'AITA for telling my wife it's her fault she didn't get invited on my friends' group trip?' UPDATED

"AITA for telling my wife it's her own fault for not getting invited on a group trip?"

Me (32M) and my wife (31F) have been together for about 6 years. We get along wonderfully and through everything, have never had any major fights except for one thing. I personally feel like my wife makes no effort to get along with my friends.

Now to give context, all my friends and I went to the same university for undergrad (3 guys and 3 girls that are married). My wife is the only one that did not have this common trait of attending undergrad between the 8 of us, which is really not a big deal if you ask me.

Early on in our relationship, my friends would always try and be friendly to her and talk to her when we would mutually hang out. My wife was cordial, but you could tell that she was uncomfortable. I would speak with her about this, and she would always comment that she was an “outsider” to all of us.

This always personally made me slightly miffed because I felt that my friends always made an effort to include her and make sure that she wasn’t singled out. Throughout the years, my wife would attend events with me but would seem distant and would sometimes skip group events to hang with her college friends if she had something else planned.

My friends never said anything but were always nice and treated her kindly. Well this week I got a group text from my friends about planning a group vacation to somewhere next year. I quickly noticed my wife wasn’t on the group text and asked about it. I got a call from one of my friends who basically said that they didn’t invite my wife because:

Based on all the previous interactions they didn’t think she would want to attend Even if she did want to attend, her attitude is crappy and they don’t want it to ruin the vacation I thanked my friend for his honesty and told him I’d think about it. And while I love my wife, I figured she more than likely wouldn’t want to go on a vacation with them.

So I told my wife about the trip, and she asked about details. I told her that while I was invited, she wasn’t, and it wasn’t because of anything she did, but because they thought she wouldn’t want to attend.

Well this statement just seemed to about how she is an outsider. She said that because of the history us 7 had together, she had no chance of ever being a part of the group. She then went on a rant about how my friends are awful people and that she deserved to be invited even if she didn’t want to be there because she is my wife.

I sat there and listened to her vent and then finally I calmly told her that it was pretty much her own fault for not being invited, because she had taken such a hostile stance with them from the get go. She became a self fulfilling prophecy about being an outsider. That’s paraphrasing but something along those lines. She left the house and went to her mothers.

I haven’t spoken to her in several days despite texts and phone calls to try and talk to her. I probably should have been more diplomatic about what I said, but I do feel my friends have been treated unfairly. AITA?

What do you think? AITA? Here are some of the top comments:

Comment #1:

YTA for not declining the event when they made it clear your wife wasn’t invited. It’s all couples. All spouses. EXCEPT her. You can call it a self-fulfilling prophecy if you like, but they really are proving exactly what she’s feared all along. That you not only didn’t defend your wife but thanked the friend who spelled out why she wasn’t invited is the definition of YIKES.

Also want to call out this line: “(She) would sometimes skip group events to hang with her college friends if she had something else planned.” If she had something else planned, she didn’t ‘skip’ your events. She had plans. With the equivalent group to the one you had plans with.

Comment #2:

INFO: Did you express to your friends that it was highly inappropriate for you to attend a couples vacation sans your wife? Because in the end, that is what this is, a couples vacation.

They are going as married pairs and essentially invited you as their "single" friend despite the fact that you are married. You seem to blame your wife 100% for her inability to break into the group. How much time do you spend with her friends?

OP responded:

I did express my concerns to my friend about how my wife would take it, but the reponse was that they were standing on not inviting her. And I feel like I personally make an effort to hang out with her friends and their significant others.

For instance my wife loves to golf, and while I'm not super into it, during the summer I will go out with her friend and her husband who enjoy doing it because I know she enjoys it. I don't feel the same reciprocation.

Comment #3:

I really want to say N T A but I feel like there is some missing info here. Has your friends done anything to hurt or insult your wife? Also how do her friends treat you?

OP responded:

Her friends are nice to me. That's never been an issue. My friends have always been polite to my wife. As I said in the post, it's been six years and she has been invited to essentially everything with this group. She sometimes doesn't come out because she has plans with her friends or just doesn't want to go, but she will generally at least come out and say hi to everyone.

Comment #4:

Has she voiced any specific concerns about your friends?

OP responded:

Prior to this no. She just always said she felt that she wished she had gone to undergrad with us so she felt like she could be a part of the group but it was impossible for her to fit in even though everyone liked her.

Comment #5:

Man, I’m going to be honest - sounds like they closed ranks and iced her out years ago; you’re just too attached to them to see their fault in it. Being polite is not being friendly and welcoming, and there is little worse than regularly joining a group that has their stories and idiosyncrasies and don’t let you in. I think you may have rose colored glasses on when it comes to your friends.

Five weeks after his original post, OP shared this update:

So I had gotten some people were asking for an update, so I figured I'd give one. Holy cow I got some nasty messages from y'all. Some of which I'll say I deserved, others were just absolutely horrid, but hey, I asked for advice and had to deal with it.

As for the raking over the coals it received in the comments, you guys were right. A lot of your comments rang true, and made me realize how much of an asshole I was being to my wife.

I don't have any excuse for what I was thinking previously, but it was wrong. And in that moment, I realized that without intervention on my part, I was going to lose my wife. Hell even with intervention there was still a chance I would lose her, it was a giant wake up call to myself of how I was treating someone I loved and cared about. How could I be so callous and cold?

Well I started with a phone call and a text to her. I stated the same in both, that I would not be attending the trip, and that when she was ready to talk, I would be at home waiting and that I was more sorry than I could ever be. I wouldn't be bugging her again until she was ready.

So what happened in the first week following everything? It was radio silence for about 2 days, which I spent the entirety of pretty much shut off from the world. But my wife pulled into the driveway mid afternoon and came into the house.

I could tell she was on the verge of tears, and so was I. She said wanted to have a serious talk about us, our relationship and it would likely be a rest of a the day conversation. So I let her speak. The first conversations were requirements for our relationship to had to be met to even potentially salvage it.

1.) Couples counseling

2.) I would not be friends out with my old college friends (sans one couple which will be relevant shortly)

3.) And more effort and love from me

I know many commenters said in my post that they didn't think I loved my wife, but I do. I seriously do. She's amazing and I wouldn't have married her if I didn't love her, so of course I agreed. She made it clear to me that even if I did do all these things, it didn't guarantee she would stay. I told her I understood and that all I could do was try and make up what I could.

I then asked why I would be allowed to remain friends with the one couple (we'll call them J and K), and she told me that after the text about her being not invited came out and my dumbass response, J & K reached out to her.

They apparently hadn't been told of this plan, and the two other couples had sprung it on them, when I responded about thinking about still going, they were pretty upset with my response, and reached out to her to make sure she was ok. They had texts to back up them not knowing about her not being invited, and texts reaming out the other two couples for doing this.

They didn't text me or let me know anything because they were upset with me too (rightly so). The conversation went one for several more hours. Lots of tears, but it did end with a hug. So where does that bring us to today?

In the month since the incident, and while things are not fully healed, I would say we are headed in the right direction. Couples counseling has been something I wished I would have done earlier, and has been very eye opening to many of my behaviors. My wife also has said that is has been useful to her as well, especially regarding our friendships.

One of the main things I have learned is that I was not as open as I thought I was with my wife's friends. Hell, she could have written the same post about me and it would have been correct. While I was nice, was I putting in effort? Was I actively engaging with the group?

How could I hold my wife to a standard that I myself wasn't even meeting with her friends? It was like a lightning bolt to my head of how I had been acting. My wife also admitted that she was closed off to the group, and that while she was friendly, she and myself had many of the same behaviors with each other's friends.

I've tried to remedy that and have been actively working to be more engaged and social with her friends, I've even started golfing on my own with one of her friends husband's, and I think she appreciates the effort on that end.

I've also noticed that in hanging with J&K, she's been much more outgoing and willing to talk with them and engage with conversation. It isn't lost on me that this likely due to the other two couples being awful people that she didn't talk previously, but I do greatly enjoy being able to spend time with my wife and my friends.

The couples that planned the trip? I have talked to them once since, and it was a quick phone call to my ex friend, where I basically said I was going to go non contact if an apology was not issued to my wife. A half assed "sorry" was given, but obviously done just to try and appease me. I haven't spoken to them since and they haven't reached out to me. Good riddance.

As for how my wife and I are, we are good. While I don't think I'll truly ever know how much I hurt her with my statements, I feel lucky that I've been given the chance to make amends. I gave her a small kiss on the cheek at an outing with J&K the other night. It's been the first sign of intimacy in a while, and my heart skipped a beat when she looked at me and smiled.

It's a long road, and I consider myself lucky that I have been given an extra opportunity considering the circumstances I put our relationship in. And hell, maybe in a month she decides that she has had enough, and I would only have myself to blame if that happens. But, for the moment, I have started the process to rebuild my marriage and focus on the women I love and owe a lot to.

She is an amazing person and I thank god I get the opportunity to try and learn from my experiences and become a better husband for her.

Thanks for listening y'all.