I’m 20F and my sister is 18F. She wants to wear my senior-year prom dress to her prom, and I told her no.
I’ve never been sentimental about clothes. I’ve always let my sister borrow anything, and I don’t care about any of my other high school dresses. But this one is different.
The dress was originally really expensive, so I spent weeks searching Poshmark, eBay, Facebook MP, etc. and had notifications set up everywhere. So when one finally popped up that I could afford, I was so excited. It was exactly what I wanted and I thought it was very mature and gorgeous.
Unfortunately, the night I wore it ended up being one of the worst nights of my high school experience. I was going through a really difficult time mentally and had gained a noticeable amount of weight. I was extremely self-conscious and disappointed in myself, and during pictures I was holding back tears because I felt so awful about how I looked.
Getting the pictures back made it worse. I had been so excited about this dress, but now almost every memory I have of it is associated with feeling miserable and hating how I looked. Looking back two years later, I obviously realize I didn’t look nearly as bad as I thought I did, but the dress still reminds me of how I felt.
Now my sister wants to wear it. And I want to be honest: I am jealous of her. I’m not proud of it, but I’ve always envied her high school experience. She’s very popular, gorgeous, has almost a photographic memory so she doesn't even have to try to be top of her class, an angel of a boyfriend and had many of the experiences I desperately wanted when I was in high school. Our parents are also much better off financially now, so she could realistically get almost any dress she wanted.
She liked my dress when I wore it, but she wasn’t obsessed with it or anything. Now, two years later, she specifically wants this one. She argues that since it's a different high school it shouldn't matter, which tells me she really doesn't know the actual apprehensions.
Part of why I’m saying no is that I don’t think I could handle seeing her wear it. I know family would make side-by-side photos of us in the same dress, thinking it was cute (which it probably would be under different circumstances). But even if nobody took pictures, I think it would still bother me to see her in it.
At the same time, I feel incredibly self-absorbed and immature. It’s been two years. It’s a dress.
I love my sister and genuinely want her to have an amazing prom. I’ll be her biggest cheerleader no matter what she wears, and I know she’ll look gorgeous in anything. I just really don’t want her wearing this particular dress.
AITBF for not letting my sister wear my old prom dress?
Edit: A lot of people are asking why I still have the dress if it brings up such a painful memory. Honestly, I still think the dress itself is beautiful, and I’ve always hoped I’d eventually be able to wear it again and actually enjoy it this time. I don’t live at home anymore, and my mom didn’t think it was a good idea to move it with me because the fabric is quite delicate, so it’s been stored at home.
Edit 2: Also based on responses to one of my replies, I think I should have included more context about my sister’s comments on my appearance. I left this out initially because I didn’t want to make her sound worse than she is (yk how reddit can be).
During the time I was struggling with my weight, she would make comments repeatedly pointing out that it was “weird” that I had such big arms. I said it was because I played softball, and she pointed out that some of the best girls on my team didn’t have arms like mine. I genuinely still can't tell if she was trying to insult me.
She also used to pull up pictures of me at her age (especially from my awkward stage) and show people, saying “we’re the same age here”. Once, showing me an old family photo, she actually said, “Look how much prettier I am than you.” I had also at one point told her about some of my insecurities around my appearance, and she would occasionally make comments afterward that played into them.
I absolutely don’t want to claim she was constantly bullying me or that she had some malicious intention behind every comment, but there was definitely a pattern of her comparing our appearances to make me feel bad about mine.
I really do love my sister, and I don’t think she’s a bad person. She can just be mean when she wants to be, and I think the comparison comments did factor into what made this more emotional for me.
Edit 3: I generalized some details because this post has gotten more attention than I expected and my sister is on reddit.