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I'll do my best to keep this short and include all pertinent information. Today my fiance called me at work and told me her grandad probably has cancer but they won't know until tomorrow. I knew he was in the hospital and getting tests but I hadn't heard anything bad or good yet just that tests were being run. Our current wedding date is May next year. She told me she (and her parents) want to have a small ceremony so that her grandad can attend since he may not make til next May. This small ceremony would consist of my parents and brother and her parents and grandparents and this would make us married. She wants to have the other big wedding next May for all the people we wanted to invite initially, although we would technically be married already. My family is about 8 hours from her home town where she wants to have the small ceremony. I am close with my family and she is close with hers.
So those are the facts of the situation. Now, when she told me all this today I was kind of in shock, both from the possible cancer and the wedding stuff. She often gets mad when she springs things on me and doesn't hear exactly what she wants immediately. I suck at reading what she wants to hear and don't say the right things - as I did today. I was kind of quiet trying to process what I was just told and proceeded to voice a few concerns over when this would happen and if my parents and brother could even make it on short notice (yes I did console her first about the news of possible cancer). That voicing of concern on my part certainly didn't help my situation but she was beyond pissed that I even hesitated or had to process what she just told me.
So first question, was I being insensitive/being an asshole at this point? On one hand after having some time to think I really wish I would have just said "Yes, whatever you want that's fine" like she wanted to hear. On the other hand I don't think it's unreasonable to give someone a little time with huge news like this before delving into things.
Also, and probably the most important part of all this, I feel like now no matter how I feel about anything it doesn't matter because the possible passing away of her grandad soon trumps everything else. I actually have strong feelings about the whole real small wedding and then having a 'fake' larger wedding later and not having my whole family there for the real deal. Should I even mention this to her?
Sorry for the long post. Long story short, am I being selfish/insensitive/an asshole about this situation? I feel like my concerns and possibly my parents concerns about the wedding part of this just doesn't count and maybe it shouldn't. I just don't know if it's appropriate for me to voice these concerns when obviously losing a grandparent is more important than a wedding or pretty much anything else in life.
I feel like I should include that I lost all of my grandparents many many years ago, I barely even remember my parents telling me or the funerals. She says I don't handle death or anything really serious things well so that may be true. I also HATE not having in say in things that directly involve my life or what I do which I feel might be the source of all of this. I just need some outside thoughts, which may in fact confirm that I'm just being a selfish prick.
If you read all of this thank you. Please share your thoughts.
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Yeah, I think you are being kind of an asshole, and it was wrong to not simply agree with her on the ceremony part. Aside from that you are completely correct that your concerns about the wedding dont really matter at this point. I also think they shouldnt, I mean the man is dying you may as well give him something to look forward to before his death.
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As long as you weren't a dick about it then not really too much. But you also can't blame her for being angry at you. Just a thing that can happen it shouldn't be that big of a deal just talk to her say you are willing but that you just needed to process the huge change of plans and the logistics of it and all that.
People should be the most important thing and if you have a chance to do something awesome for someone who is close to her then you should do it. To me having a "fake" ceremony doesn't really matter because people there will still get to celebrate it with you and all that and being officially married before that shouldn't change that much.
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Sometimes you should just imagine the parallel universes where you take each option. Like you said when you thought about it, you wish you had just said " Yes, whatever you want that's fine". Sometimes it's not fair but you just have to accept the situation, pretty similar thing happened to my dad when my Grandfather on my moms side was dying, I'm not really sure what he did wrong but clearly he didn't just go with the flow and she got really pissed, was it 100% fair to him? probably not. should he have just shut up and gone with it no matter how annoying / unfair it was? probably.
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Baltimore, USA21725 Posts
Nah dude you're fine. She processed it like a woman (emotionally), you processed it like a man (logically). Get used to it, that's never going to change.  Like she'll also get used to the fact that real life isn't like a Lifetime movie network special.
It's not a big deal, she will get over this because she has bigger things to worry about. You weren't being a dick or nothing, you're making it bigger than it is. Just let me ask you this though: do you want her resenting you for the next 40-60 years because you didn't let her dying grandfather come to her wedding? Of course not.
Whenever I hit one of those gray areas with the wifey, I find myself always asking: Is it really THAT big of a deal? That's for you to decide of course, and it depends what type of value of you put on the act of the wedding to yourself. In my case, the wedding was just another day - I didn't feel any differently about my wife the day before or the day after. To her, it was the world.
Throwing family in the mix makes it dicey for sure, but take this from very very very personal experience (lot's of drama that ended up with me kicking me own mother out of the wedding venue completely); she will be your wife and she has to come first, or it will never work out. You can be close with your family for sure, but SHE comes first.
My thoughts were probably scattered due to lack of sleep but if you want any more advice let me know.
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i dont think you are an asshole or insensitive. a wedding is supposed to be special for both sides, and if you are having concerns and voicing those concerns, that can never be a bad thing. she should also realize that making plans and surprising them with you is not the best way to broach a subject (especially after dropping the cancer bomb on you).
you should really consider giving in to her request for an early, short wedding though, because it obviously means a lot to her. give it some thought, make some calls to see if it is doable and then decide what to do.
also, i dont know why you would say the second wedding is fake. my brother had three weddings. one for visa issues (his wife is chinese), one in china for her side of the family and one in california for our side of the family. the first was practical, and the other two were very special for them.
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No, absolutely not that's being completely reasonable, but then again we are talking about the mysterious inner workings of the female mind here.
In all seriousness, normally I would tell you to stand your ground, because if you let your partner push you around early on in the relationship they will have a tendency to impose their will upon you later on. However, in this case I think it would be appropriate that you do have a smaller ceremony first with only close family, should terminal cancer [unfortunately] be the case. I completely understand your partner's point of view when it comes to this, and I would agree with her when it comes to having a small wedding ceremony early, but I do feel that she's definitely overreacting when it comes to you not responding immediately. Your wedding ceremony should be one of the biggest moments of your life, you have every right to think it over.
Besides, you can't even make plans yet since you don't even know what the situation is with her granddad. Why does she insist on being so hasty? She should give you the time before the results of the test to think it over, that's not too much to ask.
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On January 31 2012 14:53 dAPhREAk wrote:
i dont think you are an asshole or insensitive. a wedding is supposed to be special for both sides, and if you are having concerns and voicing those concerns, that can never be a bad thing. she should also realize that making plans and surprising them with you is not the best way to broach a subject (especially after dropping the cancer bomb on you).
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Ummmm I don't know about that one... 
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On January 31 2012 14:46 MrDudeMan wrote:
Yeah, I think you are being kind of an asshole, and it was wrong to not simply agree with her on the ceremony part. Aside from that you are completely correct that your concerns about the wedding dont really matter at this point. I also think they shouldnt, I mean the man is dying you may as well give him something to look forward to before his death.
IGNORE THIS, THIS IS TERRIBLE ADVICE. Holy shit lol.
You're a person too, your concerns absolutely matter -- especially this part:
I feel like now no matter how I feel about anything it doesn't matter because the possible passing away of her grandad soon trumps everything else. I actually have strong feelings about the whole real small wedding and then having a 'fake' larger wedding later and not having my whole family there for the real deal.
That's so huge, like what the fuck -- she's really concerned her grandfather won't be able to make it to the wedding, so she wants to have a special ceremony with just her immediate family so he can make it. Great, wonderful, as long as you're willing, and it sounds like you are -- AS LONG AS your family can also make it. Her grandfather dying doesn't mean she is entitled to completely shit all over everything you might be feeling too, and that she'd even use it that way is a pretty significant red flag. I hope you bring this up with her, hell I'd even show her what you wrote here, verbatim, since it shows that you're being thoughtful while also wanting to be true to what you're thinking and feeling.
Good luck.
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well, to a certain level, yes. this small ceremony is to do with fullfilling a soon-to-be-dead person's probably last happy moment.
I can't really think if any excuses/concerns that you could put up that is quite as big as this to be honest
one reason why she is beyond pissed is probably because she thought you would surely agree with her.
She probably wants you to think about how to get rid of those concerns, rather than raising them up as if you are disagreeing to hold one.
unless you are 100% certain you won't regret it, then you should totally listen to her.
I mean can you imagine yourself regretting about it later, only to find that you have left a scar in her's memory and also an old man's dying regret because you have some concerns?
Not to mention what kind of impression you gave to her family's side. It's not going to be a one-time, easy to forget kind of thing.
Unless your family is very selfish (I don't quite know another word for it), they are going to understand. At the very least, you could discuss with them and if they also don't want you to hold a special wedding that they can't attend, then you can raise this concern.
For everyone's sake (yes, including yourself), go figure out whether a big official wedding is worth all these trouble.
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From the information you gave, it seems like all you were doing was thinking before speaking, which can never be a bad thing. Her response seems kind of crazy-- like, it seems super selfish of her to get angry at you for having independent thought o.O Maybe I'm misinterpreting this, but she seems completely unreasonable and in the wrong. Should you move the wedding up to accommodate her dying grandfather? Yes. Are you unreasonable? No. Are you an asshole? No.
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Baltimore, USA21725 Posts
On January 31 2012 15:12 mbr2321 wrote:
From the information you gave, it seems like all you were doing was thinking before speaking, which can never be a bad thing. Her response seems kind of crazy-- like, it seems super selfish of her to get angry at you for having independent thought o.O Maybe I'm misinterpreting this, but she seems completely unreasonable and in the wrong. Should you move the wedding up to accommodate her dying grandfather? Yes. Are you unreasonable? No. Are you an asshole? No.
I just described this scenario to my wife, and before I could even finish saying that "He was just contemplating these thoughts, but he agreed that the grandfather's possible death would trump all that" she started freaking out "OMG WHAT AN ASSHOLE."
Point is, again, women 'think' and react completely differently than we do. They are completely emotion based.
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Thanks for all the responses guys, it seriously helps me gain some perspective. Her happiness is more important than anything else. If i could go back having been able to process everything I would definitely just tell her we can do whatever she wants. I don't want her to have to worry about my petty concerns, she has enough to worry about. Seriously, thank you.
As EvilTeletubby said, I don't want to let her down and have her (and me for that matter) regretting not doing this for the rest of our lives together.
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On January 31 2012 14:35 Charger wrote:
So first question, was I being insensitive/being an asshole at this point? On one hand after having some time to think I really wish I would have just said "Yes, whatever you want that's fine" like she wanted to hear. On the other hand I don't think it's unreasonable to give someone a little time with huge news like this before delving into things.
It sounds like the two of you had big plans and had worked on them together, and she expect you to agree to a rather big change immediately.
This is a large change because it might change a lot of things ... especially because of the apparently large time between this wedding and the 'big' wedding ceremony - which really would turn into a big 'we have been married for a year' sort of thing.
I don't think you are unreasonable or insensitive.
Rather I would ask ... when she knows ... how long does her grandfather have? Could you have a sort of thing in the middle ... that is, a real wedding at some point in time, but maybe without everyone that you had first planned to have? So instead of a small ceremony in a couple of weeks (way I read her proposal), what about a thing in 3 or 4 months? Or isn't that possible?
I think she should give you some time to process it either way ...
However, you should know that some people when they are conflicted about something, and decide they 'have' to do something, they are already worked up about it, and lash out at people that disagrees - because they aren't entirely comfortable themselves with their proposal. So her overreaction may be that she isn't 100% sure that it's perfectly fine (maybe she really wanted a big real wedding, which she now won't have, but is willing to sacrifice), and in her mind, she being willing to sacrifice something she wants, makes it unreasonable for you to object (I know it doesn't make sense, but a lot of people do this).
In other words, the perfectly "right" thing would be to agree, comfort her, and later, discuss how to go about it in a logical manner. But - that is assuming you instantly processed what she said and reached the conclusion you have ... most people, even logical people, need some time to process something.
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On January 31 2012 14:56 Nibbler89 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2012 14:53 dAPhREAk wrote:
i dont think you are an asshole or insensitive. a wedding is supposed to be special for both sides, and if you are having concerns and voicing those concerns, that can never be a bad thing. she should also realize that making plans and surprising them with you is not the best way to broach a subject (especially after dropping the cancer bomb on you).
. Ummmm I don't know about that one...
any relationship not based on communication is doomed to fail. if he keeps holding things in, it will eventually blow up and thats how relationships fail.
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On January 31 2012 15:28 aebriol wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2012 14:35 Charger wrote:
So first question, was I being insensitive/being an asshole at this point? On one hand after having some time to think I really wish I would have just said "Yes, whatever you want that's fine" like she wanted to hear. On the other hand I don't think it's unreasonable to give someone a little time with huge news like this before delving into things.
It sounds like the two of you had big plans and had worked on them together, and she expect you to agree to a rather big change immediately. This is a large change because it might change a lot of things ... especially because of the apparently large time between this wedding and the 'big' wedding ceremony - which really would turn into a big 'we have been married for a year' sort of thing. I don't think you are unreasonable or insensitive. Rather I would ask ... when she knows ... how long does her grandfather have? Could you have a sort of thing in the middle ... that is, a real wedding at some point in time, but maybe without everyone that you had first planned to have? So instead of a small ceremony in a couple of weeks (way I read her proposal), what about a thing in 3 or 4 months? Or isn't that possible? I think she should give you some time to process it either way ... However, you should know that some people when they are conflicted about something, and decide they 'have' to do something, they are already worked up about it, and lash out at people that disagrees - because they aren't entirely comfortable themselves with their proposal. So her overreaction may be that she isn't 100% sure that it's perfectly fine (maybe she really wanted a big real wedding, which she now won't have, but is willing to sacrifice), and in her mind, she being willing to sacrifice something she wants, makes it unreasonable for you to object (I know it doesn't make sense, but a lot of people do this). In other words, the perfectly "right" thing would be to agree, comfort her, and later, discuss how to go about it in a logical manner. But - that is assuming you instantly processed what she said and reached the conclusion you have ... most people, even logical people, need some time to process something.
The compromise if you will of having the wedding sometime in the middle is actually a great idea. I will bring this up to her for sure as it sounds like a great solution assuming he does in fact have cancer and can make it a few months. We find out tomorrow if it is for sure cancer and if that's the case, I think I'll just focus on consoling her and not even bring up wedding stuff until she is ready to discuss it.
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I'm glad you were able to get some help. I know that this situation will reoccur throughout any relationship. Comforting in the short term, planning in the long term.
Best of luck to you bro, and my condolences to your soon to be extended family pending bad news.
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I think you're kind of similar to me. When something bad happens and arrangements need to be made, I try to immerse myself in the replanning. What you did was perhaps badly phrased or timed, but I understand and agree. I think it's a pretty good way of coping.
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Yes you are being an asshole. I don't know if you have ever had a grandparent about to die or anything, but it's pretty bad. There might be problems with what she wants, but that's not the issue. You aren't wrong about there being issues with wedding dates etc. The real issue is the timing. Holy shit man, are you serious? [generalizing] Women expect completely different things then men do. If I come to you with a problem, I want you to help me and fix it. If a women comes to you with a problem, she just wants you to understand what she is going through and comfort her.[/generalizing] Shooting her down when she is still emotional (even if she isn't crying or whatever right at that moment....hearing news like that will have you on a coaster for days...) To her, its like hearing you don't care about what she is feeling like.
Technically, you guys should already have papers before the wedding, so you'd be married anyways. MOST weddings are "fake".
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Canada25574 Posts
I would not have a wedding 1 and wedding 2 unless I wanted to. Marriage is serious shit. Can't you just have an engagement party with the grandfather? Make it all regal and shit but don't call it a wedding and don't get married.
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WCS
