Future In Laws Sharing Engagement

My sister and BIL got engaged after my husband and I did and got married before us. It was literally not a big deal at all. The family was equally happy for both of us and it didn’t take away from either of our marriages. Don’t compare your relationship to theirs and you’ll be much happier.

I'm just going to let you know now every person is going to come on here and say you only get your 1 wedding day. Also, just because they haven't been together as long as you doesn't make their relationship as meaningful. I've been with my FH 10 months and we're going to be married in October. This is my person I wanna be with for the rest of my life 🤷‍♀️
But your feelings are valid and it will still be special. Talk to your future sis in law about weddings and plan.

No one can tell you how to feel. However, people are able to be happy for more than 1 couple at a time. You made a choice to have a long engagement, which is what is best for you. However, you can't expect people to put their own lives on hold. Also, people are just generally not going to maintain a high level of excitement for an event that is several years in the future. Your wedding is over 3 years away. When it gets closer, people will start to get more excited.


My husband and I had been together for 5 years when we got engaged. During our engagement (which was about a year), my oldest brother introduced all of us to a woman he was dating and, surprise they were getting married the following week. I was a little thrown off and felt like it was a little bit of an "I can't let my little sister do this before me" kinda vibe, but I realized it is what it is and his marriage was about him and had nothing to do with me, and I got over it pretty quick. Also, everyone is different, but I got married in grad school. It didn't really affect anything, but my grad program is also 6 years long and we didn't want to wait that long.

My husband and his brother both separately planned beautiful engagements two days apart. By the time they told each other the plans were already in place and couldn't really be changed. My family was driving from Pennsylvania to New Jersey for our engagement and my sister-in-law's mom was flying in from Ohio to New Jersey for their engagement. While I never thought we would get engaged so close I was just thrilled to be engaged. Our weddings were also six weeks apart. I am also currently pregnant and so is my sister. She is due three weeks after me so this was something else I never thought I would share. The found that with the wedding and pregnancy that the upside of sharing it with someone is that I always have someone to talk to who is going through the same thing as me to talk to.


Also you kind of sound jealous of your brother and his fiancee. Just because you guys waited so long to get engaged doesn't mean he has to. Plenty of people don't seven years to get engaged or several years to get married. If they are happy and want to get married and buy a house that is their decision. I was impatient after two years of being with my husband that I could never imagine waiting seven years for him to have proposed. We also never would've have waited years to get married once we were engaged. We wanted to start a family as soon as possible so that wasn't an option. Everyone has their own reasons for when things happen and it is rather unfair you to expect them or anyone else to follow the same timeline as you because that's just not realistic.

My SIL (husband’s sister) got engaged about 6 months after we did. Our weddings will have been 2 months apart (November and January), but it didn’t take away any of the excitement for either wedding. She was a wonderful bridesmaid on our big day, and we are looking forward to her wedding! My brother and his wife announced they were pregnant a month or so after our engagement and had the baby a month and a half before the wedding. It has just made it a very happy time for our families, and the excitement has multiplied!

There have been many, many posts on WW similar to yours; so know that you are definitely not alone in your feelings. Getting engaged and planning a wedding is special and exciting, and it’s only natural for you to want your family and friends to share in your excitement; and when someone else announces the same news, it can easily feel as though the attention and excitement for your event is lessened, or made it less special. Don’t feel bad for feeling a bit disappointed; it doesn’t make you a bad person or mean that you aren’t also happy for the other couple. The 2 emotions can be experienced simultaneously. So go ahead and feel your feelings! The important part is that it doesn’t overshadow your happiness and excitement about all the great things going on in your life. Over time, the feelings of disappointment are likely going to fade. Plus, just think.... the other couple’s wedding will come and go and you will be just reaching the 1 year mark for yours, which is when most people start to get things done and get excited!

You aren't alone in your feelings, and they are completely valid! Chrysta worded it perfectly, and I will assure you that how you're feeling is normal, and you shouldn't feel like a bad person for feeling that way!

My FH and I got engaged at the end of July 2020. Literally two weeks after that, our close friends got engaged...then the next couple in our friend group got engaged weeks after that. So I felt like he and I weren't being celebrated to the fullest, but instead we were getting lumped in with celebrations with the other couples. They all joke about how they were waiting for us to get engaged first because we've been together the longest out of all of our friends, which is funny but it also didn't make me feel better. I just had to remind myself that my feelings were valid and it was okay to feel that way, but that I didn't need to hold that against our friends, or treat their engagements poorly just because I didn't feel like ours was 'special' enough.

Allow yourself to feel what you feel, but also keep yourself in check and remind yourself that what your FBIL and his spouse are doing is most likely not out of ill will.

I feel that. My cousin and his fiancee were engaged for like two years before they even started planning and then finally set a date which would have been November of 2020.


They postponed due to COVID and deliberately put their wedding less than a month before ours for the sole reason of making sure they were married before us. It was quite deliberate. She bragged about it.
Any time anything about our wedding, his FH always turns the conversation to her wedding and usually has something snarky to say back like we just aren't as important. In the end we have postponed due to reasons related and not related to COVID.

My grandparents had three of their children (one of them my mother) engaged at the same time and all married within 7 months. I was engaged at the same time as my sister. It happens. People are thrilled for all couples. Don’t let this get to you.

My sister got engaged almost 2 years before me with no urgency to get married. We got engaged and wanted a short engagement, under a year. Well, as soon as we sent out save the dates she rushed to look out venues and announce a wedding date for a few months before ours. This was clearly only done in an effort to “beat me” to getting married which I couldn’t care less about. They’ve been engaged longer. Great. Well, her plans fell through due to covid before they end send STDs. We decided to pivot and have a minimony, again, because we really just wanted to get married. The entire week of, she instigated fights, put me and my husband down and was just salty all around.
I guess my point is to just worry about you and your wedding and what you want. They probably aren’t tying to compete and just want to get married. You wanted a long engagement. Just try to be happy for them. Because my sister wasn’t, and it really sucked. It sounds like everyone is just trying to move along in their relationship at their pace, it’s best to respect that.

I understand how you feel. While it's totally valid, it's not necessary. Same way parents can love all their children, they can be happy for all their accomplishments even if they're at the same time. I assure you everyone is cheering for you guys and everything you do.

So FH's one brother is buying a house and his other brother is having a baby at the same time that we'll be getting married. The way I see it is the whole family winning and it makes me happy.

You are absolutely entitled to have a 3.5 year engagement and feel that it should be exciting for that whole stretch of time. But there is no one else on the planet who is going to be able to maintain any sort of excitement level about a future event for more than 3 years.

Of course your feelings are your feelings, but I really hope you can find a way to stop comparing your life to other people's milestones because that will only lead to unhappiness for you. Find and live in your own happiness. Good luck!

Sweetheart no one is gonna be as excited about your wedding as you are. My cousin who is like a sister to me got engaged 4 weeks after I did cool. She’s getting married 2 months before me. I’m excited for her

I kind of understand how you feel. My fiancé sister got engaged before us and was engaged for a year. Then my fiancé proposed to me and we immediately picked a date and then a couple weeks after we got engaged his sister announced that she had found a date to, it was three months before our wedding and was on a cruise. At first I kind of thought that was Really inconvenient because now we had to pay for a cruise and our wedding in our honeymoon in one year. But then I kind of got excited about it and just did some budgeting made it work. Then 2020 came right along with Covid and nobody ended up getting married and having their wedding. Ours is this year in May but we have no idea when she’s going to be able to reschedule her wedding and it really sucks because I was looking forward to it. I guess the moral of the story is you never know what’s gonna happen in life, just celebrate the celebrations of life with your family doesn’t matter who’s first or last

You have every right to feel the way you do. But the sooner you stop comapring your relationship to others, the better you'll feel. My fiance and I were together for 8 years before we got engaged, and because of Covid will end up getting married on our 11th anniversary. During that time, so many of our friends and family have gotten engaged and married. While I've gotten antsy here and there waiting for it to be our turn, I know that the progression of our relationship was exactly what was right for us, and wouldn't trade that for anything. Don't take it personally and focus your attention on you and your fiance, and not them.

I am going through that right now. My fiance and I have been together 11 years and his brother and gf have been together 5 now. We got formally engaged Feb of this year. But verbally agreed last Oct that we will get married. I am not on good terms with his brother and especially the gf. They came in a few days ago wirh marriage certificates to be filled out and they are getting married at a courthouse in 2 weeks. He will be the 1st of my FMIL kids and honestly they are kind of people who get jealous easy and make everything a competition. It's bad enough they have been homeless and living with me FH and FMIL for over the past yr. Now Ig they feel it's time to get married. My FH was Ticked when he found out and honestly I am too. They invited us to be witnesses but we don't want any part of it. We didn't tell them that. FH used work as an excuse.