AITA for not going to family dinners because they fit the time with my sisters schedule and never mine?

She feels invisible in her own family, overshadowed by her younger sister’s college schedule. Despite working full-time and managing life on her own, she watches as every family gathering bends to accommodate her sister, leaving her isolated and eating alone when she finally gets home.

Now, even her grandmother’s birthday party—a moment meant to unite and celebrate—is dictated by her sister’s commitments. When she asks for fairness, she’s met with dismissive reasoning, deepening her sense of being undervalued and forgotten in the very family that should cherish her.

AITA for not going to family dinners because they fit the time with my sisters schedule and never mine?

As renowned researcher Dr. Brené Brown explains, “Boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously.” In this situation, the OP is clearly struggling because necessary personal boundaries regarding time and emotional investment in family functions are not being respected by the primary organizer, the mother.

The OP’s behavior—threatening to skip events unless the schedule alternates—is a reaction to feeling consistently devalued. When one individual consistently conforms to another’s schedule without reciprocity, it creates resentment and imbalance, often labeled as unequal emotional labor. The mother’s response, dismissing the OP’s valid request with vague statements like “it just does,” suggests an unwillingness to engage in constructive conflict resolution or acknowledge the OP’s adult responsibilities. The fact that the sister also has to travel further reinforces that alternating schedules is logistically feasible.

The OP’s actions, while escalating to a threat, were an appropriate assertion of a boundary when direct communication failed. However, a more constructive future recommendation would be to shift focus from demanding a specific alternation schedule to clearly defining what the OP *will* and *will not* participate in if their schedule is not accommodated, such as continuing to attend the event but only arriving after their workday concludes, regardless of the mealtime.

REDDIT USERS WERE STUNNED – YOU WON’T BELIEVE SOME OF THESE REACTIONS.

The original poster (OP) feels unfairly treated because family gatherings, particularly dinners, are consistently scheduled around their younger sister’s evening college classes, forcing the OP to eat alone after working a full day. The central conflict lies in the OP’s request for equitable scheduling—alternating based on whose work schedule conflicts—which the mother dismisses, leading to the OP threatening to skip future events.

Given the OP’s necessary work commitments versus the sister’s class schedule, is the mother’s insistence on always prioritizing the sister’s timing reasonable, or does the OP have a valid claim that the scheduling arrangement should rotate to accommodate both working/studying adults fairly?