I Helped My Twin Sister Plan Her Wedding During My Divorce

• When my twin sister was planning her wedding, my husband and I were getting a divorce. 
• I didn’t want to tell her about the divorce, but my now-ex-husband didn’t want to keep the secret.
• It was hard to enjoy her wedding and be the maid of honor I wanted to be.

I was 30, going through a divorce, and planning my twin’s wedding just outside our hometown of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, where I lived with my soon-to-be ex-husband. Meanwhile, she was on the other side of the world in Perth, Australia, with her fiancé while he finished a two-year engineering contract in the outback.

Just months after my sister surprised me with the news of her engagement, my marriage began to unravel. We had been struggling for years, but this time, we were using the D-word. I could hardly believe my marital journey was ending just as hers began.

I didn’t want to tell my sister what I was going through

I asked my husband whether we could keep the news of our impending divorce a secret until after my sister’s wedding. It felt selfish and thoughtless to reveal the tragic state of our marriage during such a celebratory time in her life. I did not want it to overshadow my sister’s happy news. I knew my divorce would make it difficult to enjoy her engagement fully.

It was a lot to ask of my husband. It would mean months of faking it in front of my family, with whom he was close and spent time regularly. It would also mean continuing to live together in a home filled with tension, sadness, and memories. He refused. Neither of us was willing to put the other’s wants and needs ahead of our own anymore. I couldn’t blame him, but I dreaded knowing how profoundly the dissolution of our marriage would affect our families, especially my sister.

We’ve always felt each other’s emotions deeply

I struggled for weeks to find the right time to tell her. I wanted to protect her from my pain. That’s the funny thing about having a twin. We share each other’s every happiness and every heartbreak. We experience each other’s emotions as if they’re our own.

As a child, I was especially sensitive to my sister’s feelings. When she cried over a fight with a friend, I cried along with her. When she fell off her bike, we both ran to my mom in tears. I could not distinguish between her pain and mine. And I knew telling my twin sister I was getting a divorce would be like forcing a knife through my own heart.

Finally, a few months before her nuptials, I called her and broke the news. She sobbed over the phone, and her tears brought my own like they always had. I told her the same things I told myself: “It’s going to be OK,” and, “It’s for the best.” She knew my marriage had been difficult, but I rarely spoke about how miserable I was. I felt like I was heaping my years of unhappiness onto her.

Conversely, her happiness lifted me. Going through a divorce was devastating, yet I saw in her all the hope and promise of new beginnings. After years of riding the highs and lows of her dating life with men who did not deserve her, seeing her find an equal was profoundly comforting.

I clung to thoughts of the family she would have one day, with a dog and a little starter house. She would often call me from Australia and talk about her plans once she and her soon-to-be husband returned to the US the following year. In my life of uncertainty, discussing her future was grounding.

Though I felt utterly disillusioned by my marriage and sure that no one could find happiness in the grips of such an institution, simultaneously, my sister’s upcoming union struck me as something entirely different — beautiful. I felt certain her marriage would never know the fate of mine.

Our entire lives had been a back-and-forth of shouldering one another’s burdens and sharing each other’s joy. One of us was always being strong for the other or delighting in her triumphs. Amazingly, I was rarely envious of my sister, not because there wasn’t plenty to be envious of but because her wins always felt like mine.

My divorce made it hard to enjoy her wedding fully

It was hard to process my pain while I tried to share in her joy. I knew she didn’t expect me to take such an active role in her wedding planning once she knew, but I worked for a local wedding blog, and my connections with all the vendors she would need for her big day were invaluable. I also wanted to try and show her my divorce would not keep me from being there for her, though that was a tough promise to keep.

One day, I’d be emailing my sister with options for photographers, and the next day, I was boxing up framed photos, albums, and candid Polaroids from my wedding that I would leave at the home I once shared with my husband. When my sister sent me pictures of a stunning slinky gown covered in iridescent white sequins, I was taking my wedding dress to Goodwill. She was wearing a perfect princess-cut engagement ring when I sold mine to make rent in a tiny apartment I moved to just a couple of months before her wedding. It was surreal.

I cried to her over flutes of bubbly we should have been toasting.

I wanted to be the perfect maid of honor for my twin sister, but there were times I found it difficult to live up to the expectations I had for myself. I was a mess throughout her Las Vegas bachelorette weekend. I got so drunk with the best man before her ceremony rehearsal that I missed it. I showed up to my hair appointment the morning of her wedding hungover in my dress and heels from the night before. I delivered an embarrassing toast at the reception that I cringe thinking about to this day.

I know I let her down. She should have been furious with me, and maybe she was, but she never let it show. I felt, and still feel, terrible for allowing my divorce to keep me from being fully present through such a meaningful event in her life. I wish I had realized that while I could cry for months over the end of my marriage — and I did — I would not be able to relive such an important day for my sister. In hindsight, there’s so much I would do differently.

Almost nine years later, my sister and I can look back and laugh for the most part. She has two perfect, little towheaded girls (and another baby on the way), a husky named Cabo, and a beautiful home. I’m so proud of the life my sister and her husband have created. Through my struggles to find a partner in life, I see in her all that is possible for me.

Ultimately, I feel incredibly and uniquely blessed to have my twin sister. I would not want to go through this life any other way.