“Girl, He’s Your Ex”: Stepmom’s Plan To Hijack Man’s Engagement Ruined By Clever Sister
When you break up with someone, the odds are that they will no longer be an active part of your life. You create some distance between both of you, and you both get on with your lives. However, not everyone has this luxury.
Redditor u/Nepo_Barbie went viral on r/pettyrevenge after opening up about a delicate situation in her family. Her brother has recently gotten engaged. However, his ex-girlfriend, who had earlier married his and the OP’s dad, was trying to interfere with the engagement party. Luckily, things turned out very different from what the ex/stepmom had hoped. Scroll down for the full story.
Bored Panda has reached out to the author via Reddit, and we’ll update the article once we hear back from her.
When your ex-partner marries into your family, it can lead to a lot of drama
Image credits: Nektaria Kleopoulos / pexels (not the actual photo)
One woman shared how she saved her brother’s engagement party from his ex-girlfriend, who is now married to their dad
Image credits: Rene Asmussen / pexels (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Soner Görkem / pexels (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Nepo_Barbie
The first step to resolving family issues is proper communication and setting some boundaries
Things can get complicated when there’s tension between close members of the family. However, things get even more tangled when one of your family members is someone whom you’ve dated in the past.
Though everyone’s free to choose whom to date, there’s a lot of emotional baggage that comes from getting into a relationship with a person who has dated someone you know.
Consider how strange it would be if your friend started dating your ex-partner. Now think how emotionally messy it can get when a close relative of yours does the same. It almost sounds like the premise of a rom-com scenario. However, we’ve found that fact is often stranger than fiction.
These sorts of complicated situations only work out if everyone is aware of and respects each others’ boundaries. As redditor u/Nepo_Barbie pointed out, her brother’s ex overstepped. She wrote that the ex made her brother and his fiancée very uncomfortable with her behavior and questions.
In these situations, clear communication is of utmost importance. On the one hand, if you keep quiet and grit your teeth, you avoid conflict, but you start feeling more and more resentment toward the person who’s trampling your boundaries.
On the other hand, if you’re not tactful enough and sound too accusatory, you might force the other person to escalate things further out of spite. And that can lead to an even bigger headache for you than before.
So what you want is to talk to the problem person privately. Tell them how their behavior is affecting you. The key here is to make sure that they understand that you’re open to listening to their perspective, too.
Mostly, people just want to be heard and understood. And if they know that you’re taking their thoughts and feelings into account, they’re more open to coming to some sort of compromise.
Image credits: Maryia Plashchynskaya / pexels (not the actual photo)
Whether or not to invite your ex to your engagement party or wedding depends on what your relationship is like now
However, if the other person refuses to learn from their mistakes and continues spreading anxiety and misery, you have to be firmer. If their goal is to ruin your engagement party, it might be best for everyone if they’re uninvited. Or if you’re feeling particularly creative, you can always bribe the staff to run interference on them, like the OP did.
Naturally, if you uninvite someone, there’s going to be at least some emotional fallout. But at the end of the day, engagement parties are supposed to be about happy couples who are starting their journey of love together. The focus should not be on some of the guests who have very strong opinions on who’s dating whom.
According to The Knot, it’s appropriate to invite your ex to your wedding only in some cases. For example, if a lot of time has passed since you’ve dated and if both of your families have remained on friendly terms. The key here is that both people have moved on with their lives and have stayed cordial.
The rule of thumb is to be honest with yourself if you’d feel awkward having someone at your wedding or engagement party or if you’d feel comfortable having them around.
Another thing to consider, according to Alexandra Denniston, the owner and lead planner at Eventlightenment Planning, is how your fiancée or fiancé feels about you having your ex at the celebration.
“Communicate how you feel about including or not including this person and have an honest discussion about what feels most appropriate,” Denniston told The Knot.
Meanwhile, Wedding Wire warns people to not invite their exes if they’re only doing this to make them jealous. Your wedding should be about love for your partner, not about rubbing your awesome life in someone else’s face.
On top of that, you should not be using your wedding as a way to rebuild burned bridges with your former partners.
Image credits: Samantha Gades / unsplash (not the actual photo)
The author of the viral story revealed more details about her family in the comments
Here’s what some people had to say after reading the rollercoaster of a story
Poll Question
Thanks! Check out the results:
Subscribe to Access
Exclusive Polls
By entering your email and clicking Subscribe, you're agreeing to let us send you customized marketing messages about us and our advertising partners. You are also agreeing to our Privacy Policy.
Thank you! You've successfully subscribed to newsletters!
You May Also Like
Woman Refuses To Chip In For Babysitting Because She Doesn’t Even Have Kids, Asks If She’s A Jerk
Do you think childless individuals should be expected to chip in for group babysitting costs during friend gatherings?
17 Y.O. Is Done Sharing Her Birthday With Her Late Twin, Parents Are Not Having It
Do you think the girl should be allowed to celebrate her birthday without the remembrance of her deceased twin?
Father marries his sons ex and has another kid with her while he obviously has 2 adult sons... A whole lot to unpack here...
Believe it's a brother and sister considering OP has "Barbie" in their user name
Load More Replies... Father should surely know that getting with a son's ex is not cool. Especially if that ex is clearly not over the son. From what I read up there, she is a golddigga and now has baby trapped the father. Really hope the wedding goes off smoothly and without a single glass of red wine or even blackcurrant being spilled in her direction. ;-)
I agree that it wasn't cool, but having someone pay attention to you when you were otherwise lonely can cause anyone to make questionable decisions. I don't know if that describes the situation here, but it's certainly possible.
Load More Replies...
I'm a bit confused why the son would still have a relationship with his dad
The dad has money. Cutting off relationship with him means OP and her big brother (the groom) will lose inheritance. Downvote me. I'm cynical, but that's the way I see this.
Load More Replies...
Father marries his sons ex and has another kid with her while he obviously has 2 adult sons... A whole lot to unpack here...
Believe it's a brother and sister considering OP has "Barbie" in their user name
Load More Replies... Father should surely know that getting with a son's ex is not cool. Especially if that ex is clearly not over the son. From what I read up there, she is a golddigga and now has baby trapped the father. Really hope the wedding goes off smoothly and without a single glass of red wine or even blackcurrant being spilled in her direction. ;-)
I agree that it wasn't cool, but having someone pay attention to you when you were otherwise lonely can cause anyone to make questionable decisions. I don't know if that describes the situation here, but it's certainly possible.
Load More Replies... I'm a bit confused why the son would still have a relationship with his dad
The dad has money. Cutting off relationship with him means OP and her big brother (the groom) will lose inheritance. Downvote me. I'm cynical, but that's the way I see this.
Load More Replies...
54
33