This one actually had me a little stumped, so I’m super curious what you guys think. I don’t know that I agree with Reddit’s verdict, which will be down at the end.
u/estrangedBroThrow took to AITA to ask if he was a jerk “for going to a family wedding my brother wasn’t invited?”
The story is a bit involved. Here’s his version:
I am 4 years older than my brother Mark. I never got myself into trouble and was always a great student. I graduated and found myself a great job, a loving wife and all I’ve dreamed of.
OP has a younger brother, Mark, who was a good person who lacked life direction for a while.
Mark is doing good, all things considered, but he sure went the long way. When he got to high school he would constantly hang with the wrong crowds and got himself in trouble very often. He barely graduated and after that his life went off the deep end. He flunked college, only got himself dead-end jobs and only got by with mine and my mother’s help.
Mark got into a bit of trouble with drugs and was the family’s “black sheep”.
He also got himself into drugs though I don’t know how bad. Still, all things considered, he was always a very good person. Honest and he never made excuses for himself. He was just lazy and had no direction in life.
Their aunt Mary tried to distance her family from Mark to keep her kids from romanticizing his life, which makes sense! She was civil enough.
During this time he was our extended family’s black sheep, specially from our mother’s side. Our aunt Mary, specially. Mary is very cool but does act a bit pretentious. Her kids worshiped Mark and when the stories about his life started going around (half of them were lies) she started putting some distance, but would talk to Mark the same as me when we did met.
Mark turned his life around after hitting bottom. He’d completely left the drugs and bad stuff behind.
Eventually, Mark turned his life around. I don’t know what happened, but I know it was really bad. Long story short, he got himself clean. One year after that he was unrecognizable. He was happy, extroverted and pretty much left his old life behind.
Eight years later, he was engaged and ready for the future… but the aunt never let Mark redeem himself.
After 8 years, he was engaged, with a job and a future. Our family knows of this and they’re happy for him. Unfortunately, Mary never abandoned her old views. She occasionally puts him down because he never went to college and doesn’t respect his job. Every time I visit she likes to show me off as her lawyer nephew…but she never invites him or even mentions him. As far as her friends know, my mother only has one son. Mark knows this and it hurts him.
The aunt even goes so far as to say that OP’s mom only has one son. Which is so cruel.
Two years ago, Mary’s daughter got married and they planned this huge wedding. Both me, my wife and my mother got invited but not Mark.
Mary’s daughter got married two years ago; OP and his mom were invited, Mark wasn’t.
We didn’t know how to handle this. We asked Mary’s daughter why was Mark left out and she admitted her mother didn’t want him there because it would make them look bad. We decided to go without telling him, so he wouldn’t get hurt. He was never even aware Mary’s daughter was getting married.
OP and his mom went to the wedding without telling Mark, but he found out and was crushed.
Of course, eventually he found out when he saw pictures in social media. He was absolutely crushed. He confronted us and said that if we were family we should’ve refused to go without him. I disagreed. We fought and he went NC. To this day my mother feels guilty about it.
Here’s where you lose me: Mark went No Contact. It’s been TWO YEARS. This seems like such a huge overreaction.
This was 2 years ago. A couple of weeks ago my mother found out that Mark just had a kid and had introduced it to our other uncles. She was very hurt since she never even knew his partner was pregnant.
And Mark even had a BABY and never told his mother. Like, what? Over one wedding? You can’t talk this out?
She asked him why he didn’t tell us about his child. His answer “I love [son]. I will always be there for him, no matter what. I will not expose him to a family that will feel ashamed of him and turn him into a pariah because of some stupid choices”.
Here’s Reddit’s verdict:
“You, your Mother and your Aunt are ALL huge AH’s. In fact the only NTA is your poor brother. Hope that wedding was worth losing a brother, a sister in law and now a nephew over. Your arrogance is actually disgusting…not a good look,” wrote KirbyShark13.
So what do you think? Asshole or naw?