'AITA for stopping my boyfriend’s proposal at our best friend’s wedding?'
"AITA for stopping my boyfriend’s proposal at our best friend’s wedding?"
I (F26) and my boyfriend (M25) attended a mutual friend’s wedding. They’re very close friends to us and brought my boyfriend and I together. My boyfriend and I are coming up on our 3 year anniversary and things were getting pretty serious.
Enough so that I very much wanted to marry him. He’s sweet, chatty, typically considerate and empathetic. He’s the person who I thought was the first to show me what a truly healthy and compassionate relationship was like.
He’s very serious about us too. We’ve had long talks about marriage and it seemed we were in agreement with no formal declaration. We had even gotten as far as looking at rings. So the chance of a proposal was more of a “when” not “if.”
A few weeks before the wedding, us and the engaged couple at the time were hanging out. The topic of weddings was very prevalent and my boyfriend had cracked a joke about proposing at our friend’s wedding.
The to-be-groom joked back and said “that’d be funny as hell.” This was followed by me and the to-be-bride both shutting it down; trying to be serious but also not thinking he was serious.
He was.
During the reception, everyone had made their speeches and people were getting their food. While our table was waiting, my boyfriend went up to the DJ, and after, they played my boyfriend and I’s favorite song to scream sing in the car together — Story of my Life by One Direction.
I look at him, smiling and he’s looking around. All of a sudden he grabs a fork, stands up and begins clanging on a glass. Immediately the whole dining room looks over. I stand up and whisper the words “not. Right. Now.” His face drops and he yells a mix of “I’m sorry, I was just joking.”
After he sat back down I verbatim said “let them have their moment, let’s make this our own.” He wouldn’t even look at me. When it was time to get our food he immediately goes toward the exit. I follow and tried to catch up to him but couldn’t find him. I text him twice and call him a couple times, but got no answer, so I went back to the reception.
After not hearing from him for about an hour and a half or so, he returns, sits down, and doesn’t even look at me. The rest of the night was terrible. He looked like his dog just died and I’m trying to make the best out of the night, but felt like I was just in his shadow.
I was prepping for a breakdown or maybe a fight in the car, but the only thing he said was “I don’t want to talk about it right now.” And the drive was just quiet and awkward. He sent me a long text about how hard it was to get the ring, how he felt rejected by his closest person and that I embarrassed him.
I tried to explain that it’s not that I didn’t want to marry him. It was our best friend’s wedding and they deserve their moment. That we should create our own and not piggyback off theirs. He got offended and said that if I wanted to marry him, I wouldn’t have stopped his proposal in front of everybody.
This situation perplexes me. I’ve never seen the appeal of proposing at someone else’s wedding and tried to handle the situation in a way that I felt was calm and chill. But he’s very adamant that I ruined the proposal, made him look like an AH, and thus I'm the AH. Am I missing something? Should I admit I was wrong and have just let his proposal go at our friend’s wedding?
Here is what readers had to say in response to the OP’s post:
NTA. The bride to be is one of your best friends and was NOT down with your man proposing at her wedding. Who cares if the groom thinks it would be “funny”…this is a 2 yes type situation from the married couple.
NTA.
He is not as empathetic as you think.
NTA. It was bad taste for him to propose at the wedding. It would have been unfair to the bride and groom not to mention tacky. He needs to get over it and move on. Out of all the possible scenarios to propose he chose the worst options. You did the right thing by stopping him. No one knew he was going to propose so he shouldn't feel embarrassed.
Feeling_Camp_8847 (OP)
I did try to tell him that. Our friends, the literal hosts, weren’t even that mad after I explained the situation. They just said thank you for stopping him and no one else really said anything about it.
Proposing at someone else's wedding is incredibly rude. You saved him from embarrassing himself. If he can't be an adult about this and keeps sulking, you have some thinking to do. That he thought it was allright to do in the first place is a huge red flag.
ESPECIALLY after she was already clear that it was not the type of proposal she wanted. He was making the entire situation about him, when it should be about them as a couple.
The bride said not to do that. You said not to do that. He didn’t ask them permission. He’s selfish. Take a good hard look at his behavior. Is he the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral? What he attempted was incredibly wrong. You did the right thing. Show him this post. NTA.
Girl I noticed you are ignoring the comments telling you that this is a bigger red flag than you think because you want to stay positive and think the best of him, but those people are not wrong.
The wording in some of these replies can seem harsh, but that’s not because they are all anti-relationships or anti-men. It’s because unfortunately some of us have lived long enough to see how the story ends with guys like this who in the dating phase:
- Ignore your discomfort .
- Do not respect your desires even after you flat said no about something important.
- Act like big milestones like a proposal are only about them and what they want (because everybody else they hurt by acting selfish should just get over it)
- Give you the silent treatment, stonewall you or blame you when you stand up for what’s right.
This behavior will only get worse after marriage. I know you’re young, so you think you know him better than some internet randos, but if you ignore this now you will only end up paying a bigger price later.
Feeling_Camp_8847 (OP)
I haven't responded to them, yes, however they aren’t being taken lightly. I’m using this time to really evaluate what I want. Seeing if I notice any patterns or behaviors that align with what people are saying. His reaction here is really telling of how he may react in the future and it’s something that is really bothering me.
Since we’ve been together, we’ve had really communicative fights, but nothing ever this big. I do want to give him time to process and see how this is approached given some time to settle. If he doesn’t reach out in the next day I’ll reach out to him.
Regardless of how he approaches, I do see that I’m NTA here, I do expect an apology and I do expect that he addresses what happened and not dodge. I was really hurt when he came back and ignored me for the rest of the time we were there.
I wanted to dance, I wanted to have fun. He was caught up in his feelings over something no one seemed to care much over. Pls know I am not ignoring out of not seeing any bigger picture. I’m hurting and analyzing.
This is also almost 3 years I’ve committed where the only red flag to me was that he plays Yuumi in league of legends. I don’t want to just toss our time and future in the trash over a very poorly timed mistake.