My brother’s fiancé doesn’t want me in the wedding.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:All these people saying they're not friends with their bridesmaids 20 years later are telling on themselves.

I think it depends on what age you get married. I got married before I was 25, my bridesmaids were my college roommates and my best friend in DC. Fast forward to age 43, I am the only one of my college roommates who lives in this area, everyone has their own lives and their own families, and often the person you are at 25 is not the person you are at 43. I will always love those girls but they aren’t my inner circle anymore. That’s just life.

+1. I married at 25 and we made our lives in a different state from where we grew up and where we met. I adored my friends at the age we married and value the friendships that we had, but life has taken us all in various directions. I also value the friend group I have now in my early 40s.

Cellphones exist. Airplanes exist.

PP are you the type of person who was born and raised in the same town your entire life never leaving? Because it doesn't seem like you can understand or relate to the idea that proximity can impact a friendship. Once close friends become distant and new friends take more importance. This isn't a failing in life.

Nope. Grew up in Alexandria, college in California, grad school in Boston, currently live in Seattle. Speak to my bridesmaids daily and see them several times a year. Female friendship has sustained me through the hardest times of my life and it's something I put a lot of effort into because it's important to me.

You have the time to speak to multiple women daily on the phone? You seem to require a lot more emotional support and have a lot of free time for the phone than many people need or want. It's not really envious. But you do you.

Do you...understand how text messaging works? Sorry I assumed we were the same age cohort. I suppose if you have to mail people letters yes that is more time consuming.

Have you never heard of FaceTime?

Yes I'm sure that's how you check in with your grandchildren.

Since I'm busy raising young children and have a life I don't have time to text multiple women all day long because I'm too pathetic to stand on my own two feet.

Ahh. There it is. I really hit a nerve huh.

Not that it matters but I'm actually a therapist and most of the emotional support is going in the opposite direction. But, no my days are filled with heavy emotional text messages. It's pictures of what we made for dinner, funny stories about our kids, complaints about work.

You seem to be someone who could really benefit from some close female friends! I hope you find time to nourish that for your own sake. It's really vital to our inner lives.

Everyone is not you, people are different.

Yes, people are different. Some women are pleasant enough to sustain female friendships and someone women are you.

There are multiple posters explaining how it came to be that people they were tight with 20 years ago are no longer as close to them, and then there is you shouting into the abyss that if you aren’t texting friends of 20 years pics of your dinner and complaints about work you are unpleasant and incapable of female friendships.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:All these people saying they're not friends with their bridesmaids 20 years later are telling on themselves.

I think it depends on what age you get married. I got married before I was 25, my bridesmaids were my college roommates and my best friend in DC. Fast forward to age 43, I am the only one of my college roommates who lives in this area, everyone has their own lives and their own families, and often the person you are at 25 is not the person you are at 43. I will always love those girls but they aren’t my inner circle anymore. That’s just life.

+1. I married at 25 and we made our lives in a different state from where we grew up and where we met. I adored my friends at the age we married and value the friendships that we had, but life has taken us all in various directions. I also value the friend group I have now in my early 40s.

Cellphones exist. Airplanes exist.

PP are you the type of person who was born and raised in the same town your entire life never leaving? Because it doesn't seem like you can understand or relate to the idea that proximity can impact a friendship. Once close friends become distant and new friends take more importance. This isn't a failing in life.

Nope. Grew up in Alexandria, college in California, grad school in Boston, currently live in Seattle. Speak to my bridesmaids daily and see them several times a year. Female friendship has sustained me through the hardest times of my life and it's something I put a lot of effort into because it's important to me.

You have the time to speak to multiple women daily on the phone? You seem to require a lot more emotional support and have a lot of free time for the phone than many people need or want. It's not really envious. But you do you.

Do you...understand how text messaging works? Sorry I assumed we were the same age cohort. I suppose if you have to mail people letters yes that is more time consuming.

Have you never heard of FaceTime?

Yes I'm sure that's how you check in with your grandchildren.

Since I'm busy raising young children and have a life I don't have time to text multiple women all day long because I'm too pathetic to stand on my own two feet.

Ahh. There it is. I really hit a nerve huh.

Not that it matters but I'm actually a therapist and most of the emotional support is going in the opposite direction. But, no my days are filled with heavy emotional text messages. It's pictures of what we made for dinner, funny stories about our kids, complaints about work.

You seem to be someone who could really benefit from some close female friends! I hope you find time to nourish that for your own sake. It's really vital to our inner lives.

Everyone is not you, people are different.

Yes, people are different. Some women are pleasant enough to sustain female friendships and someone women are you.

There are multiple posters explaining how it came to be that people they were tight with 20 years ago are no longer as close to them, and then there is you shouting into the abyss that if you aren’t texting friends of 20 years pics of your dinner and complaints about work you are unpleasant and incapable of female friendships.

+1. Here’s what: if I encounter a share-my-dinner-texter at any point in my life—old friend or new—I start phasing them out deliberately. Your dinner is not of interest to anyone but you and your family. Really.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No bad blood at all - I actually like her a lot and my little brother is finally happy. But she has no siblings and I’m my brother’s only sister. Our oldest brother will be his best man (it’s just the three of us).

I don’t know if I should feel relieved or hurt. I’ve just never heard of a bride not including the grooms only sister in the bridal party.

It's not that she doesn't want you. It's that she does want other friends.

[Anonymous]

I was young and my parents forced inclusion of youngest sibling on each side, so I had his highschool age sister. It really downed everything. Don't force yourself into someone's wedding. They are getting married, they don't need to manage the awkwardness of unwanted people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No bad blood at all - I actually like her a lot and my little brother is finally happy. But she has no siblings and I’m my brother’s only sister. Our oldest brother will be his best man (it’s just the three of us).

I don’t know if I should feel relieved or hurt. I’ve just never heard of a bride not including the grooms only sister in the bridal party.

It's not that she doesn't want you. It's that she does want other friends.

+1. My SIL didn’t have me in her wedding either. I didn’t know her well when she got engaged to my brother after a few months of dating. My mother was annoyed she didn’t ask me and somehow a story got spread that I didn’t want to be a bridesmaid (which wasn’t true-she never asked me.) But my SIL picked these godawful turquoise bridesmaids dresses and I was so thankful I wasn’t invited to be a bridesmaid.

[Anonymous]

I have four brothers and was not in any of their weddings. I think one of my sisters was in two of their weddings. At this point I can’t even remember except I remember one complaining basically that she was too old for that sh-t.