Reddit Stories - BETRAYED Trust_ PROMISED CEREMONY Funds Diverted to Sibling's Needs_

Episode Date: October 31, 2025

#redditstories #askreddit #aita #betrayedtrust #promisedceremony #funddiverted #siblingsneeds #familydramaSummary: A family is torn apart when a sibling betrays trust by diverting funds promised for a special ceremony to their own needs, causing turmoil and resentment among family members.Tags: redditstories, askreddit, reddit, aita, tifu, familydrama, betrayal, trustissues, financialdispute, siblingrivalry, conflictresolution, brokenpromises, familyrelationships, moneyproblems, loyaltyissues, familyconflict, deception, eventplanning, financialmanagement, familybondingBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reddit-stories--6237355/support.

I hope you enjoy this story. Guardians assured me they would cover the expenses for my ceremony, but ended up allocating their funds towards my sibling separation instead. They subsequently suggested that I call off my nuptials, prompting me to exclude them from the guest list. Currently, they are communicating everyone I'm a gold digger. Six months ago, when I got engaged, my parents had promised me that they were going to pay for my wedding.

And about three weeks ago, they told me that they wouldn't be able to do that. do that. And it's all thanks to my sister, 36F, who decided to get divorced from her husband around the same time. For context, my fiancé, 34M, and I, 34F, have been together for the past three years and when he proposed, I was the happiest person on earth and told my family that day itself. We planned on paying for our wedding ourselves, we wouldn't have had an issue with it, but my parents were so happy when they found out about the engagement that they told me that they would be paying for everything. At first, I was a bit unsure but then, they got me to agree to at least splitting the cost. That way, I wouldn't have to feel guilty about letting them

cover the entire cost of the wedding. When my fiancé and I realized that we could have a slightly bigger wedding than we initially planned on having, thanks to the help of my parents, we planned accordingly. Now, all of a sudden, they told me that they wouldn't be able to finance the wedding because a lot of their money went into paying the divorce attorney, who handled my sister's divorce. My parents both retired from their jobs a couple of years ago and have been running a bookstore together since then. They are doing reasonably well, it's not like they're poor, but it's not like they're extremely rich either. So I don't even understand why they felt the need to take over my sister's divorce and pay for her divorce lawyer out of their own pockets, especially when they

were well aware of the consequences of hiring one of the best divorce attorneys in town. Of course, he was going to charge a bomb and then knew it, but they still went ahead with him in spite of the promise that they had made to me just a month before my sister filed for divorce. Apparently, my sister had already been having a lot of trouble in her marriage by the time I got engaged, but nobody knew about it. However, a month after I announced my engagement, she and her husband got into another huge fight, and that's when she decided to end the marriage and move in with our parents. My parents told me that they didn't have any other office. other than helping her out with the cost of the divorce and the attorney because she had quit

her job about a year ago, and even though she and her husband had been together for almost eight years and married for six. The way he had been fighting with her of late made her think that maybe he would try to take everything away from her. They did not even have a pre-nup, so she was scared of what would happen, and that's why my parents had decided to get the top divorce attorney to fight for her. It has proved to be quite expensive because the process is still ongoing and they're still in the middle of negotiations, so they can come to a settlement eventually. And it's burning a hole into their pockets, so when I asked them about the money that they had promised me for the wedding, they had to finally come clean to me and tell me that they would not

be able to finance my wedding anymore. Ever since I got engaged and started planning my wedding, I had been counting on them, and they had every opportunity to let me know that they would be helping my sister out with her divorce and so, they wouldn't be able to contribute to my wedding. In the initial stages, I might have found it, and I might not even have cared about it. But they chose to tell me just a couple of weeks ago when I had already planned everything out and even made payments in advance to certain vendors and had also rented the venue and paid a certain amount for it. Most of the payments that I had made were non-refundable and so, I would have to go through

with whatever I had planned. All along, I had been thinking that I would only have to clear the payments now, but the rest of it would be taken care of by my parents because that's what they had promised. They had said that we would split the cost of the wedding and so, that's what I had kept in mind while I planned my wedding. And now, all of a sudden, they had dropped a bomb on me and told me that they wouldn't be able to do it. So for the past couple of months, they had been stringing me along and telling me that they would definitely take care of all the expenses, in spite of knowing that they wouldn't be able to do it. I spoke to them about it three weeks ago,

when my fiancé and I were visiting them, and my sister happened to be out at the time. We had visited them with the purpose of asking about when they would be able to send us the money that they had promised us because soon enough, we would have to clear the rest of the amount as well because our wedding was coming up and we didn't want to wait until the last minute or until after the wedding, because then, we would be too busy. We wanted to get everything out of the way because everything had been finalized anyway and we didn't want to change anything. That's when my parents finally confessed that they did not think it would be wise for them to spend even more money, given the fact that they were already spending a fortune on making sure that my sister did not lose anything in the divorce. That's when I started freaking out at them because honestly, I was already

pretty stressed from planning the wedding and this was the last thing that I needed to know. They had thrown my budget off and entirely, and I think I had the right to be mad at them. Then, they even made it worse for themselves by saying that it was my fault for not planning and trying to have a wedding bigger than one we could actually afford. Just for the record, my fiancé, and I had decided initially that we would cover the cost of the wedding houses and we were planning on having a small wedding, but my parents insisted that they would cover the cost of at least half of expenses. That's when we started thinking a little bigger and even right now, we are not exactly having

a high-budget wedding. It's not like we can't afford it, it's just that my parents had promised us something and I genuinely would have been fine with a smaller wedding if it had been just me and my fiancé funding it. Even right now, we can afford it, but it just threw off my plans. And for my parents to have the audacity to tell me that I did not plan ahead and this is my fault, even though it was they who had led me to think that they would be able to take care of half the expenses, it was just straight up gaslighting. They knew that this was not my fault and they were also well aware of the fact that the only reason

I planned a slightly bigger wedding was that they had promised me something but now, they were trying to turn it around on me and I was just not going to have it. So we kind of got into a fight and then they started emotionally manipulating me and told me that it was bad enough that I was getting married when my sister was going through something so awful in the first place. Apparently, my parents believe that I shouldn't even get married right now because my sister is going through a divorce and she needs the family to be there for her instead of trying to rub my life in her face like this, by getting married.

They started trying to tell me to push the wedding to a later date so that my fragile sister wouldn't get affected because right now, she just can't handle it emotionally. It was so ridiculously crazy that they were trying to act like this was a sign for me to push back the wedding as if I hadn't already planned everything and made payments for it. I was already really furious at them for everything. That just made everything ten times worse and I ended up leaving with my fiancé and that ended on a very bitter note. After that, I pretty much stopped speaking to my parents.

For a really long time, I had tried my best. to make excuses for them as to why they were not able to send the money that they had promised so that we could clear the rest of the payments as well. But after we found out the truth, my fiancé and I decided that there was no point in speaking to them. And just so that we are clear, it was not about the money, it was about the promise that they had made and of course. It was also about the fact that they had tried to gaslight me into believing that this was somehow my fault for not planning ahead, whereas it was actually they who hadn't done so, and that I was a bad person for wanting to get married while my sister was going through a divorce.

To be honest, I don't really think that's a valid point because from what I know, my sister had been having problems with her husband for the past couple of months and this didn't exactly surprise anyone. But as for me and my fiancé, literally, everyone had known that we were planning on getting married, and we had only waited for so long because his father's health had been doing a little badly in the past, but once he started getting better, we got engaged immediately. Otherwise, we had plans to get married last year itself and both our families knew about it. So if my parents had truly wanted to finance my wedding, they should have planned ahead and they had to realize that they wouldn't have been able to pay for it.

They should have told me about it instead of hiding it and pretending that it was still happening. I feel like the reason that I'm mad at them is pretty valid, but for some reason, they just refuse to understand it and are pretending like I am the bad guy here. For the past couple of weeks, ever since we had that fight, we hadn't been speaking to them, and a couple of days ago, my fiancé and I finally sent out the invitations. As I had mentioned, he and I make enough money to be able to afford the wedding on our own as well, but we had just been expecting a little help from my parents. However, after we realized that it was not going to happen, we cleared all the payments ourselves

and finalized all the plans since the wedding was coming up in just a couple of weeks and we were going to go off an hour honeymoon just a couple of days after the wedding, so we didn't want to keep anything waiting. We also sent out the invitations, but we decided to leave my family out of it because after what had happened, I did not want them around me

because it would just be unpleasant. I thought that they should have seen it coming because even after we had that fight, they had not bothered to reach out to me even once to apologize. Let alone apologize, they hadn't even reached out to me to speak to me or check up on how I was doing.

I could understand my sister not reaching out to me because I don't think she has had a major part to play in any of this. And honestly, she has her own stuff to deal with and she's also living with my parents so she's definitely going to side with them, so I can forgive her or at least understand where she's coming from. But my parents' reaction to all this was very surprising because I had at least expected them to reach out to me once because so far, they had been an active part of planning the wedding and had been just as enthusiastic as I had been. Yet as soon as we hit a snag, they cut me off and did not bother to apologize, but I think that's because they don't even think they have anything

to feel sorry about right now. If you had tried to speak to me, I might have even attempted to sort things out with them, but when that did not happen, I was very disappointed and that's why I did not invite them to the wedding either. And my fiancé and his family also think that we did the right thing, by not extending an invitation to them because clearly, they couldn't have cared less since that's how their behavior had been. I also did not actually think that they would care, but once they found out that a lot of the family members had received their invitations to the wedding and they hadn't, my parents decided to call me up and confront me about it. Both my parents sounded extremely upset when they were speaking to me on the phone, but I was very transparent with them and I told

them that the way they had behaved with me had been very hurtful. And even if I was able to look past the fact that they had tried to gaslight me into believing that the bad person getting married while my sister was getting divorced, that they had lied to me for so many months and let me believe that they would be able to finance the wedding. I couldn't possibly look past the fact that they hadn't even bothered to try and make things right with me after we had a fallout. And so, I did what I thought was right and I did not invite them to the wedding because it was supposed to be a happy day and right now, I did not feel very happy about my relationship with them. Then, my parents started defending themselves and told me that I was being unreasonable and came

up with a bunch of arguments that they thought explained everything in right now, I don't know what to think of it. So the first thing they told me was that the reason they didn't initially tell me that they wouldn't be able to afford to cover the cost of my wedding because they were already paying for the cost of the attorney for my sister, because they really didn't think it would be that expensive. And neither did they believe that the divorce would be going on for so long. It's been close to five months and they still haven't been able to come to a conclusion about what they want. The situation has gone to family court as well, so it might be resolved eventually, but that's still not going to happen before a couple of months.

Don't ask me why it's taking them so long to get divorced and just be done with it because honestly, even I don't know the details of it, apart from the fact that they are still fighting over alimony and settlement and who gets what from the assets that they own jointly. It's all financial, basically, but even then, I can't imagine taking so long to come to a decision about what they want. And even if it's taking them so long, I think my sister should pay for at least some of the costs since it's only been one year since she quit her job and I know for a fact that she definitely has some savings set aside. But my parents say that she should save that for the future

because right now, she's looking for a job and once she finds one that's decent enough, she's going to move out and she needs money for the future as well. That's why they had decided to help her out and they expected me to understand that. The second thing that they told me was that they had obviously been embarrassed when they realized that they wouldn't be able to pay for my wedding and they had been trying to scrap together at least some money, but eventually. They had decided against it because they were not getting any younger and was not the right time to be splurging on everything. They knew for a fact that I would be able to afford the wedding on my own and my fiancé was always there for me, so they didn't think that it would get

complicated and thought that I would just forgive them and understand where they were coming from. So then I did not forgive them. They were kind of thrown off and that's why they ended up trying to gaslight me because they were getting defensive. They apologized for that, but they still said that they expected me to be the bigger person and at least try and understand what they were going through. Because ultimately, it was only the family who was going to be there for you and who you could count on. And if they couldn't even count on me to understand their predicament right now, then maybe I was

not the kind of person that they thought they had raised. That statement really stayed with me and I started thinking that maybe I'd been a bit too materialistic while dealing with my parents and not inviting them to my wedding at all might have been a tad bit too harsh. However, there's a tiny little part of me that is still really furious at them because they lied to me, tried to gaslight me, and ultimately, didn't even apologize to me. I'm facing this dilemma right now and I'm really in two minds right now, but I don't know which part of my mind to go with. So, I'd offer not inviting my parents to my wedding after they told me that they would not be able to contribute to it.

Update 1, hey, so a couple of days have passed since I last spoke to my parents, and back then, I had told them that I needed some time to think about whatever they had said and basically just reflect on everything before I came to a decision. And in these couple of days, the only thing that I have come to a decision about is that thinking about this is just going to make my head hurt. I'm being serious right now, this situation is not as black and white as I thought it was, and even most of the comments shared a similar sentiment. When I spoke to my fiancé about it, he also told me that ultimately, I had to make my decision

about whether I wanted to invite my family to the wedding or not myself, but he would suggest taking some time away from them entirely and then thinking about it with a clear and calm head. Some people wanted to ask why his parents had not offered to pay for the wedding and well, that's pretty obvious, his dad falls sick pretty often and his health has not been well for the past couple of years. So there's no telling when they'll need the extra money, and personally, I don't really think it's necessary for us to ask them to cover the expenses either. In my original post, I had mentioned quite a few times that my fiancé and I were perfectly capable of funding the wedding ourselves, but we had just expected my parents to help out because they had said

they would. Anyway, coming back to my parents, I reached out to them once again, and I told them that I still hadn't thought about what I wanted to do. I said that things are not as easy and simple for me as they think it is and especially after all the time that we have spent, those three weeks that we hadn't even spoken to each other, that's what really matters. That's what actually counts and that's what has been stopping me from just fixing things with them because, well, they didn't apologize and when they did, it was a little too late. They didn't reply to that message, but it's fine, it's just going to

give me more time to think about what I want. Until then, I'm just going to focus on planning my wedding and also my work because I still have to wrap up a lot before I take off for my wedding and honeymoon. Update 2. Hey so two days ago, I posted an update in there. I had mentioned that I was still not ready to come to a conclusion about whether I want my parents and my sister and my wedding or not. They made it pretty easy for me by declining to attend the wedding now because they think that it's insulting and really humiliating for them to be kept on standby like this. My sister was the one who sent me a message a couple of hours ago and said that she was really sorry that I was having so much trouble around the time of my wedding, but since I had not been sensitive enough to push it

to a later date, even though she was going through a horrible divorce. She did not feel that it was necessary for them to be so sensitive to me either. The first paragraph of the message that she had sent was just her ranting about how awful it had been of me to constantly be talking about my wedding around my parents and planning it right in front of her. Even though I knew that she was going through a terrible divorce and the worst phase of her life. She said that it was insensitive of me and she knew that it was just me trying to rub it in her face to show off how happy I was and she said that I was truly evil for doing something like that. Just to set the record straight, in the past five months, I had tried my best to be very sensitive to what my sister was going through.

And that's why, I had hardly ever visited my parents to talk about the wedding because I knew that my sister was going to be around since she was living with them. Whenever my parents wanted to talk about the wedding, would either ask them to stick to phone calls or come visit me themselves. It just so happened a few times that I would visit my parents with my fiancé, they were the ones who turned the topic of discussion to my wedding, even though I did not want that. But I guess they conveniently left out that fact while speaking to my sister and I guess it must have been really easy to turn her against me because even though I did not particularly have anything against her, she was always very easily influenced, and in the past few months.

She seemed to actually have developed a bit of a tendency to dislike me and I had tried my best to ignore it, but I guess she has picked a side for worse. Anyway, in the next paragraph, she started talking about how my parents were also heard about how I was taking so long to come to a decision about whether I actually wanted them at my wedding or not. They believed that it was really not as complicated as I was trying to make it seem, and they thought that I was just holding out on them to insult them. Once again, my parents were making it seem like everything in this world was about them,

and I was not allowed to have any feelings about any situation regarding them unless it was positive. She also said that our parents believed that my attempt to hurt and insult them because of something so petty speaks more about my character than there's because at least they had the decency to own up to their mistakes and apologize for them. But I hadn't even apologized to them and at this point, they did not want an apology for me either because it did not mean anything. It was so dramatic, but apparently, they were claiming that the only mistake that they had made so far was raising a daughter who couldn't see anything beyond money. That line made me really mad because I couldn't believe that they really thought that this was

about the money and not about the fact that they had lied to me. Honestly, I couldn't care less about the money because I know that my fiancé and I are going to be able to afford the kind of wedding that we want with or without their help. But my only complaint against them had been that when they had figured out that they wouldn't be able to help me out with the cost of the wedding, they should have told me about it. And still, somehow, instead of just accepting that they screwed up there still trying to find a way to make it seem like I'm the bad person here and I am materialistic and greedy. I think pretty much everyone that I have spoken to regarding this situation, my fiancé,

his family, and even my bridesmaids, everyone agrees that it's not about the money. It's about the principle of the thing and if they can't even understand that, then they really don't even deserve to be at my wedding. Let alone my wedding, they don't even deserve to be a part of my life anymore because I'm done with them. These past few weeks have been absolutely mentally and emotionally exhausting for me, and I'm actually kind of glad that they decided to decline and are not going to be attending my wedding anyway. Because I only want to be surrounded by happiness and positivity right now and that's not what I'm getting from them at the moment. So I guess things worked out for the best. Update 3. Hi. I got married yesterday and thankfully, everything went well without a

hitch. In two days, my fiancé and I are going to be leaving for our honeymoon. And I've just realized that I referred to him as my fiancé because that's what I had gotten so used to in the past couple of months but it's actually going to be my husband and I anyway, I'll get to that later. I just want to touch on something that happened with my family recently but I'm so glad that I have such a strong and positive support system beside me that it did not even affect me. In my last update, I mentioned that my family had declined to attend the wedding because I had been taking a lot of time to make up my mind about whether I wanted them or not. And rightfully so, after everything that happened, I think I had earned the right to take my time to make a decision

about whether I wanted them in my life or not. But obviously, they could not respect that and decided to throw a tantrum and cut me off. After that, I felt a lot more relieved because it had been exhausting for me to deal with them, and since they had decided to cut me off themselves, I felt like the drama was finally over. But I thought wrong because a few days before my wedding, they send out a mass email to all my relatives and even a couple of my husband's relatives, with just one line that said that I'm a gold digger and that my husband is about to ruin his life. Obviously, many people had a bunch of questions about it, but we just told them to ignore it because it was clearly just spam

and it was my family trying to malign my reputation right before the wedding because they were not going to be invited. I thought it was weird that they were doing such things just a couple of days before my wedding, even though it was them who had said that they wouldn't want to attend. Anyway, my husband and my friends told everyone who had to save the email to ignore it because it meant nothing. And that's true, it didn't actually mean anything. It was just a desperate attempt to get my attention, but unfortunately, I did not give them the satisfaction of even that. Thanks to my husband and my friends, I was able to take my mind off of it pretty quickly

and everything else followed my example and just brushed it off. So I'm really happy to have people by my side who actually love me and are always going to be there for me. and I'm more than happy that in a few days, I'm going to be leaving for my honeymoon with my best friend, my husband. I'm married now and he is the only family that I want in my life.