Have you ever been to a friend's wedding knowing it was doomed?

[sparebikewheel]

Close friend is getting married to a twat. Maybe not a full grade-A twat, but at least a B-minus. Rocky relationship, more downs than ups, breaking up, getting back together, etc. I'm always there to pick up the pieces. He's an unaffectionate emotional vampire and she deserves better. I have no idea what she sees in him.

She's now throwing herself into wedding planning. I want to stage an intervention because I believe she's making a mistake but ultimately it's her decision, and in the past my worries have fallen on deaf ears.

Has anyone else been in a similar position? She's so looking forward to the wedding but I'm worried about the aftermath, and I don't know how I can help her without coming across as a total killjoy.

I have been in this situation with a very intelligent, attractive, big earner friend marrying a deadbeat arsehole. When she finally told us all she needed to leave him it was worse than we thought. All you can do is be there when it goes tits up.

Not quite "doomed" but DH and I look around our circle & reckon we can see which marriages are least likely to last.

One mate likes the crazy ones

Another couple have pretty different aspirations. It's hard to see how they will reconcile it.

Several times. One was my brother, we were all appalled he was marrying her. They’re still together, things seem pretty good.

One set of friends, she was a nightmare, he was broken and didn’t see himself at all but he was caught up in wedding madness. She cheated on him within a few months, he forgave her, they had a baby, she was cheating again a few months later, he forgave her etc etc, couple of years later she did it again with two different men and then she ditched him! He’s incredibly happy with someone else after a few years happily single. His new wife is amazing, that was one of the best weddings ever. She’s an awesome step mum, they have a child together. His ex is still charging married men, currently single and always moaning.

One wedding I declined to go to, he’s a twat. They’re still together and he’s still a twat.

Another didn’t go ahead, his friends were planning to stage an intervention but he had a breakdown then she cheated then she ditched him.

I had a friend who was in an awful something she called a relationship, but it more resembled a friends with benefits set up. I never met him. He took money from her, never paid for anything, ate her food, never acknowledged things like Christmas, and to top it off smoked weed (often at her expense). He did sound awful, and when she had this long rant about him, I blurted out something like “ditch him, for Christ’s sake”. Unbeknownst to me, she went and ditched him the same day. Then she had this year long getting over him stage where she kept a pair of filthy cheap muddy trainers he left at hers as a keepsake. It was grim.
I felt guilty the whole time, like I was responsible for her misery. Which of course I wasn’t, I am entitled to my opinion.
1-1.5 years later she is back to servicing him in bed whenever he feels like it. Otherwise she is pretty much single. We have grown apart, for various reasons.

Now, if it were me, I’d not say anything. Think it and say it if you are asked, but definitely don’t do an intervention, ime.

Yes. It was a work friend. At the reception the bride came and sat with me and said that she had made a terrible mistake. I made light of it at the time but three weeks later she left him for good.

@Alexandra83190

Yes, but she stayed with him because he's rich and she liked the pretty children they made (5 at the latest count).

She was my best friend and before the wedding I told her I thought he was a ruthless, pompous, bland piece of work who would bore her to death. It turns out she is just as ruthless - she has many hobby vanity businesses that make no money, and is on her 8th affair, but loves the money and status of being married to him, the massive house, the designer clothes.

You can tell a lot about who people are by who they choose to marry.

Ex playmate by any chance? 🧐

Yes I have.

I knew that a month prior to the wedding that the groom had shagged a family friend. I spent a week in absolute hell worrying over what to do, whether to tell the bride or not and sought counsel from my mum who told me to back away and let them get on with it. My brother, grooms best man, wanted nothing to do with it and also advised me to stay out of it.

I was maid of honour but had only known bride 18 months and wasn't particularly keen on her but loyalty to groom and wanting to be a good person, I accepted my role. I had known groom since childhood - she had very few friends and in the following years it became obvious why.

Then I discovered a week after the first revelation, that earlier the same year bride had returned to her home town and slept with her ex boyfriend! At that point I thought "fuck them both".

I did attend, through loyalty to the grooms family and a 25 year friendship, didn't make a scene and just had a good time at the party with family and friends. The groom refused to give a speech, the bride ripped her dress just before walking down the aisle and it was a very bizarre experience.

They filed for divorce 9 months later.

Really irked me that a few years later my brother asked groom to be his best man and he refused because he didn't like my brothers wife to be (to be fair neither did I, but my brother did and you support those you love and care for). He refused to come to the wedding and stopped contact with my brother. I was incandescent with rage that I had wasted my loyalty on such a waste of space, years earlier.

I later discovered the bride had swindled my mum out of £3000 and her ex in laws out of £2000!

The groom later remarried (at the same venue as his first wedding!). We weren't invited. Shame. Not.

Sorry... What was your question? 😂😂 Oof it still stings after all these years. Run away OP. Don't look back.

A friend tearfully came out to me a few weeks before his wedding (to a woman) but then denied the conversation took place when I brought it up the next day. He eventually admitted he remembered our conversation but said he didn't mean it, he was just drunk. He wasn't. I tried to get through to him that it wasn't too late to call the whole thing off, that it wasn't fair to either of them, but he was having none of it. He was very close to his family, who were ultra-religious and probably would have disowned him so I understand why he felt he had to live a lie but I found the wedding day excruciating. I felt so sad, for him and for her. Part of me felt guilty for not telling her but it wasn't my secret to tell. He would have just denied it anyway. They're still together.

I had a friend who did that, I said sorry I can't come to the wedding because I can't be there to witness the massive, expensive mistake you are making.
She had house/money he had nothing.
She stopped talking to me but 5 years later was back crying because she had lost her beautiful home and a big chunk of money and they hadn't had a days happiness.

Yep. I told her I thought it was a mistake and they only lasted a year. I didn't go to the wedding. She is now happily married to someone else and we're still friends.

Yes, a friend told me he was going to break up with his GF, then a month later they were engaged! Still together 14 years later, but I don't think it's plain sailing.

Don't do an intervention. She will pick him, and you will lose your friend.
Do everything you can to maintain the friendship and support her if she needs it.

No, but I’m going to one in October that’s doomed my husband is best man, we are friends of the groom he’s in his 40s she’s in her 20s.

Went to Mexico for a friend’s wedding, 100% knew it wouldn’t last. 2 years later they were separated.

Was invited but couldn’t go, all our friends did. They had kids. He treats the eldest with cruel disdain. He was a feckless alcoholic. She is an ambitious, kind professional. 6 months it lasted. She bought a house without him. He sees the youngest maybe twice a year.

Went to a friends wedding 4 years ago and had to sit there knowing months before she had sat opposite me crying at how bad the relationship was and that she had asked him for £20,000 to move out of their house they jointly owned so she could find some where else. They are still married and now have a child but things are really not good. He works away most of the time now, it’s literally a matter of time until they split…

Went to a Family wedding last October that should not have gone ahead. Bride is not a nice person and it’s literally falling apart already 3 months on.

A work colleague, re-marrying less than a year after a difficult divorce. Had not met the bride beforehand, once I did thought they seemed ill-suited and it was a rebound. Sadly turned out to be true, marriage laster less than a year, and he attempted suicide a couple of years afterwards (thankfully someone at work went round and raised the police, it was a serious attempt it seemed).

My BFF did this. I was actually caught slagging him off on the wedding video. We were slightly distant for a few years but we really have a deep love for each other and withstood it. When she wanted to leave I was full throttle massive support and helped in every way I could, we were so so close by the divorce and inseparable now. Stick by her, be there for the fall out.

You just don’t know what goes on behind close doors. I had a friend who was treated really badly by her then boyfriend and I was horrified when I heard they were getting married (we were no longer friends by this point for other reasons). However, they are still married 11+ years later and with several DC! They actually seem really happy, at least to outside eyes, so I like to think he has matured and changed.

Yes
I have felt physically sick at a couple of weddings
I know of one where I got the invite through and felt so awkward

I say nothing now
Falls on deaf ears

I would have said something a few years ago - but not now

No, but my cousin stayed with me the night before my wedding (she was my bridesmaid, the groom stayed at his parents house) and she's said for years that she wished she'd talked me out of it.
To be honest, if she had, l might not have gone through with it, I knew it wasn't right (l'd wanted to call it off six weeks before, but he talked me round) but l thought it was too late.
It never is. But whether someone will listen to you is a different matter entirely.

Yeah one of my sisters. They're still together, he's still a twat.

Yes I have. But it took them much longer to split up than I thought it would.

My brother. I wasn't actually "at" the wedding, it was in another country and I could not be there so I was watching a livefeed. I knew very well he was only doing it to get the passport of that country. He had constantly made insinuations to me during their brief, mostly online "courtship" about her probably having a personality disorder, being abusive, jealous and needy etc. And I knew her family's politics were absolutely incompatible with mine (and my brother's too). I felt very uncomfortable about the whole thing.

It lasted about three years. He got the passport.

I know that quite a few people would say this about my first wedding, as most people knew the groom was gay (some from very, shall we say, personal experience). (He had told me that he was bisexual, he wasn't). No-one said a thing.

But I don't exactly regret the marriage, which lasted 17 years, we had some extremely fun and exciting times together. I stayed too long in it though.