agonyaunt | (no subject)

Dear Prudence,

I love my girlfriend. She is sexy, smart, and fun—and absolutely insane about her sister. They are a year apart and were pretty competitive growing up, but my girlfriend still holds on to that mindset despite the fact it seems her sister moved on. Like I very much doubt her sister chose to get her master’s solely to piss off my girlfriend because it was at her dream school. Or adopted the kind of dog she always wanted as a kid. I got worried when I heard her tell her sister to get her a small shirt as a vacation souvenir and when it arrived and it didn’t fit her she went on a tear about how awful her sister was.

Her sister announced her engagement. And my girlfriend has been unhinged ever since. She constantly checks her sister’s socials and talks about how fake she is. She got upset that she wasn’t asked to be maid of honor (they aren’t having attendants).

Here is where I am worried. The wedding is color themed so all the bride’s sides are one color and the groom’s is another. I don’t get it but the invitation detailed the accent colors—which OK, I can buy a new tie. My girlfriend is really, really upset about the request and has ranted on it. At length. I pointed out she has a shawl in the color and can wear black with a ribbon around her waist or just buy a new dress. Instead, she got a couple of “champagne” colored dresses. I feel like I am stuck in an upcoming horror movie. My girlfriend dismisses my concerns and I have only met her family twice. I also don’t want to fly halfway across the country just to have it blow up in our faces. What the hell do I do? This is nutty, right?

—Bad Rom Com

Dear Rom Com,

Yes, this is nutty! The good news is that, beyond buying that new tie, managing adherence to the wedding color scheme is not your responsibility. Also, you might very well (I’d say there’s about a 75 percent chance) fly across the country just to see things blow up in your face in exactly the way you’re dreading. After all, it sounds like your girlfriend is itching for a fight. But it will be OK. You won’t die. In fact, you won’t even be a main character in whatever explosion takes place. Your job if the scene becomes really contentious will be to grab her shawl and ask her, “Should we get out of here?” and either take a walk around the grounds to decompress, or just go back to the hotel.

After it’s all over, you’re going to be left with your actual problem, which is that you are dating someone whose judgment you don’t trust, whose perception of events you think is questionable, whose conflict management is subpar, and who you think is unhinged. That’s rough. I encourage you to take a step back and ask yourself if you’re seeing these less-than-ideal qualities confined to your girlfriend’s relationship with her sister, or if she has a hard time navigating other aspects of her life, too. Something tells me it may be the latter. If so, you need to really contemplate whether you want to risk one day being the person whose actions are seen in the worst possible light, and whose reasonable requests are the targets of her rants. Because believe me, everything you’re observing will eventually come for you, too.

If her unreasonable outlook is truly confined to her relationship with her sister, and she really is wonderful in all other ways, you have the option of simply deciding this is something that has been going on longer than she’s known you, it’s unlikely to be resolved unless she throws herself into therapy, and that you’re going to have to occasionally witness conflict between the two of them. Also, you’ll probably have to make a commitment to come off as more supportive than you actually feel, because your relationship will suffer if you constantly butt heads over her handling of sister conflicts. That’s not a great way to live, but it’s not the worst, either. After all, we all have our flaws and if the woman you love has committed to keeping a sibling rivalry going for the rest of her time on earth, that’s hers. Just make sure the rest of the relationship is worth it.

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I wish Girlfriend had written in instead of LW, because the advice for Girlfriend is pretty straightforward - do not attend this wedding, do go to therapy, put your sister (and possibly the rest of your nuclear family) on low contact forever.

As for LW... there are two possibilities here. One is that his girlfriend is crazy and should minimize contact with her sister. The other is that she is right and her sister did intentionally send a too-small shirt, choose to attend a school her sister wanted to attend but couldn't get into, and so on. (The dog thing doesn't make much sense unless it's a particularly expensive breed, but who even knows.) And if that's the case, she should definitely minimize contact with her sister.

But LW. Buddy. If you think your girlfriend is crazy, break up with her, for her sake. She deserves better than to be paired up with somebody who thinks she is making shit up.

Also: A "color themed wedding"? For the guests, not the wedding party? Whatever is going on with Girlfriend, her Sister's request is out of line. No, sorry, you cannot dictate what your guests wear besides the very normal line noting the formality of the dress code - white tie, black tie, casual.

I think Sister may have looked at too many bridal magazine or influencer posts.

However, I've been to a couple weddings where it was a situation of "this is likely the last time we'll have a chance for formal portraits with [elderly relative] please wear black, gray, blue, or green so we can take some nice family pictures". The reasoning and dress code requests were separate from the invitation and the requested colors very general. (I think if this were the case here LW would have mentioned.)

Edited 2024-08-25 22:28 (UTC)

A few years ago, this bridezilla post and its original screencaps floated around Tumblr.

Not just color-coding, but color-coding by weight - women over 160 lbs to wear ALL BLACK and men over 200 lbs to wear camo.

I don't think that's standard - but there are a lot of people who think their wedding is supposed to be a Disney-style extravaganza event, not a local community recognizing a new family.

My goodness, that's gotta be a troll.

Also, in the comments somebody linked to a post with a long list of comments from some guy about gourds, and bees, and rhodenium and... I'm seriously wondering if that man is not mentally ill.

LW may want to consider that a person can be "sexy, smart, and fun" without being reasonable, mature, stable, or many other things that a good long-term partner should probably be.

Yes, that too.

LW's girlfriend sounds unhinged, at least wrt her sister. the advice is pretty solid, but I'm definitely leaning toward "run, run far away"

I've known some wild people throughout my life. It's also possible that she's completely right about her sister. Not that egging the woman on is going to help - minimizing contact is the best plan there.

A friend of mine color coded their invitations as "groom's friends", "bride's friends" and "our friends".

But that's invitations.

My sister in law requested us not wear black to her evening wedding and I can see that, too.

Asking guests not to wear one specific color is less likely to be an imposition or expense than asking them to wear a specific color: almost everyone owns something that isn't black, or that isn't one specific color other than black, and for the exceptions, "buy or borrow something in any color except X" is less likely to be difficult.

Black, specifically, feels like it might be the intersection of "I have friends who only own one dress, and that one dress is most likely to be black" with "it may be old-fashioned, but black makes me think of funerals, not weddings" (or "my wonderful grandparents are old-fashioned about a few harmless things, and this is one of them").

See also, “Please avoid such-and-such color; it’s considered unlucky in our culture.”

Or even "Look, it's a weird thing and it's definitely me, but I hate this color but please don't wear it" is still so much less of an imposition than "You must wear this color". Even just as an "accent" color, it's asking a lot.

I legit won't wear black to a wedding, even if asked, because it feels like a host has told me "to honor my special occasion, please take a dump on the floor." I'll try to be inconspicuous but I won't wear black.

But also I honestly think it's rude to demand anything of your guests for clothing besides level of formality. Surprisingly common, but rude.

Well. I had a black dress and had a sharp mustard colored shrug over it so that worked out.

She was having a spring wedding and wanted spring colors, not funeral colors.

Yes, "Please don't wear this specific color which is associated with funerals" is pretty reasonable, right up there with "FFS, don't dress like a bride if you're not the bride".