'AITA asking my SIL to leave my engagement dinner after she announced her pregnancy?' (2024)

My fiance got up to congratulate his sister and her husband. The guests kept talking to them for long period. I pulled my SIL aside and asked why she decided to announce her pregnancy at my engagement party specifically. She said she and her husband saw this as a chance since most of the family was there and it's a double joy.

I explained that I've been looking forward to my engagement dinner for a long time and spent time and money to make it happen. I flat out called her behavior out and told her her announcement was at the wrong place, wrong time.

We already have a not so good relationship so for her to think that it was cool to do that is not okay. She got all pissed and accused me of already resenting her baby because it's the first grandchild and that she doesn't want to play my "mental games" and called me petty to see things from this prospective.

It escalated after she raised her voice I asked her to please. She told my MIL I was kicking her out for just making her pregnancy announcement and she sided with her.

SIL and her husband said they were going "somewhere else" to celebrate and asked who wanted to join them. We had no choice but end the party soon since most of my fiance's family wanted to go after giving me nasty looks for my early on confrontation with my SIL.

I felt awful because my family were left alone and my fiance was the only one who stayed. My fiance said had I not started arguing with his sister none of them would've wanted to leave. Basically saying I ruined my own engagement dinner. Was I wrong? Should I have just sucked it up and not confronted her?.

Here's what top commenters had to say:

trong-Bottle-4161 said:

God telling some one you’re gonna be an aunt/uncle as a gift is so f&@$ing cheesy. Like where is the actual gift man. NTA, by the way

WiseBat said:

NTA. She blindsided you with the "gift", so I can't fault you for getting upset in the moment. You should tell her she's on the hook for half the cost of the dinner if she really thought it'd be appropriate to piggyback hijack your event.

Fit-Distribution-252 said:

Nta. She planned that. You need to talk to your husband and decide if you want to be with someone that disregards your rightful feelings about a day that was supposed to be in celebration of the both of you to be ruined. Go to couples therapy. This is how it will be after your marriage as well. Worse actually.

iphoneXRSEplus said:

NTA. Even if you were on good terms with SIL, it'd be extremely rude to announce the pregnancy the way they did—especially through framing it as a gift to you. Your relationship with SIL already being sour just adds to the TA factor.

Let me just absolutely one-up my SIL's engagement dinner by announcing that I'm pregnant! Based on your description, it seems your SIL deliberately manipulated the family afterward, as well.

nun_the_wiser said:

Listen she’s clearly a jack@$$ and you’re NTA. But this was a delicate social situation and it makes you look bad because now she’s an excited future new mother. Had you waited to call her out, you’d probably hear that the rest of the family also thought her behavior was inappropriate.

But now they will make you look like the villain for kicking out a pregnant lady, instead of turning your engagement party into her own attention feeding frenzy. I would have done the same thing tho.

And capmanor1755 says:

Well, you have to ask yourself what you got out of that approach and what you would have gotten out of waiting and talking to her afterwards. With this approach you got the satisfaction of calling her out on the spot. But your party ended abruptly.

If you'd waited and talked to her afterwards you would have gotten a party plus the long cool satisfaction of taking the higher ground. In general, I'd go for short term satisfaction with strangers and the long cool high ground with family that you're going to be stuck with for years. ESH.

What do you think? Who's the AH in this situation? And is there a different way OP could've handled this?