My entitled sister and her partner scammed me and my parents out of $17,000 under the deliberate

lie that they would be using that money for their wedding venue. But after I found out that they

used that money to fly my sister's in-laws out to their wedding, I'm now incredibly hurt, and I'm

deciding to back out of their wedding altogether. Here's what happened. So my younger sister,

who we will call Katie, and her partner, who we will call Katie and her partner who we will

call Chris are getting married in April in Dubai. She has always wanted an extravagant wedding and is

going all out on this. So the wedding is happening over four days. There are 70 guests, but they want

us, namely me, my husband and my parents, to stay in the same hotel with them along with their

bridesmaids and

groomsmen. Now, the hotel is pretty fancy. So, with flight, it's going to cost us over $2,900 each.

Chris's family are also staying in the hotel, which includes his parents, two brothers, and his nephew.

Now, they are well off. I don't know exactly how much they earn combined, but I know Katie is on $88,000 a year,

and she is the lower earner.

But about six months ago, Chris and Katie came to us and asked to borrow $17,000 more.

They stressed it would be a loan paid over time and said the venue had increased the price.

They also said that Dubai laws were different and all this other stuff.

Basically, they either paid this money or they lost the lot. And, well, we believe them.

And I offered to loan $7,000 and my parents the other $10,000.

Well, long story short, I have since found out through someone else that the $17,000 wasn't for the venue.

It was for Chris's family to fly over. They saw how much it was going to be, didn't want to pay, and refused to go. I then decided to ask Katie, and she confirmed. So my first question was if they were going to pay for his parents, and why not just pay for hours? I mean, I would never have expected them to pay for me, even if we couldn't afford it. I would have just wished them well and stayed at home. And her answer to this was to say, because they can afford it. She then got very defensive and said this was the fairest way she could think of doing it. It's hard enough to plan a wedding and all this other stuff. But when I asked if you genuinely thought this was the fairest way of doing it, Why did you lie about what the $17,000 was used for? And say it was for venue issues. Well, she couldn't answer the question. My parents are aware and they are very disappointed that they lied, but have said that they are still attending. But you know what? I have backed out. To me, it feels like my parents are being taken advantage of. And if they couldn't afford to pay for both our family and Chris's parents and his brothers and nephew, then they should not have just paid for the four parents or no one at all. And they especially shouldn't have lied about it. Katie and Chris keep calling and asking me to attend, saying I'm making them feel bad and ruining their day. But the whole thing just feels icky to me.

I'm genuinely an open book, so be brutal with me. Am I the jerk in this situation? Should I just suck it up and go? Or is this something I should stand my ground on? Because right now, I don't know what to do. Okay, first and foremost, no, you are not the jerk for not going to this stupid wedding. Katie and Chris lied about what that money was going to be used for.

And that in and of itself off the bat makes me never want to trust them ever again. Like they basically scammed you and your parents out of $17,000 under the assumption that they were using that money for the venue when in reality they were lying and used it for something else. Like, are you kidding me right now? That is so shady. And the fact that they're trying to be like, oh, come on, stop it, you're making us feel bad. You're ruining our special day. It's like, hold on, let's be clear here. You did not ruin anything about this day. They ruined it themselves the second they lied to you about what they were using that money for. So no, of course you're not the jerk. Your sister and her husband are absolute dirtbags for the way they handled that money. And the fact that they scammed you and your parents out of $17,000, in my opinion, is unacceptable. If you like Am I the Jerk, you're probably going to love Am I the Genius. Check it out, link down below in the description. Also, go to am I the jerk.com slash submit if you would like to submit your own stories.

...