Uncles told they must 'pretend to be straight' at their niece's catholic wedding.
Weddings combine love, commitment and family arguments into an exquisite cocktail of tense social interaction.
A wedding provides so many juxtapositional interactions: beautiful venues at inconvenient destinations, touching speeches and nosy questions from your Aunt Helen, precious little ringbearers and having to pee in spanx. Navigating a wedding can feel like a tightrope walk between creating touching memories and not touching that family feud with a 10-foot pole. We have to concede, the day isn't about us, it is about celebrating a union of true love. But where do you draw the line with family when, in order to celebrate their love, you have to deny your own? Threadsandbobs took to Reddit to ask if he and his husband are wrong to not attend their neice's wedding after being told they must 'pretend to be straight' or they aren't invited.
WIBTA for not attending a wedding after RSVPing after being offended by requests to be separated from my husband for the duration of the event?
Long story short, my husband Sean (39M) and I (37M) are very close to our nieces and nephews.
A year ago our niece Cassie (23F) on Sean's side got engaged while attending university across the country, we were overjoyed to learn of this and were looking forward to meeting the young man she'd met.
But that was going to have to wait until the wedding as myself and Sean run a business together and although we do travel quite a lot for it, Perth isn't one of the places where we trade so we haven't seen her in person for quite some time but have stayed in touch.
About 6 months ago we received the wedding invitation and it requested RSVP asap, Cassie used to practically live with us before she moved so we're very close and we confirmed that we were coming.
The accommodation was apparently going to be getting paid for by the groom's parents and being that we're in a pretty good position financially my husband offered to pay for our own room while we were there but they insisted on paying for the room.
A week ago we got a strange email from Cassie asking us if it would be okay if we stayed in separate rooms while we were staying there, she did a lot of apologising for the inconvenience and it was quite nervous in tone.
Sean was annoyed by the request and being that we had a lot on our plate with the business he closed the email after reading it out to me, later on that evening we got another email from Cassie asking if we'd had time to read her message just before she began calling on our home phone.
Sean put the call on speaker phone and Cassie explained to us that her fiancé and his parents are catholic, that they don't recognise gay relationships or marriages and were not prepared to pay for a room to contain 2 men as they felt that that would be encouraging something that they don't agree with.
Sean, was annoyed but he held his temper and told her that it was fine, we'd just pay for our own room as we'd offered to originally but Cassie insisted that we not do that, that we just stay in separate rooms to avoid any dramas for her.
Then she went on to tell us that we'd been seated at opposite tables for the reception and that her fiancé had requested that we not be in any photos standing together and avoid mentioning our relationship to any of his family.
Sean lost his temper at this point and told Cassie that we would not be attending the wedding if that was the case and hung up on her. We've been bombarded with messages and calls from Sean's brothers and sisters telling us that Cassie is devastated and heartbroken and that if we were not to attend, it would ruin the event for her.
They say that we're being overdramatic and that it's just a couple of days of pretending not to be in a relationship for the sake of Cassie's future marriage and it's starting to make me feel like we should just reconsider and go despite how insulting this whole thing feels.
WIBTA if we stand strong on our decision not to attend?
Everyone had some very heated reactions:
YWNBTA Cassie's request is for you to cater to her fiance's (and family's) homophobia instead of supporting the uncles who've loved and helped raise her. A wedding is a celebration of love and loyalty, and if they cannot respect your marriage, they don't deserve to have you at theirs.
She obviously feels bad and knows it's wrong, but is still trying to go forward with this. It's gross, don't cater to bigots. It seems like she is making a choice she knows is wrong.
ESH Im going to go against all the NTA answers... I completely understand why you are outraged and you should be. But that doesnt mean you should not go. If you really care for her you should make that sacrifice to be there for her in that special day. Its just a couple of days.
Love is about sacrifice, are you saying you arent willing to do this sacrifice, that in my eyes is not that big of a sacrifice, to be there for someone who is special for you?
YTA. I’d advise you to put your nieces feelings first as is what you tend you do as an adult regarding the younger generation of the family.
Their homophobia has nothing to do with Catholicism. Many Catholics don’t oppose gay marriage and those who do are just using religion as a convenient excuse for their bigotry, as though it absolves them from being a decent person.
I was raised Catholic & live in a predominantly Catholic area but don’t know of a single person who opposes gay marriage despite the majority of my community leaning fairly conservative.
Bigots say ‘it’s my religion’ as a way to deflect, but they’re just making excuses.