding for us, or at the reception. I have not told my family about this yet though.

I really hate being in the middle of all this. It makes me regret proposing.

Thanks for your support.

Don’t get me wrong none of my life has been worthy of making into a TV drama or anything. Its not like I was abused or anything, more the case that my fiancées parents are just much better than my own in almost all areas.

I am going to call my sister shortly and ask her if she would do a reading for me at the wedding. I think this is a good middle ground and will keep her involved as really out of my family I love her the most.

I will let you know what she says.

Thanks for all your help, this place is really helping me mange stress by giving me somewhere to air worries.

Thanks
Ben

Well that went badly. I called my sister and she told me she didn’t want to be bridesmaid anyway and stuff then hung up. Then called me back minutes later saying that my fiancee has hurt her feelings and that she did want to be a bridesmaid really and stuff. It escalated into my fiancée hating all my family including her and that they all think my fiancée is a snob and ignorant. She topped it off by saying she was done with me and that was that. She basically said she disowns me.

She also says she hates that I asked her to do a reading for me too and that she wont be at the wedding now.

I broke down for a while then called my mother who although she does appreciate my situation still maintains that my fiancee should have asked my sister to begin with. And she says that she should still ask her and stuff. Even when she spoke to my fiancée (who was also in tears now) she still maintained this stance.

I am right in the middle here as I agree with both parties. But I was not asked to be a groomsman at my sisters wedding and didn’t expect to be and neither do I expect to be a groomsman at her next wedding (if she remarries). It never occurred to me that this would be such a big deal. But on the other hand I also think my fiancee could have done with being more considerate with my families feelings (granted so could I).

My sister then texted me with a nasty text and did the same with my fiancée. She’s always had a temper but this really surprised me.

So now we dont know what to do.