I Don’t Want to Break Up My Engagement, but Our Parents Married First

Two young people who truly love each other often end up getting married. Even though parents can sometimes create challenges, many couples find ways to work through them. However, this couple’s situation is different—they’re sort of step siblings, and their parents don’t approve of their engagement.

They were in a relationship before their parents.

“I 28M have been in a relationship with my now fiancé 27F for the last 5 years and now engaged for a couple of weeks, she also just so happens to be my stepsister as well. Our parents want us to break it off and break up because they think it’s weird.

The problem with this is I have known my fiancé for more than 8 years now and the only reason why we are step siblings is because her father and my mother started to date 3 years back after we introduced them to each other and got married last year.

My mother and her father were both single when we introduced them to each other at her 23rd birthday party, and we never thought a relationship would happen between them because they are worlds apart. Introducing the parents was just one of those things that comes with being in a relationship. That’s what we were thinking.”

“Neither my father nor her mother are alive. We found out about them dating 7 months into their relationship and yes it was weird, but we decided to stay out of it because their relationship had nothing to do with us, and they seemed happy.

Everything was going sort of okay, we did keep our distance from them as the situation was still weird for us. They also left us alone, but that all stopped after their wedding.

It started with weird comments from them, here and there, and my mother all of a sudden started talking to me about this pretty girl she works with or the new girl at the grocery store wanting to introduce me. Her father basically did the same but in a more subtle way, talking about not getting married young, traveling enjoying life. We found this strange and multiple times we asked them to stop.”

“Everything escalated after I proposed, and they were pissed, to say the least when we told them. They got visibly angry, yelling at us and asking what people think, are we trying to make them look bad, we are siblings. The joke of us dating has gone on long enough, and it’s time we break up because we are no longer allowed to date each other because we became a family after they married.

They actually demanded that we call off the engagement and break up because they were tired of how awkward we made them feel and having to hear people talking behind their backs. We were disgusting, my fiancé was actually in tears at this point.”

“I told them that we did nothing wrong and that if anyone was disgusting it was them because who goes out and marries their child’s partner’s parent? Our phones have been going crazy with all the calls and texts telling us they refuse to support us and will cut us off if we decide to continue dating and a bunch of other things I don’t think is allowed on here.

My fiancé and I are on the same page, we will not be breaking up or calling off anything and if that means we do some cutting off, we are happy to do so.

I know it looks bad looking in from the outside as we are technically step siblings and I don’t want to sound like a 9-year-old, but we dated first. What if we were already married, will they then demand that we divorced?”

What people had to say about this situation.

• “I have a similar family situation. I have an aunt and uncle who got married, her mother died a year prior, his dad had died a few years prior, low and behold the single parents married not long after my aunt and uncle did. Aside from a few jokes within the family, it was never even remotely a thing.
  It’s not as if they or you and your fiancé for that matter, were raised in the same home since childhood and raised as siblings, that would be weird. Your parents are just kind of shallow and thought they could browbeat you into submission. Ignore them, marry that girl, and wait for the apology.” PrideFit2236 / Reddit
• “Your parents can kick rocks. If they are embarrassed, they can move towns and change their names. Who knows if their relationship will even survive? If they ever get divorced, you’ll be happy you stayed together.” jr_hosep / Reddit
• “An 8-year relationship surpasses a 3-year-old one, so they should be divorcing so you can get married. Clearly, they wouldn’t even be together if not for you and your ‘step-sis’.” Sososoftmeows / Reddit
• “If you have not already announced your engagement on SM then do so very soon. Make sure you include something like ‘After blank years of dating she said yes to forever with me’ or ‘After blank years of dating he asked, and I said yes.’ Then make sure you note the same information on a large sign at the wedding venue. Something like ‘After blank years of dating & blank months being engaged, we are happy to begin our forever together.’
  If they continue to disapprove of your relationship, then you may find it is easier to not invite the parents to the wedding and just remove them from your life, but if it comes to that extreme action then make sure all family and friends know exactly why they are not a part of your life. If you do not invite them to the wedding, then, I would make a little speech about why they are not there.” countryboy1101 / Reddit

• “Tell your parents they need to divorce, since they are the ones who decided to make themselves look weird.” RaymondBeaumont / Reddit
• “It’s clear that their child’s happiness is not a priority for either of them. They care more about not leaving any room for someone to call them out on their mistake, on a weirdness they created out of sheer selfishness. And at the point, they stop acting like your parents and being this selfish, cutting them off is the best thing to do for everyone.” Leather-Matter-5357 / Reddit
• “My mother’s brother married my father’s sister. It sounds incestuous, but it’s not. And it’s an easily explained description: both sets of grandparents have been friends since my parents were children. A brother and sister from one side paired up with a brother and sister from the other side. But more importantly, the people involved in my family know it’s not at all wrong. Your parents are delusional to think this situation is problematic and not easily explained.” Texaskate / Reddit
• “My best friend’s dad met her husband’s mom at their wedding. They were married for close to 30 years before they both passed recently. My bestie and her husband are still married, and it was never weird for any of them.
  They both called these parents mom and dad. They were the only set of parents they had, and they were grateful for them. Your parents are ridiculous.” everellie / Reddit

Discover how this woman faced humiliation from her husband on their wedding day, only for karma to come full circle.