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Really hard time navigating my wedding party dynamic

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  • This topic has 4 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 6 years ago by Mark.
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  • April 8, 2019 at 1:27 pm #288137
    Mark
    Participant

    He’s your “best” friend so that means he’ll have to show that he is by sucking it up for a day on YOUR wedding. Giving you ultimatums is NOT the way to behave as a friend, much less as a best friend.

    Others here can help you how best to communicate with him on this but he does not decide who you can invite to your special day.

    Note that this is His decision not to come despite him trying to put it on you.

    Mark

    April 8, 2019 at 2:24 pm #288139
    Mark
    Participant

    Mike

    I want to point out that your friend wants to put the blame on you. I suspect that he is being pressured by his new girlfriend. Regardless, he is not taking any responsibility.

    You can sit down with him and say “Bob, I am sorry that you are upset that Jill is coming to the wedding. You are my best friend and I hope you see me as yours as well. This is the most important day of my life and I hope as my best friend you can support me in this stressful time. Please reconsider and set aside your differences for this one day of celebration and happiness for your buddy. Your friendship means the world to me and I hope you can focus on my wedding rather than your ex.

    Can you do that for me?”

    April 9, 2019 at 11:48 am #288337
    Inky
    Participant

    Hi Mike,

    Have I been to weddings! Even my own! Boy, are they FRAUGHT with background drama! Consider yourself lucky that it’s “just” with friends and not with family.

    This is what I would do:

    1. Tell him that you did NOT withhold information, that you asked both of them to be in the wedding party last year and they both said “YES”! Aside from the breakup, why would that change? Was he assuming that SHE would back out?

    2. Broken up friends can’t make us “Choose” between them. New girlfriends can’t make us “Choose” between exes. Tell him you CHOSE both of them at your wedding party. If either one bails, tell him/her (I know this is hard): “Of course, I TOTALLY understand that this must be too much for you, and we’ll miss you and be thinking about you.”

    Good Luck! Welcome to the World of Weddings!

    Best,

    Inky

    • This reply was modified 6 years ago by Inky.
    April 10, 2019 at 1:52 pm #288577
    Mike
    Participant

    thanks for the replys

     

    the hardest part is that he is right in that i am significantly better friends with him than with her. i have seen and hung out with him numerous times since the last time i saw her, which was in Sept, even though we live in the same city. she cheated on him and was super manipulative and emotionally abusive to him. I knew this.

    However, when they broke up he assured me that he didn’t want me to choose at all and that he recognized that it sucked that I was in the position that I was in in between the two of them.

    But she also was crap to me afterwards as well, crossing boundaries, talking complete shit about him and trying to get me to hate him. She lied to me. I tried to patch it up because I was too terrified of inflicting the emotional pain on someone that i had had inflicted on me time and time again as a youth by people who i thought were my friends but were not. I didn’t want to do that to someone.  I was bullied and abused by friends for like a decade as a youth and I didn’t want to just abandon someone who had been my friend for a decade. I tried to patch it up because I didn’t feel comfortable to walk away from her because of my own insecurities.

    I know that if I had not asked her to be in my wedding party I would not have tried to patch anything up I would have just let it die.

    That’s the hardest part. I don’t want to kick her, but if I don’t I will 100% lose this person who I am much closer to and way more friends with.

    April 10, 2019 at 2:10 pm #288583
    Mark
    Participant

    Mike,

    Regardless how much you don’t like her vs. him, I see this as an integrity issue.  You invited her.  To dis-invite her just because he cannot take being in the same room as her for a day impinges on your character.

    I would not call not bowing down to his bullying tactics as “abandoning” him.  It sounds like you are holding onto people in your life based on your fears rather than how you value yourself.  Your history of being bullied and abused sets you up to be a doormat to anyone who threatens you like that.

    Like I said, what sort of friend does that?  If you want to “patch it up” then talk with him honestly.  See what I posted before on a possible scenario in how to talk to him.

    Mark

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