'AITA for uninviting a friend from my wedding so my fiancé doesn’t have to take care of him?' UPDATED

"AITA for uninviting a friend from my wedding so my bf doesn’t have to take care of him?"

Me (30F) and Freddie have been dating for 6 years and we are getting married next January. We’re incredibly happy and we can’t wait to have our fabulous wedding. We both deal with anxiety because we have very high profile, demanding jobs… so we agreed to have a small wedding, simple, relaxed and stress-free.

I’ve shared spaces with Callum at my bf’s family events, parties, and he hangs out with my boyfriend a fair amount of time. He's great. I like him. I like Callum. BUT he’s a very time consuming person. Let me put this in caps: he’s NOT disabled, let’s make that CLEAR.

Here’s the issue though: Callum does this thing where he sits or stands very still and stares into space for a long , long, LONG time. Freddie told me it’s a thing called catatonia, I call that just zooming out (or dissociating as gen Z said lol). The problem is that my BF usually babysits him when that happens. I mean, he stays right next to him the whole time.

I thought it was like a cute, nice gesture, but on the day of our wedding, I mean, really? That sounds like the opposite of our dream day. He’s even taller than my boyfriend, so just imagine a 6 '4 guy just standing in the middle of our reception, next to the groom, lmao

Here’s the conflict: I talked this privately with Callum, just me and him, and he agreed that he would be a distraction. He declined the invitation. I asked him to not tell anything to my BF and he said he “would be too embarrassed to say anything” I said “Please don’t feel embarrassed, I know it's not your fault” and we left it at that very friendly and politely.

I told him he it is more than welcome to join us for our christmas dinner, cause I know he’s not close with his family, and like I said, I like him. I told my BF that Callum declined and he was disappointed but he agreed that less guests fitted with our idea of a small lowkey relaxed wedding, so it was still perfect.

The next day I told my Mom, my sister and my maid of honour, and they were visibly upset with me. My mom said it was an a$$holy move and that it was “ableist”, but I don’t think that's true because it is not really a disability, I think it is more about his personality and his “thing” that I know is going to take a toll on my boyfriend that day. I want to make sure I was not a horrible person to pacify my conscience. AITA?

What do you think? AITA? This is what top commenters had to say:

Firm_Intention_3896 said:

I hear divorce bells already. YTA

PickletonMuffin said:

YTA. Firstly, Callum absolutely has a disability so stop pretending you are not purposely excluding a disabled person from your wedding because their disability makes you uncomfortable.

Secondly, telling someone who is a friend that their disability, which I am sure they are very aware of and have to live with, is an embarrassment and you don't want them at you're event is such an unbelievably horrible thing to do.

Thirdly, you then lied to your boyfriend that his friend had chosen not to attend his wedding, almost certainly making your boyfriend question this friendship. This is so manipulative I can't get my head around how you thought it was an ok thing to do to someone you apparently love. Honestly, there is so much premeditated arsehole here it's mind-blowing.

iwantasecretgarden said:

YTA because this could have easily been solved in an adult way with you, Callum, and your fiance talking out the contingency plans. Instead you snuck behind his back and undermined his best friend.

joywaveee said:

YTA. First of all, it should be up to your fiancé to decide whether or not Callum comes, as it's his friend. The fact that you lied to him and said it was solely Callum's decision as to why he's not coming is manipulative. It's just as much Freddie's wedding as yours. If he wants to have Callum there, he knows what Callum is like.

Second, Callum actually deals with catatonia, and you belittling his clear medial issue just because you don't think it's legitimate IS ABLEIST. It's not up to you to decide whether it's just "zoning out" or whatever you want to call it.

The next day, she shared this major update:

I’m gonna try to keep this simple: I was an ableist (I am). I did something horrible to Calum. I did something unforgivable to him, actually. I took away his agency and I didn’t see him as a person, the lovable person that my future husband cares so much about. And I did something horrible to the person I love.

The a-hole tag is right, and the advice I got was much appreciated. I mean that. My first instinct should've been to speak directly with the two guys. The guy I love and the guy that my future husband loves.

I was called out yesterday and instead of going directly to them, my first thought was “oh I need to learn from a reliable source, I should talk to a doctor before talking to Calum” and it’s messed up that even after all that happened I was still thinking just about myself. Jesus. My sister called me yesterday to offer her help again, and that was another wake up call for me.

I talked and apologised to Freddie, last night. He was honestly more worried about Calum, above anything else. He said he wasn’t hurt by the lie. He always sees the best in others. That man’s heart is too big for his own good. He just blamed my behaviour on pre-wedding anxiety but I told him it was definitely more than that.

I talked to Calum yesterday too, and he was kind enough to literally take an uber and come to our place asap first thing in the morning, without any question. After I apologised he was crying. Don’t want to get into details, but he was clearly hurt by what I did, and at the same time he was very relieved that my apology came rather quickly.

He told me “I knew you had a good heart”. I told him I took a village to wake me up (quite literally). He apologised for downplaying his condition with me, he said he often does that to avoid freaking out people. That hit me like a brick. Cal and Fred shared some tears too. If the wedding happens, Calum will be there.

From our long conversation, Freddie thinks the anxiety is too high right now, and he wants to hire a wedding planner to help manage the workload. I told him I probably need therapy too, because I can’t blame ableism, stupidity and lack of empathy on being stressed out.

We’re not getting married in January. The venue allows us to reschedule, we might do that if possible. Like I said, If the wedding happens, Calum will be there for sure, no question about it. That’s the only thing I know for certain. I haven’t told this to anyone, I just think I need to write this down to get it out of my head: I feel like I failed at marriage even before starting it and I failed at loving my new family too.

Last Edit:

This is the last thing I’m going to write fr and I’m not trying to defend myself. I just want point out the connection between being dumb, being ignorant and being non empathic (and yes, I’m all three). My sister words, actually lol

I got the “quick google search” comment a lot, but If you google ‘catatonia’ it says it's a group of symptoms with different possible reasons. Then it jumps straight ahead to heavy stuff. Like, at the time, when I googled it, I thought it was a “symptom” and I didn’t know the difference between syndrome and disease and condition.

It sounds incredible stupid to write this, but in my head it wasn’t different that people getting motion sickness. Cal and Fred always acted as if it was something "usual", and it was something you’d expect from time to time. So I definitely normalized that. Freddie’s friend also acted that way, in the sense that every time Cal had an episode, they’d be like “oh again? That’s classic Cal”

“oh damn, we can’t leave the party cause Calum is doing his thing. Cancel the uber!!” You know, mostly joking about it. And of course Freddie was always there to take care of him. Now I understand WHY that was so important.

He is incredibly susceptible at that state and it can’t be disturbed and he needs to be watched. Of course, Cal lives most of his life without Fred, and when that happens when Fred is not around, so yeah, he has no choice but to be susceptible all by himself.

TLDR: Like, all I’m trying to say here is that it is possible to be obnoxious about other people's conditions for that long without actively trying to be obnoxious. I was. And I'm not deleting this post for that same reason. Like, let this post be evidence of ableism. I’m not trying to justify myself, I’m just trying to figure out my own crap thinking.

Cal is doing fine, by the way. For those worried about his conditions (thank you for that).He has a personal neurologist and he does take care of his health. He was diagnosed with unspecified catatonia (or recurrent idiopathic catatonia, iirc) which he said it’s rare and more confusing to learn about in a short period of time. But, yeah, the big guy is doing fine.