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I'm writing this to vent a little and also to ask for some opinions on the situation. I will try to keep unnecessary details out as much as possible.
I have a close friend who we know each other for 15 years. He is getting married in a couple weeks. About 9 months ago, he introduced me to one of his fiance's friends, and we started going out.
I was a bit worried starting the relationship since all 4 of us would have close ties and if an argument took place I might be forced to choose sides. I personally prefer to be out of interpersonal drama as much as possible, I'm generally cool about things and avoid conflict. Life is stressful enough.
After our second date something happened between my gf and her friend and they stopped talking to each other. They didn't invite her to their engagement party too. I wrote about the incident here but it's a bit long.
+ Show Spoiler +
After our first date, a detail about me bothers my gf which she doesn't want to tell me directly because she's worried that I might get offended. She and her friend (the fiancé) meets over dinner and they discuss how can they let me know without offending me. My gf requests her not to tell her bf since we are close friends and he might let me know, which, might make her look like she is telling me something through them. They make a plan, we would double date and they would tell me about the issue implicitly at the dinner.
In the same evening, the fiancé talks to my friend about the issue, breaking her word, but warns him not to tell me.
We go on a second date, at the end of it something happens between us that makes her greatly upset. We don't talk for some time and I'm worried that we might break up. But we talk about it and solve the issue later. Meanwhile my friend and his fiance knows what happened between us and that we are sour. When I talk about that with my friend, he says he thinks we wouldn't break up and this can be solved, and adds "hey, please don't get offended and promise you didn't hear this from me, but there is this other issue that bothers her, which you can solve and that would help your relationship. I'm only telling this to you as a friend to help"
Same day my gf tells me that she knows they told me about the issue, and she and her friend had an argument. She was very angry at them because they told me without going with the original plan and disregarding her. And her friend was angry at her because she thought they only tried to help. I told her that I was cool about it, that she could talk to me directly, and my friend only told me to help, but them breaking their word and disregarding her was also wrong. But apperantly argument between them didn't get solved.
My gf told me she repeatedly tried to make peace afterwards, apologized about a word she used about my friend during the argument (its not that offending tbh), but her friend didn't respond. After a while they stopped talking altogether. She told me about that time period and showed me the text messages and she seems right. It seems her friend broke the 5-6 years long friendship over just a word used against my friend during the heat of the argument.
Couple days ago I talked with my friend about the incident, and he tells me my gf called him a name and didn't do anything to apologize afterwards. I told him that I saw the messages that she tried to make peace repeatedly, apperantly for the fiance they weren't enough as she takes it way too serious when someone says something about him.
Now my gf insists that my friend doesn't value me as much as I think he does, since he didn't bother to go with the original plan, repeatedly said they were busy when asked to arrange a double date, and didn't even tell her that she could directly talk to me about the issue and I wouldn't mind. She says he just told me to get it over with and be done.
Anyways, I don't think its my job to decide who is right or wrong. I myself didn't do anything wrong and I don't deserve to be bad with either side.
When my friend first asked me if I was going to their wedding as 1 or 2 people, I thought my gf wouldn't want come and said it will only be me.
After a while, my gf told me she couldn't attend to my other close friend's wedding and some other events, so she wants to make up by going to this wedding even she is mad with them, not because she used to be friends with the bride or anything, but as my partner since groom is my 15 years long friend.
I don't want to deal with politics, so I went and told my friend if it was possible to come as 2 people. He said they had made the reservations already and having some attendee count issues but trying to determine the exact numbers, but from the way he talked I didn't think it was too serius enough to cut just 1 person, so I didn't tell her that. It was my mistake, I should have told her this earlier. I honestly didn't think he would try to cut her and she could attend as my partner, since its just a wedding, you go stay there a bit congratulate and leave.
A few days ago I was asking about the wedding place to my friend, as to dress appropriately. He told me again that they were having number issues and we may not be able to come as 2 people. This time I thought it's more serious and told my gf about it.
She instantly asked like, if they won't let us go as a couple, that I wouldn't go too? I told her that I had nothing to do about the argument between she and her friend, I didn't do anything wrong to either 3 of them and why I'm the one here who can't attend his 15 year old friend's wedding.
We got into a huge argument. I insisted that I didn't want to choose sides between my future wife and my long time friend. She told me I am already choosing my sides by even thinking of going to the wedding, as I shouldn't go to an event which she is not welcome.
When I talked with my friend for a few minutes about the situation, he told me he was ok if I didn't attend to his wedding if it will cause me that much trouble in my relationship. But still, I don't know what to think or do. It's a situation I didn't really wanna be in at all.
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In a few words - I would just tell that gf/fiance that our relationship is now over and done, a thing of the past, each one is free to do whatever. I would tell it in a polite and moderate but firm and unambiguous manner.
Why would I be so austere? Just because in my life I want as little masters over me as possible. And a girl telling me what I can and can not do, ordering my relationships with old time friends is a useless girl. Away with her and her orders, my freedom is way more valuable than a girl's content. I don't know how you think about it, but in my opinion a mans's nature and life goal is far away from being the voluntary slave to some girl.
Today you can't go and do what you wish, you are not allowed to honor the wedding of a friend. You will oblige. What about tomorrow? And how about the day after? Do you need more masters in your life than you already have? I hope not. This is an amazing chance to reduce them by one. Do not let it go to waste. Let her go and embrace what comes after.
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On September 19 2019 21:40 JoinTheRain wrote:
In a few words - I would just tell that gf/fiance that our relationship is now over and done, a thing of the past, each one is free to do whatever. I would tell it in a polite and moderate but firm and unambiguous manner.
Why would I be so austere? Just because in my life I want as little masters over me as possible. And a girl telling me what I can and can not do, ordering my relationships with old time friends is a useless girl. Away with her and her orders, my freedom is way more valuable than a girl's content. I don't know how you think about it, but in my opinion a mans's nature and life goal is far away from being the voluntary slave to some girl.
Today you can't go and do what you wish, you are not allowed to honor the wedding of a friend. You will oblige. What about tomorrow? And how about the day after? Do you need more masters in your life than you already have? I hope not. This is an amazing chance to reduce them by one. Do not let it go to waste. Let her go and embrace what comes after.
What a load of crap. You obviously dont understand what a relationship or love actually means. If you want to be as free as humanly possible, a relationship is not for you. I hope for you that one day, youll gladly sacrifice some freedom for that thing called love.
@OP: Its complicated. Judging from you calling your gf your future wife I conclude that you love her and everything that follows is based on that assumption.
I can wholeheartedly understand your gf in wanting you to call it off. It looks like your old friend and his wife are excluding her on purpose. If he doesnt admit to it (maybe he is doing this under the same kind of pressure from his future wife) or even if its really just because of organisational difficulties, it sure as hell looks like they are trying to exclude her. I mean come on, you are friends for 15 years and he cant free up one additional slot for your +1 ?? The reality doesnt even matter, it looks to her like your friends are trying to exclude her. This understandably hurts her and she is searching for comfort in your loyalty and reassurance. It sucks for you because indeed, you didnt do anything wrong, but such is life and such is a relationship. Sometimes it means sacrifice and enduring hardships that you are not responsible for.
Imo you have two options. Option 1: dont go to the wedding. It sucks, but from what you are describing it seems to me as your friend wont take it too badly. Going to the wedding will probably throw your relationship into a crisis and not going will not damage the relationship to your friend as badly it seems. Option 2: Act as mediator and try to get all 4 of you sitting together and talk this out like grown ups. Whatever the outcome, this will be best for everyone. If any of the people involved refuse, I would take that as a sign for dysfunctional conflict management.
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Dump the girl and sex your friend.
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Specificity is the soul narrative. Describing something in 500 words using "the incident" and "something happens" is making my head hurt trying to figure out what you're talking about.
I can't give you any advice about the situation. Either your partner and her friend needs to squash their beef because it is making the people around them miserable, or what happened between them was bad enough that you have to decide who like more and respect their feelings about what they want.
Has your partner tried apologizing to her friend? Do YOU feel that your partner screwed up and should apologise humbly? Do YOU feel like your partner's friend is being excessively difficult? I'm sorry but you're going to have to have an opinion and let people know.
It's not really even clear that your partner is asking you to choose between you and your friend. Your friend already said it's ok if you can't come. He probably doesn't want to have his wedding ruined by having someone his fiancee is angry at coming to their wedding, and if that means one less of his friends can come it's not the end of the world. You guys can probably still hang out, just not at this wedding that is about him and his wife. His wife and your partner may just need more time to get over themselves.
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Anyways, I don't think its my job to decide who is right or wrong. I myself didn't do anything wrong and I don't deserve to be bad with either side.
Sorry to bother there friend, but, this, this, is totally why it isn't gonna work.
I found myself, oddly engouht, in the same and exact situation as you are in.
And I said to myself the exact same thing that you did. None of my business to decide who is wrong or who is right.
And yet, obviously, I was forced to. Forced, consciously or not, by my best friend and his GF (soon to be wife), and my GF, to choose side. Forced, by either of them, to do the difficult choice, because I had to choose. Going out with my friends, all of them, because none of them had anything wrong to do with my best friend's GF ? But to go, obviously, without my GF, forever and always being like a single man depsite being in a relationship since 8+ years ? Or stay with my GF, without seeing my best friend and others around them just because ?
I did my best, trying to conciliate each sides and everything and all : this never worked.
So, I DID choose one side, because I had to. I was forced to. Not forcefully, of course, no. No side wanted to confront me, I guess because no side was afraid to know which one I prefered. And obviously, I couldn't be with the other side since I chose one.
I am not able to tell you which side to chose, of course. I can only tell you that :
As Chef as stated, try your best to solve the matter between the tow sides. Try your best, everything and beyond. If it works, be sure to watch the chasm so that it never exists again. If you don't, then CHOOSE, one or the other, in good conscience, and never look back. If you don't, you'll be forced to, one day or the other.
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Didn't read it all but it's is quite simple. The person you are going to marry will be your person for life. Yeah she will make some errors during your time together but you should always support her. You should still be honest and tell her about her errors but still support her. Sounds like she would put you first if this happened to her, so why wouldn't you? It sucks that it hurts your old friendship but lets be honest. Who are you going to spend the rest of your life with?
Good luck mate
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It is quite comlicated to follow the story. Your writing style is horrific ^^
From what I understood, your gf is a drama queen of the worst kind. Me personaly, I would end it or go on a break or whatever people do these days until she has her shit together or permanently. People like this can and will destroy everything you have build. Things like this will most likely continue to happen until you have no more friends at all. She will bring up the "chose between" a lot in the future (speaking from personal experience with similar girls).
tl;dr
get rid of your girl even if it hurts for a while. she seem toxic and will destroy you
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Tell her you're going because single girls get horny at weddings and you don't want to miss out.
In all seriousness, if you want to go, go. You have been friends with this guy for 15 years so that relationship is more important than a 9 month gf. In this day and age even marriage doesn't necessarily last very long, but it sounds like you and your friend have a good thing going so don't ruin it over a woman you've only known for a very short time.
Besides, if you are afraid to have your own opinion and do things yourself when she isn't interested, she will lose all her respect for you. Be a man, dude.
Finally, if a girl is bringing unnecessary drama into your life she's not worth it. Life is too short to put up with that sort of crap.
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I don't want to sound like I am on some moral high horse but this all sounds so silly to me. Sounds like both of the girlfriends are being very unreasonable. I always wonder why people make grudges over stuff like this. For me, if I am mad at someone I might not talk to them for a day or two but then I realize "What the hell am I doing? I'm not even mad at them anymore."
I've had this thought before that I think is pretty true about the human condition. Many of us get very hurt by an insult but it is also generally the case that the person giving the insult probably didn't mean to hurt someone's feelings as much as they did. They probably put like a second of thought into it (and therefore have not considered many consequences) while the "victim" may ruminate about it on and off for hours. I think it makes taking insults much easier when you realize that the person probably didn't mean to hurt you and that you are thinking of the person insulting you way more than they are thinking of you.
Anyway, I am very inept when it comes to this relationship thing but I think if your friend won't mind too much that you don't go to the wedding than perhaps don't go (although I imagine you probably would want to go for personal reasons because he is your friend, after all). Maybe give him a gift or something to show your appreciation in lieu of going to wedding but take my suggestion with a pound of salt lol.
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On September 20 2019 21:15 Anc13nt wrote:
Anyway, I am very inept when it comes to this relationship thing but I think if your friend won't mind too much that you don't go to the wedding than perhaps don't go (although I imagine you probably would want to go for personal reasons because he is your friend, after all). Maybe give him a gift or something to show your appreciation in lieu of going to wedding but take my suggestion with a pound of salt lol.
I think it's more along the line that the friend wants to avoid any situation that involes "chosing" sides for OP and therefore gives him an easy out. That's what good friends do
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On September 20 2019 21:19 Harris1st wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2019 21:15 Anc13nt wrote:
Anyway, I am very inept when it comes to this relationship thing but I think if your friend won't mind too much that you don't go to the wedding than perhaps don't go (although I imagine you probably would want to go for personal reasons because he is your friend, after all). Maybe give him a gift or something to show your appreciation in lieu of going to wedding but take my suggestion with a pound of salt lol. I think it's more along the line that the friend wants to avoid any situation that involes "chosing" sides for OP and therefore gives him an easy out. That's what good friends do
I see that. There's certainly a lot of value in being loyal to a friend but I just don't think it is worth breaking up over it if you will still be friends with your friend after all this. That said, I have never really been one to think very long term so admittedly I probably undervalue things like loyalty, responsibility, integrity, honesty, etc.
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Seems like your girlfriend is being incredibly selfish. Not because the couple getting married is in the right, but because it is their event but she is making it about her. She does not need to go to it.
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It seems to me like everyone in the story has some growing up to do.
OP: Don't let people walk all over you.
OP's girlfriend: If you can't talk to your bf directly, you're being a dick. Literally everyone knows that communication is at the root of all good relationships. Not fucking double date schemes, not "inception" to try to plant a seed to grow into your boyfriend's head. If my wife needed smoke and mirrors to tell me that she doesn't like it when I place the new carton of milk in front of the old one, we'd never get anything done. Also, if your bullshit contrived plan to secretly perform inception fails, don't go running your mouth. Lastly, don't try to "control" your boyfriend.
OP's old friend: Keep fucking secrets if they're harmless. But also if the girls are starting to scheme some bullshit plans tell them they're being dumb. Still keep secret.
OP's old friend's girlfriend: Don't humor your friends when they're plotting some bullshit inception garbage. Tell them they're being dumb. Also keep dumb largely harmless secrets. ALSO, I don't have the whole story but if OP is right and the backlash from OP's gf was not excessive, just accept the apology and move on. Life's too short for bitch feuds. Leaking secrets (even stupid bullshit like this) can be quite insulting and breaking someone's trust is pretty shitty.
I crunched the numbers and your gf is the dumbest of all the people involved.
1- If it was just the stupid schemes that'd be one thing
2- If it was just insulting friends for breaking a stupid secret that'd be one thing
3- If it was just her being a dick about you going to your friend's wedding that'd be one (bigger) thing.
But it's all three of those things. This is a girl who can't talk to you directly about her concerns and struggles to communicate, this is a girl who clearly gets very upset about the breaking of small silly teenager-bullshit secrets, and also she's a girl who'll try to control you and expect you to make huge sacrifices for her sake. For any one of these three major flaws I would usually suggest talking it over, discussing boundaries. In this case? Fuck all that. Go to your friend's wedding and find a more reasonable woman.
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I agree with Djzapz. The girlfriend is the source of all these problems, though there was failure at all stages.
A wedding is a great place to find leads on a new relationship.
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Get the two girlfriends together in a room. Leave them there. Meanwhile mary your friend.
(Because nothing that a stranger tells you on the internet should be taken seriously)
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Looking over most anwers, the chosing seems to be heavy on the old friends side.
@OP
What did you do and how did it go?
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First of all I should apologize for my terrible writing style and thank you guys for sparing the time to understand and give different opinions on the matter.
Something serious happened between my parents so my focus is on that for a while. I might write a blog about it too :/ My gf knows what happened and is sorry for me, so the wedding issue seems like swept under the carpet for a while.
There are still two weeks to the wedding. I didn't decide on something yet. Not going is the easiest solution but the real issue is deeper, so I need to think on it. I don't want to give the wrong impression to either side, but I feel exhausted.
When I put myself in their shoes the situation feels almost stupid to me. If I was either 3 of them, things wouldn't go this bad. It seems being right and defensive is more important for people than anything else.
+ Show Spoiler +On September 21 2019 07:38 Djzapz wrote:
It seems to me like everyone in the story has some growing up to do.
OP: Don't let people walk all over you.
OP's girlfriend: If you can't talk to your bf directly, you're being a dick. Literally everyone knows that communication is at the root of all good relationships. Not fucking double date schemes, not "inception" to try to plant a seed to grow into your boyfriend's head. If my wife needed smoke and mirrors to tell me that she doesn't like it when I place the new carton of milk in front of the old one, we'd never get anything done. Also, if your bullshit contrived plan to secretly perform inception fails, don't go running your mouth. Lastly, don't try to "control" your boyfriend.
OP's old friend: Keep fucking secrets if they're harmless. But also if the girls are starting to scheme some bullshit plans tell them they're being dumb. Still keep secret.
OP's old friend's girlfriend: Don't humor your friends when they're plotting some bullshit inception garbage. Tell them they're being dumb. Also keep dumb largely harmless secrets. ALSO, I don't have the whole story but if OP is right and the backlash from OP's gf was not excessive, just accept the apology and move on. Life's too short for bitch feuds. Leaking secrets (even stupid bullshit like this) can be quite insulting and breaking someone's trust is pretty shitty.
I crunched the numbers and your gf is the dumbest of all the people involved.
1- If it was just the stupid schemes that'd be one thing
2- If it was just insulting friends for breaking a stupid secret that'd be one thing
3- If it was just her being a dick about you going to your friend's wedding that'd be one (bigger) thing.
But it's all three of those things. This is a girl who can't talk to you directly about her concerns and struggles to communicate, this is a girl who clearly gets very upset about the breaking of small silly teenager-bullshit secrets, and also she's a girl who'll try to control you and expect you to make huge sacrifices for her sake. For any one of these three major flaws I would usually suggest talking it over, discussing boundaries. In this case? Fuck all that. Go to your friend's wedding and find a more reasonable woman.
I don't judge her for not being direct at the time, actually I found it polite. Somethings are hard to say to the face, and she didn't know me back then enough to decide if I would be too offended or not.
For the growing up part.
OP: you are absolutely right. I try to get along and not break any eggshells all the time, and that bites my ass in times like this. Sometimes people piss me off so much without me doing anything wrong to them that I wanna say gtfo to all of them and just live alone.
OP's gf: As I said I don't blame her for not being direct. You can't be direct in all situations all the time. But she needs to grow up too. She takes things way too seriously and is too sensitive sometimes. When something bothers me too much I just say "fuck that" and don't care about it anymore, she needs to learn that too. Everything aside, she would just be happy if I end my 15 years long friendship because her stupid friend did that to her. We have been through so much that two girls arguing over something breaking us apart seems weird to me.
OP's friend: He is instantly at his gf's side without objectively analyzing or questioning the situation at all. He told me that my gf never apologized or tried to make up about what she said, while I personally read the texts between them and my gf tried to solve the issue multiple times but got stonewalled on each attempt.
OP's friend's girlfriend: She is the most at fault among them imo. She is basically worshiping my friend and ending her friendship over a single argument because it involved a bad word about her boyfriend. She seems like those kind of people who shoos everyone away when in a relationship. 1- breaks her word over and over, 2- doesn't accept what she did hurt her friend, 3- ends her 5 year old friendship over a single argument and doesn't reply to fixing attempts.
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I also have read other posts multiple times and trying to process the situation. This answer post is getting too long and I'm losing my focus, so I will answer them later. Thank you guys again.
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Btw I feel like I need to do sth about this before the wedding, although seriously I don't have any energy for it. Otherwise:
- my gf gets over it, I go to the wedding: She may feel like she made me a favor and let me go 🤷
- I go regardless: things get serious, we get into a big fight, it becomes more like me or them issue
- I don't go: my friend thinks he made me a favor to help protect my relationship, because they think they are right and I chose my gf's side 🤷
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this whole story seems made up...
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Stand up to your future wife now or reap the consequences in the future.
I'm a married man and I tell my wife the story of the paradox - the more you try and appease your wife, the more she will despise you.
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EPT
