Birth order can often play a pretty important role in certain families. While it's always good to treat your children equally, oftentimes people have certain expectations based on age. For example, if one sister is 30, family friends may expect her to get married before a sister in her 20s.
Yet that's not always the case — and that's because people fall in love at different times. However, some people still feel it would be mortifying if they don't have a wedding and settle down before a younger sibling. Case in point, this situation from Reddit. Posted by Redditor Juliieisnotaghost, an entire family may soon split apart due to birth order expectations.
She explained that she and her fiancé, who's 23 and two years younger than she is, have been together for just two years but have had an established friendship prior to. "We dated for two years and we are very happy together," she wrote. "The day he proposed to me was the happiest day of my life. We intend to get married next year when the world is a little more normal."
However, not everyone in her family is celebrating.
"The problem started at a family dinner when we announced to everyone that we're engaged," she wrote. "My older brother and my younger sister (who is also my best friend in the world) were immediately excited and my sister came jumping with joy to congratulate me, but my older sister was very upset. She didn't accept the fact that I was going to get married first."
"My older sister pulled me aside and asked me to postpone the wedding until she could get married first," she continued. "She thinks that, being the oldest, she should get married first. I said no, that I wasn't going to do that because it wasn't fair to me or my fiancé. She doesn't even have a fiancé and I don't want to have to wait until she finds someone, spend time with that person, be asked to marry, get engaged, get married so that I can get married."
It seems to be a ridiculous ask. From the sound of it, her older sister might just have a partner at the moment. But it's also possible that she's single. Waiting so long for someone else to get married and settle down could take years. However, it seems as if this news really took her older sister by surprise, so maybe she wasn't thinking logically.
"My older sister started to cry and say that it would be very humiliating for her if I married first and that it would be like destroying her," she said. "My parents and some uncles ran to comfort her. My mom asked me if I [could] postpone the wedding a little, for my sister's sake. I again denied it and said it was going to happen."
However, standing up for herself and her partner has caused a rift within the entire family. Now that it's become an issue, even aunts and uncles are getting involved — which is something that should have never happened. Getting engaged is wonderful news, and in a way, her older sister was making the moment about herself.
"Now my parents and many of my family members are bombarding me with messages and calls asking me to cancel the engagement and calling me a [expletive] for refusing," she said. "They say that if my fiance and I love each other so much, we can wait a little longer. The only ones who stayed with me were a few uncles, my grandparents, my brother, and my younger sister."
While it's always important to think about family members and their feelings, this seems like a ridiculous ask. While the original poster (OP) is very young, she's also known her fiancé since they were children. Plus, nobody seems to have any issue with the relationship — only the timing of the wedding.
While milestones like these may be embarrassing for an older sister, it's something she should handle on her own. Even if her sister were to postpone the wedding another year, that's still not much time for her to meet someone, fall in love, and have a wedding. If she were also engaged, it might be a different story.
But even so, the OP is a legal adult. And she should be able to get married when the timing works best for her and her soon-to-be-husband. She still cares about her sister, saying, "I don't want to humiliate my sister or make her sad, but I don't think it's fair what she's asking me." Luckily, the Reddit community gave some great advice.
"What if she never gets married?" writes AngryKami. "Then you must die an old woman unmarried? What's next that you have to wait in line for? Sucks that she's upset but if she's an adult she'll get over it." They make a good point — if the OP caves on the wedding date, what else will she have to wait her turn to do?
Redditor catappreciator7 could relate to certain aspects of the situation and gave their side. "My baby brother has been married for 14 years," they wrote. "If I asked anything like that when he got married, he would have laughed me out of the room. And my mom would have whacked me over the head. And I'm still single. That older sister is ridiculous and needs a reality check. Along with several members of the family apparently."
Tidal_dragon had some excellent advice, stating that setting boundaries here may help make things less complicated in the future. "If you apologize at all for simply marrying the love of your life on your own timeline, your sister will likely make this an issue all the way up to the wedding, and may even try to sabotage your special day," they said. "If you cave, you may likely have to wait another 10 years to marry your fiance seeing as how someone with your sister's attitude may have a hard time finding a willing partner."
These days, women aren't necessarily expected to get married or have families. It's still a nice option for the future, but it's not required. It seems as if anyone who agrees with the OP's sister just wants to avoid a future fight. But setting that limit is the sense of reality her sister needs. Birth order means nothing when it comes to falling in love.
While her feelings may sting a little, she'll get over it. Or maybe she'll use it as a reason to focus more on her love life and less on anything else that may be occupying that time. Siblings should be happy for each other when it comes to weddings and romance. By trying to make her younger sister feel bad about her own engagement, it proves that she's refusing to think about how the situation affects anyone other than her.
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