Best friend won't come to my wedding.

[KatherineMayfair]

Best friend is a bit of a stretch right now but she is my longest friend (time wise, not height wise). She was going to be a bridesmaid and my wedding is in a few months, however I got a message today from her saying she won't be attending as it's on her birthday. It is on her birthday but she knew that when she agreed and I bought her dress. If she'd have said it from the get-go then that would've been fine (I'd have still been a bit hurt but I'd have understood) but the fact that she's turned around now, after me paying for her and her husband and two children's meals for the wedding, RSPV'd yes and buying her dress, AIBU to be pissed off?

Jrtft. .....

If she is in an abusive relationship, there is not necessarily any outward sign, abusive people are very good at playing at being normal outside the home.(if they were easy to spot, they would never get a partner to start with.)
It is insidious, the partner becomes submissive, & doesn't want to rock the boat, he will have chipped away, & she may be in denial, ashamed to admit, or not know how to detangle her life.
If he has refused to go, she basically has to defy him if she goes, & live with the fall out. One of the primary objectives of abusive man, is to ostracise the Partner for friends & family & any source of help.
However She should reimburse the dress/alterations/meal.
She will never get a chance to wear it in my opinion.

My cousin is getting married next year on what will a landmark birthday for me. She didn’t realise and they had to book years in advance to get a weekend date at their venue. I had originally planned to go away for this birthday but it’s hardly an issue to move my plans. I’d much rather celebrate the big day of someone I love!

Anyway, I’m so sorry with how your situation has turned out. There’s no way I’d allow my dh to dictate my friends based on his opinion of their oh! I would be inclined to just let the friendship go quietly. In the long run it seems like it won’t be a major loss, as much as it may hurt right now.

Hope you have a lovely wedding day!

I think this could be driven by her DH. You and your partner pulled him up on his comments about post birth weight.
If he is controlling/abusive you are a danger to him. You see him and you call him out. Of course he wants to isolate her from you.
My feeling is that the end of the friendship is exactly what he wants and has engineered.
I've been amazed by a close friend's ability to cover up stuff like this in the past and appear perfectly normal. She was too terrified to do otherwise.
A PP posted a link and I think it would be good to send it to your friend if you feel you can.
I hope tou have a wonderful wedding day.

Absolute cow. I think it’s very sweet that people prefer to think she’s controlled by her DH but it’s a huge assumption.

I’d ditch her without looking back.

I was invited by a good friend to be her bridesmaid, I didn't like her fiance. I managed to stall for time, as we were also TTC with IVF and I said I needed to think about it from that side. Thought long and hard, but decided this was HER choice of partner, and I was supporting HER, even if I would never have married him.

Nearly 20yr (and 2 children later) they are still happily married, and whilst I still see why I didn't like him, I have also grown to see a side of him I didn't know previously.

Could she have done better , was it my business to pass judgement on her fiance/life choice .

Your friend is no friend, especially as it's come after she has already well and truely committed to being bridesmaid.

It depends whether this is how the friend always behaves; is she normally so self-obsessed that she wouldn't go to a friend's wedding because it's on her birthday? Has she let you down in the past like this? If so, then she's not someone you should bother with, as clearly she's no friend.

But it's certainly odd that she's done this about turn, originally saying that she would be there and then turning around and saying that she wouldn't come because of it being her birthday. It sounds like a convenient excuse, which is why posters are suspicious that the friend is in a controlling relationship.

Lizzie, I was thinking along similar lines –is it out of character or quite normal for her? Would she normally be blasé and matter-of-fact about something like this?

I'd be quite worried if a friend who was not usually like this suddenly pulled this kind of stunt.

Why are posters making excuse for this so-called friend? She chose to be with this cock womble. She still has a choice to come to the wedding alone.

Dry sense of humour' tends to be code for 'insults people to their faces
Utter nonsense.

I know plenty of people who have dry senses of humour and wouldn't say one of them is rude to anyone's face. What a daft thing to say!

She knew it was her birthday when she said yes, there must be another issue as otherwise, this is ridiculous and I can't really get my head around it.

My DH bestman bailed on us last minute when we got married last year, similar situation. Turns out he was too embarrassed to say his wife gave him an ultimatum about attending the wedding, her or us (still don't understand her issue with us tbh, they've been friends 20 years...)

Nobody misses a friends wedding over a dry sense of humour. There's definitely more to it op. Put them out your life if they aren't mature enough to be truthful they aren't good friends.

Dry sense of humour' tends to be code for 'insults people to their faces
Utter nonsense

I've never ever heard anyone say that. Most people truly appreciate someone with a 'dry' sense of humour.

I just read The Unmumsy Mum. She was saying what a wonderful time she had at a wedding of one of her oldest school friends. It was also her birthday!
I expect she's having a relaxing day at home on the sofa eating cake today with her family.
=2 great days!

In my humble experience, friendships come and go, no matter how long they have been going on for or how strong they were. Sadly, we cannot hold on to people/ friendships, they are there for us to enjoy in the moment. We all grow differently too, in different directions and different times.
Seems to me, this friend of yours wants to hurt you (in a childish way) for some reason. Is she jealous?
If I were in your shoes, I would tell her how important she is to you and how much you would really want her to be there on your 'special' day. If that has no affect, I think I'd be inclined to reevaluate the friendship and ask myself whether you're both just in different places and that the friendship has run its course.

I agree with Jam64, I also think it can be worth backing away but leaving the door open by sending the odd card. I have reconnected with a couple of people after I thought the friendship was dead. After I left an abusive x who wouldn't have let me go to a wedding either or after the other one of us became a mother as well. Or after the other one's child grew up enough to allow some freedom. I think that's happened to me a few times, friends drift in and out like waves and in my youth I would have done a big door slam but now I really prefer not to.

Not so long ago I might have agreed with you Kerala. I have since been involved in studies on domestic abuse, to give me more perspective in my work, via the Freedom Programme which gives real insights into how an abuser operates and how this manifests in the abused partner.

What exactly is a dry sense of humour?

I just think if your best friend is taking a stand and boycotting your wedding, maybe she really does have the genuinely held belief that your DH is unpleasant. I think it'd be naive not to consider the possibility for even a second. Does she have a point?

By the sounds of it the op would be the type who would help the friend if she turned up 2 years later having escaped an abusive hellhole type marriage.

However it might equally be true that the friend is just abit of a bitch.

In the meantime just how far is poor op supposed to prostrate herself and be shafted and treated badly by this woman at a special time in her own life on the off chance she may be a victim?

What a cow. One of my friends got married on my 30th birthday. I had a great day!

I think @Mix56 nailed it on page 3: "Why don't you tell me WTF is going on?" I feel even with the OPs updates this still applies.

OP I'd be emailing her saying you have no idea why she waited this long to express concerns about your DH2B, if this explanation is even true. That you can only imagine her doing something like pulling out as a bridesmaid two months before etc if something very extreme had happened and what is it exactly. That she owes you as a friend to give you the real reason. That as things stand out you are concluding she means to end the friendship. Is that right? There is no way forward to spend time together as a couple after this and by the way YOU have to support YOUR DH and it would be hurtful to him for you to continue the friendship with them if they are so uncomfortable they had to make this extreme gesture. I would ask her what she reckons she would say to HER DH had you done this to them, and given such an explanation.

I can see where Kerala is coming from as well.

This situation is so odd though.

.

One of my oldest friends from primary school wasn't "allowed" to come to my wedding. She says it's on of the many regrets she has about being in an abusive relationship for a long time. So there could be something in this.