I've been fighting with my parents for over a year about whether or not my sister would attend my wedding. From the very beginning—before my parents even offered to pay—I was clear: if my sister were to be invited, my partner and I would prefer to elope. We didn’t want a wedding funded by them if it meant she would be there.

To preface: my sister (34F) and I (30F) were both adopted from different families. She was adopted first. When she was three years old I joined the family. Growing up, I adored her and always anti wanted to spend time with her. But when I was five and she was nine, she tried to kill me. I had asked if she wanted to play Beanie Babies (it was the late '90s/early 2000s), and she said only if I drank some of her water. I agreed and took a swig—only to find out later that it wasn’t water at all. It was nail polish remover. After I drank it, she screamed at me, “Why aren’t you dead?”

The second major incident, I can remember, happened when I was 14 and she was 17. She got angry and insulted my biological mother, calling her a sl*t (she was 13 when she had me). I clapped back with a snarky comment about a college she didn’t get into, and she threw a vase at me and chased me around the house with a large kitchen knife. I locked myself in the bathroom, and she repeatedly stabbed the door while I hid. My parents? They yelled at me.

I was diagnosed with ADHD at age six, back in 2000. If you know how poorly ADHD—especially in girls—is often understood and treated, you can imagine how that played out. I became the scapegoat of the family, partly because of my behavior, but also because my adoption created tension with my grandparents, who didn’t think I should have been adopted at all.

Despite everything, I still thought my sister was the coolest. Even though she was my biggest bully—which is saying a lot, because I was bullied constantly. When I was 12 and attending a special needs school for two years, she told me I went to a "retarded" school. I was overweight for over a decade, and my parents commented on my body every chance they got. When I was 8, they even locked our pantry. I've always felt like the outsider—like the weird, unwanted one. My mom used to tell me I was bullied because I "tried to be weird."

Social struggles came with the ADHD, and I now realize undiagnosed autism played a big role too.

During college, I was sexually assaulted. In 2013, I entered a treatment program to work through that trauma. That’s when my sister cut me off completely.

For context, I had an aunt—truly the most empathetic woman I’ve ever known—who sadly passed from cancer. In 2020, I reached out to my sister to honor our aunt’s dying wish that we reconnect. My sister replied with this: “No one deserves to be raped, and I wish it had not happened to you and that it wouldn’t happen ever again. But whatever is wrong with you led you to make a series of choices that led you to that moment in time, and that is what you truly need to take accountability for. Stop blaming everyone else and take control of your actions.” To be clear: I have never blamed anyone but my rapist.

She also wrote: “I have never pretended to want to continue a relationship with you. I have not made any attempts to reach out to you or connect. For the sake of our family, I have put my own emotions aside during family gatherings, but that has gone on too long. It has been almost a decade since I’ve thought of you as a sister. You deserve to know that I do not consider you my family and never will again.”

My parents have seen the full five-page email she sent, in which she expressed her lifelong hatred of me. And yet, despite all of this, they continue to blame me for everything that’s gone wrong between us, and are requiring she attend, despite having little to no contact with her over the past 5 years. I’m blocked.

Everything my sister resents (my neurospicy behavior) happened while I was under 18—when I was a neurodivergent kid doing my best to survive. Through therapy, I’ve also come to recognize that I was sexually abused by my sister as a child, but I can’t talk to my parents about it. I know they won’t believe me. She’s always been the golden child.

Over the past year, my parents have told me that everything is my fault, told me to “grow up,” and outright said that they don’t care how I feel—because they’re paying for the wedding. Again, this is after we made our boundary crystal clear: no sister, or no wedding.

My fiance is outright horrified at how my family views me and has been shocked to see first hand how they treat me.

So… am I the asshole? (If anyone wants elaboration on anything, please let me know).