A bride has slammed her brother online after he branded her "beyond rude" for excluding him from her wedding - despite him being openly homophobic about her relationship with her fiancée for almost a decade.
The 25-year-old woman explained she's been in a relationship with her soon-to-be wife, 26, for nine years and the pair are currently planning their wedding after she proposed on her fiancée's birthday in April.
However, the bride has decided not to invite her 33-year-old brother to the wedding because he's never been supportive of her relationship and she claimed that when she first came out as a lesbian, he told her she was just "confused".
But since discovering he's been banned from attending the wedding, the woman's brother has contacted her to say she was in the wrong for excluding him - as he should be automatically invited as he's "close family".
In a post on Reddit, the woman said: "I met my fiancée in high school. We got along very well and we started dating a few months later. We've been together for nine years now and for her birthday in April, I proposed to her. I was thrilled when she said yes and we started planning our wedding.
"We've always wanted a winter wedding and our date is in January. Invitations were sent out last week and yesterday, I received an angry call from my brother, asking why he hadn’t received an invite. Now, my brother has never been very accepting of me being a lesbian. When I first came out, he was very certain that I was simply 'confused' and just 'hadn’t found the right man yet'.
"Over the years I‘ve been with my fiancée, he‘s been constantly criticising her and our relationship, talking about how it was doomed to fail because one day, we'd realise what we were missing.
"I went low contact with him years ago and I only ever see him at family events but even after my proposal, the comments about our relationship didn't stop. When we announced our engagement, he literally asked if we were sure about it, because 'divorces are so stressful'. I mean, if anyone knows stuff about divorces, it must be him and his soon-to-be three ex-wives…"
The woman said she was sick of her brother having "absolutely no faith" in her relationship for almost 10 years so banned him from her wedding - but now her family are trying to get her to change her mind.
She added: "When he contacted me, I asked why he had expected an invitation after having absolutely no faith in our relationship for almost a decade, but he got defensive and talked about how not inviting close family to my wedding was beyond rude and that I was an a**hole for excluding him, my own brother, when even my cousins are invited. After all, I have been invited to all of his weddings (I only attended the first one because I liked his (now ex) wife).
"My fiancée fully supports my decision because she can‘t stand him, but my father called and tried to reason with me, promising he'd make sure my brother behaved if I were to invite him, but I genuinely don't want him anywhere near me on our big day."
Commenters on the post were firmly on the woman's side, with many urging her to "stand her ground" and not invite him.
One person said: "Don't invite him. Stand your ground, it will be so much simpler to keep excluding him right off the bat than to invite him and then have to either rescind that invitation or get him kicked out of the wedding if he does some kind of even more deplorable behaviour. The fact that your dad is saying he'll 'make him behave' means that he knows full well that your brother's actions are wrong."
While another added: "Your brother is not 'close family' in any sense other than biology, and biology alone does not automatically score an invite. I suspect he's worried that not being present will reflect poorly on him, but that's called reaping what he sowed.
"I mean, he's a misogynistic homophobe demanding to be invited to a lesbian wedding! No, biology does not supersede a history of bigotry and toxic behaviour in a relationship that barely even exists anymore."
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