'AITA for stopping my boyfriend’s proposal at our best friend’s wedding?' + NEW UPDATE
"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.
Two days later, the OP returned with a full update.
I responded to a few comments but before proceeding with our convo, I read almost every comment hoping to gain new perspectives and see the situation I presented from a different light.
After I got home from the wedding, my boyfriend and I texted back and forth. After he went to bed, I made my reddit post because I absolutely felt like an AH. I was second guessing everything and thought the night would have gone better if I had just let him do his thing.
After seeing the responses to my post, I'm more solidified in that I made the right decision. Yes, the night was ruined, but I'd be more comfortable with my life moving forward.
I gave my boyfriend and myself a day to think about this and come back with clearer heads.
That was yesterday.
I took a lot of people's advice and tried to reflect on if this behavior was a grand showing of any smaller reaction. The stonewalling isn't super new. In fights at the start of our relationship, he would get quiet and make a small showing of secluding himself.
I'd counter this by giving my boyfriend his space and telling him that moving forward, to just say he didn't have the words to talk about it and we can reconvene when we're ready to talk. This worked for us. It gave him time to choose his words, we'd have a good discussion of what went wrong and how we could fix it moving forward.
I didn't think that he was overtly trying to make me feel worse by the silent treatment back then. However, ignoring me for the rest of our time at the wedding hurt so much. Not even saying, "I just need space right now," and rejecting to hold my hand by pulling away felt like he was pseudo-counter-rejecting me.
This was a first. I felt like he was trying to make me feel worse through his lack of communication. That's all I noticed. I've had a partner be verbally abusive to me before and another who wasn't willing to talk about things they did wrong; refusing to take any blame. My boyfriend hasn't done any of that. I'm not saying I recognize all patterns of abuse, but I'd say I'm versed in a few.
There's also been no real history of me catering to him constantly as others were asking. If either person had strong feelings one way or another in different scenarios, we'd often be fine with that person getting their way. Otherwise, if we both didn't care all that much, he loves to use a wheel-spinning website to make decisions and I think it's cute.
We met earlier today. He came over and we sat in my living room. He broke down. He vehemently apologized and said he felt like an AH. He said he had been reflecting all of yesterday and talking to his dad about the situation.
His dad got mad at him and talked him off his "ego crash." His words, not mine. He had already sent a message to our friends, now flying to their honeymoon in west Europe, apologizing for making their most important day about him and for not properly celebrating them.
I asked why he neglected our conversation from months before. He said that the groom and their group of friends had egged him on in private since (not to propose at the wedding, but to do it soon). He didn't originally plan on doing it at the wedding.
He's had the ring with him for about a month, never had any real plan, and wanted it to just be spontaneous. He told me he got caught up in the atmosphere of the wedding, saw his best friend with his girl and couldn't stop picturing us in the same scenario.
His urge overran his common sense (in his terms) and he made a choice he ultimately wishes he could take back. It very much spiraled from there. I noted that while his heart was in the right place, that doesn't excuse the nightmare he put me through after. I expressed to him that ignoring me really hurt me.
That him saying my rejection to his proposal was the reason for his embarrassment and shutdown was unfair, especially since we had already established for him not to do that.
He accepted this and continued to apologize, admitting it was very unfair of him and that he should have handled his emotions and embarrassment better. Especially towards me. We had a lull in our conversation after he asked, "where do we go from here?"
At this point, I didn't want to just return back to normal. A day where I expressed to him that I felt the prettiest in a long time, expected us to have enormous fun and watch our best friends have their moment to shine turned into a day where I was crying in my room reading reddit comments about how I should break up with him.
I genuinely thought I was the AH who should have just bit the bullet and accepted a proposal in a way that I and others thought wasn't okay. I told him that if we were to move forward, he needed to seek a therapist to help him manage his emotions.
Not only from this, but other signs that he may have a panic disorder. My mom works for a mental health clinic and has offered resources before. I said that I needed time to rebuild my trust in him. He understood and is going to seek mental health resources through my mom's clinic.
Until then, we'll be on a week or so break with an open channel of communication. He's going to find appropriate channels to better himself, and I'm going to take myself on a mini-vacation after the emotional rollercoaster that was this weekend.
We did talk about what each other's ideal proposal was. Something we should have talked about before the trigger was even pulled on it. I said that I didn't care for anything fancy. I just prefer it not to be public.
He said that he wanted to make a grand showing of love to me and didn't care where or how. He asked if it was okay to have friends and family present or if that broke my "public" rule.
I said that was fine and was happy with the communicative compromise. I also stated that I didn't want to be proposed to for a while so that we could let this situation rest and figure ourselves out from here. He accepted this.
Something I thought was really sweet that I wanted to mention was that before he left, he said "I do think I owe you some dancing." And so we slow danced in my living room for about a half hour until he left.
A small and romantic action, prob to earn brownie points, but the conversation did reassure me that he's willing to try and be better. He recognized he was in the wrong and that a joyful day was robbed by pride and not rejection. This was about as ideal of an outcome as I'd hoped.
Thank you all for taking time out of your days to reply and bring me back to earth. Thank you to those who messaged me in private to make sure I was okay or to give input. While the future is still obscure, it's a little clearer than it was a couple days ago.
I have a clearer understanding now of what I want and what's healthy. Moving forward, I will do every ounce of weighing before I enter what should be the most important commitment you can make to a person you love and I'll keep a more careful eye on his behaviors and how he may react to averse situations. I hope the best for you all as many have for me. Thank you <3
Here is what readers had to say in response to the OP’s update:
Finally someone who actually talked it out as adults rather than just jumping to immediately discussing ending the relationship. I’m glad you guys made up and made proactive steps to actually mend the relationship.
I'm happy for you, that you stood up for yourself, communicated with him, and were able to reach an understanding. I don't tend to default to "break up with him!", so I'm glad the relationship might weather this storm.
This actually sounds very sweet and very adult. You were able to talk together about your expectations on both sides. You were able to start making plans to move forward. And you had a little romantic thing too. I’m proud of you guys.
You need to go over to his dad’s house and give him a big hug! Not all men are so emotionally self aware and able to not only express their feelings but convince another man to own up to their mistakes. When you marry someone you also marry their family and it sounds like you hit the jackpot. I hope you will be very happy!
My word. I missed the first post, so I'm just catching up. What a situation! I hope you are really proud of yourself; that was a really difficult position to be put in, and you handled it really well. I'm very impressed.
To come out of it with such a grown up solution, and to have managed, in the moment, under extreme pressure, to not derail your friends' wedding is a minor triumph. Whatever happens next, you have really done well here, and it won't be your fault if it fails to work out. I wish you all the best, and hope you both get the proposal you want in the end ❤️