'AITA for not wanting my fiancé’s ex in our wedding party?' UPDATED 2X
"AITA for not wanting my fiancé’s ex in our wedding party?"
I am (27F) and my fiancé is a (33M). We have been dating for about 4 years now and engaged last year. Prior to us dating, my fiancé dated his childhood best friend, Liz, for 8 years.
They were briefly engaged before calling it off. From what I was told, they decided to break it off because they were getting married for the wrong reasons. They were planning to get married because it was the “next step” and that since their families were best friend, he needed to marry her.
After they broke off the engagement, they remained friends. Since the beginning of our relationship, I knew Liz was in my fiancé’s family lives. Liz and my fiancé’s moms are best friend. Liz is also best friend with his younger sister.
My fiancé and her are friends with the same social circle. I don’t have a problem with Liz and her friendship with my fiancé. I actually like her as a person and would consider her a friend.
However, there are times when we hang out that I feel left out (like I am the 3rd wheel) because of their inside jokes and shared childhood stories. I have always try to be open minded about their friendships since he assured me that they are only friends. And I do trust both of them.
My fiancé and I are finalizing our wedding party now. Since both of us have best friends who are the opposite sex. We agreed that it’s okay to have the opposite sex in our own wedding party. I told him who I wanted to ask to be in my wedding party.
He mentioned that it would mean a lot to him to have his sister be a part of my wedding party. I get along with his sister well enough, so I agreed to include her. When he listed his wedding party, he mentioned Liz. I was taken back.
I told him that I wasn’t comfortable with having her be in the wedding party. I told him I am more than happy to have her attend the ceremony and reception. And that she can sit with his family and be in the family pictures.
However, that wasn’t good enough for him. He said that it’s his wedding party and that it was his decision who’s going to be in it. That I have the right to choose my own wedding party. So he should be able to choose whoever he likes. I told him that’s not fair because I’m not having my high school sweetheart in my wedding party.
This is becoming a huge fight between us. He said he is putting his foot down and Liz is going to be in his wedding party. I told him that I will not budge on this. Out of anger, I told him to choose. Me or her.
If she’s in the wedding party, then I won’t be standing at the altar. He responded by telling me that I was acting crazy and that he’s going to go stay with his brother until I “calm down and be reasonable.” It has been 3 days now.
He has texted me twice since the fight. First time to ask me if I have “calm down” and ready to be reasonable. The second to ask me if I have agreed with his wedding party list. I told him my answer is still no and that I don’t know if I can let this one go. AITA? Should I just let it go?
Later OP came back with this update:
Thank you everyone for your input. I called my fiancé this morning and ask if we could discuss the situation. I told him that I want him to hear my reasonings for not wanting her to be in the wedding party and in exchange I’ll listen try to understand his POV. We are going to discuss it tomorrow night. I will give you guys update then.
In the meantime, I’ll answer some questions. Liz (this is not her real name) does have a boyfriend. They have been dating for about 6 months now. The topic of Wedding Party never came up in our relationship because we always assume we will do a small, intimate destination wedding.
So there wouldn’t be a need to have wedding party. However, our parents were against that idea, and wanted us to have a big wedding. We decided to comprise with them and do both weddings.
I have 0 problem with his sister being in my “party.” To be honest, I should have thought to ask her myself. I believe my fiancé wants me to have closer relationship with her and hopes that this would be a start.
In the beginning of my relationship with my fiancé, I mentioned my “jealousy.” We worked through it and he assured me. Since then, I really didn’t have any issues with her being in our lives.
Except for her to be standing in the wedding. This is NOT his usual behavior. We are both very chill person and don’t usually do ultimatum. I think this might be the first time in our relationship. In the contrary, I feel like we both have always been able to compromise too well.
As far as I know, Liz doesn’t know about this conversation/fight. And I don’t want her to know. I want him to choose to not have her stand in the wedding, and not because she doesn’t want to be in it. If that makes sense?
Later OP gave this second update:
Thanks for everyone who commented on my previous post. I apologized for the delay in responding. It has been a busy couple of weeks.
We did have a talk. We both laid out where we stand and our reasonings. He insistent that Liz be in his wedding party. His POV is that he wants to share his biggest life decision with his closest friends. Friends that have stayed by him since he was a baby. I get that. I truly do as I also want to have my best friends to be standing there with me.
It did make me feel like the AH for being so against it. However, I can’t change how I feel. I still don’t want her to be in the wedding party. But I’m willing to let it go. However, this fight did bring a lot of issues to the surface. For one, her involvement in our relationships going forward. Second, the easiness for him to walk away during a fight. I don’t accept how this fight went about.
Marriage is forever. We will have bigger fights in the future. But, a fight should never ends with one side walking away. Third, my uneasiness of the insistent he has for her to be in our wedding party.
If the role was reversed, if he insisted that my best friend not be in the wedding, I would have done so. Because it’s OUR day. Not just mine. I believe compromise is important in a marriage. I didn’t see any signs of his willingness to compromise.
So, after all that, we are still engaged. However, we have decided to postpone setting a date for the wedding. We are thinking maybe wedding sometime in late 2025. We are going to see if we can build back the trust that we had and if we can build a stronger foundation for our relationship. Thanks everyone!
Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP's post:
chungusnoodlez
"However, we have decided to postpone setting a date for the wedding."
The first logical decision in this relationship.
knittedjedi
Here's hoping that the next update will be calling off the wedding entirely.
stacity
Oh boy. This looks like the beginning of the end. Postponing the wedding doesn’t address the fact that OP is still playing second fiddle to fiancé’s ex. Fiancé was willing to die on this hill for her rather than his future spouse.
Staceyrt
He gets into an argument with OP about having his ex of 8 years be in his wedding party and he refuses to compromise. OP is third in a relationship with two people. She should just move on now because I’d bet now she will begin to notice that he never puts her first.
bored_german
My fiancé is good friends with his ex and when she comes around this August, she's helping me shop wedding jewelry. I legitimately wouldn't give a shit if she was in his wedding party because it's been so long since their relationship ended that they've spent more time as friends than as a couple.
What made that at all possible is the fact that he respected my wishes of distance from her during our first two years or so of dating. It sounds like OP never got that, so she never had a time of just "her and her partner" that didn't involve his ex.
It's difficult to get comfortable with an ex being around as just a friend if you've never had a chance to "meet" each person separately. I don't know if I've overread it but I wonder how long it had been between the breakup and OP and her fiancé getting together. Has he ever spent time away from his ex to properly get over his feelings?
ahopskip_andajump
Am I the only one who thinks the next update will contain that she should not have trusted her fiancé and his ex?