'Am I overreacting for calling off my wedding after my fiancé got drunk, put on my wedding dress, and had an accident in it?' + UPDATE
"Am I overreacting for calling off my wedding after my fiancé got drunk, put on my wedding dress, and had an accident in it?"
This sounds completely ridiculous, but it really happened and I can't stop thinking about it. Some people are telling me I completely overreacted, and I'm starting to question myself.
I’m 28 and was supposed to get married last weekend to my fiancé, Nick, who is 30. We’ve been together for four years. He’s funny and a little impulsive, but I always thought he had good judgment. He drinks socially, but I’ve never seen him totally out of control until now.
The night before our wedding, I stayed at home with my sister and two of my bridesmaids for a relaxed night. Nick went out with his groomsmen. I expected him to come home tipsy at most.
At around 1:30 in the morning, he came home absolutely wasted. Slurring, stumbling, sweaty. I was brushing my teeth when I heard him banging around in the guest room. When I went to check, I saw him dragging my wedding dress out of the closet.
I asked what he was doing, and he just laughed and said he wanted to see how it felt to be the bride. I told him to put it back and not to touch it, but he was not listening at all.
Right in front of me, he stripped down completely and started putting on the dress. He could barely get it over his body and kept tripping over the train. I didn’t know what to say. Then he dropped to the floor in the dress, still laughing.
Then he went quiet, looked up at me with this panicked face, and said “Oh no.” A few seconds later, he had an accident. Diarrhea. It soaked through the back of the dress and onto the carpet.
The smell was immediate and overwhelming. I stood there in shock while he started crying and tried to get out of the dress, which only made more of a mess. It was all over the fabric, the floor, and him. I told him to get in the shower and I left. I drove straight to my mom’s house and didn’t take any of his calls. The next morning, I called off the wedding.
Since then, Nick has apologized over and over. He said he blacked out and barely remembers what happened. His family is furious with me and says I’m throwing away a great relationship over a drunken mistake.
Some of my friends agree and think I should have postponed instead of canceling. Even my maid of honor said I might be letting emotions take over and that it wasn’t unforgivable.
But I feel like something broke that night. I didn’t just feel disgusted. I felt disrespected. The dress wasn’t just expensive, it was important to me. It symbolized something. I cannot unsee what happened. I can’t laugh about it or move on like it’s just one bad night. I don’t know how to look at him the same way. Am I overreacting for calling off the wedding?
Here is what readers had to say in response to the OP’s initial post:
Right outta the gate: what the EFF?
Is this something that happens often? Does he often get blackout drunk? If yes, consider this a bullet dodged. Either way, it is a little concerning he got blackout drunk the day before your wedding. I think you need to have a conversation to figure out whether this is a relationship worth saving.
Rude_Winter_9192 (OP)
No. This is the first time he's even gotten this drunk in the time I've known him, which is why I think I might be overreacting.
People are still themselves when they are blackout drunk. I’ve seen my husband fend off flirty women when he was so drunk. He was also still himself when he ignored you.
He was still himself when he wore your wedding dress - something that is obviously special and off limits.The dress is the most important item of the most important day of your life. And he did that on it. No one forced him to get that drunk, and he was still himself when drunk.
The next day, the OP returned with an update.
Hi again. First off, thank you to everyone who responded. I didn’t expect the level of attention my post got, and honestly, reading the replies made me feel less alone. Some people told me I was right to call it off. Others said it was a terrible mistake, but not unforgivable. Both sides helped me see the situation more clearly.
I spoke to Nick this morning. Not for closure, not for a big emotional talk, just to return some things and check in about logistics, since everything’s been canceled. But we ended up sitting down and talking for over an hour.
He apologized again. Sincerely. He didn’t try to defend himself or shift blame. He told me he didn’t remember everything clearly but knows he came home wasted, saw the dress, and in his words, “thought it would be funny or meaningful or something.”
He didn’t mean to ruin the dress. He didn’t mean to humiliate me. But he did. And he knows that. He said he’s ashamed of what happened and of how out of control he let himself get. He also admitted this wasn’t the first time his drinking led to something bad. He said this was a wake-up call and that he’s going to stop drinking entirely. I didn't even know he had a problem.
The thing is, I still care about him. We were supposed to get married. I didn’t walk away from someone I didn’t love. But something inside me cracked that night, and it hasn’t healed. I don’t know if it will.
I know it sounds superficial to some people, but for me, it was a symbol. Of our future. Of the person I thought I was marrying. And watching him defile it in that state, whether on purpose or by accident, changed something.
I’ve been trying to figure out if that one night should be the end of four years together. But it’s not really just that one night, is it? It’s what it revealed. About how he handles stress. About how far he let himself go. About how I felt standing in that room, watching someone I loved become almost unrecognizable.
I haven’t made a final decision yet. Technically, the wedding is still canceled, but the relationship isn’t officially over. We're on a kind of emotional pause, I guess. He says he wants to make things right. And maybe he will. Maybe with time, I’ll want to try again.
But right now, I still feel like I’m grieving something that ended. And I don’t know if I’m ready to build it back from scratch. So I guess I'm now asking, am I overreacting if I walk away from this completely?
Here is what readers had to say in response to the OP’s update:
Not at all overreacting. This is not about the dress but what it meant to feel powerless as he did something stupid, thoughtless, and immature after drinking himself into a stupor and the glimpse into your future you got that you couldn't gaslight yourself into ignoring because it ruined something so symbolic and expensive. Believe the symbolism.
This is a red flag. Not that he's a bad person, but that this partnership might come with significant difficulty long term as he continues to cope with life stresses in immature ways that leave you always having to be the adult in the house.
Nick knows he’s done bad while drinking before (maybe not THIS bad) and yet she had no idea he had a problem. He either hid or avoided it for four years but it was always going to rear its head. Even if it was literally within hours of the wedding, better to find out before signing the legal paperwork.
I think the vast majority of people would say they’d never marry someone capable of doing that. It’s just that we never think the person we love enough to marry is a person capable of doing that.
"He also admitted this wasn’t the first time his drinking led to something bad. He said this was a wake-up call and that he’s going to stop drinking entirely. I didn't even know he had a problem."
OP should back up and not even try to salvage this relationship. When they are drinking so bad, you don't even know it was a problem until they bring it home? Yeah no. How many other times has he gotten blackout drunk and something else happened. How many times did his friends cover for him doing stupid nonsense or worse?
Naw, this is gonna go in flames because she's gonna find out the other times he's done this and realize she can't trust him nor his friends. Especially when you voice that you think they go outta their way to pressure him to drink.