Two close work friends were invited to my wedding - one had had a long affair with another colleague and the other was now embroiled with him, despite warnings from the first that he would string her along as well with promises that he would leave his dead marriage once the children were old enough etc etc. The same old story. The two women were friends, it wasn’t a bitter response by the first who had moved on and remained cordial with the man, though cynical about him. He was charming, though I didn’t find him at all attractive.
The second asked if this man could be invited as ‘they didn’t usually have the opportunity to be openly partners at an occasion ‘ ( !! ) I was a bit taken aback as the first would be attending with her now husband ( she hadn’t been cheating on a partner at the time of her affair) My husband, normally quite reticent about commenting on others’ love lives, was appalled and said it was making a mockery of the vows we were about to take in front of them and he didn’t want the unlikely Lothario there.
So I refused, she said she wouldn’t come without him, I said I was sorry to hear that but the decision stood. She said she would come alone.
On the day, she turned up with him anyway which was bizarre and awkward. I introduced them to my parents as ‘ this is B, who I’ve mentioned and this is X, another colleague’
He strung her along for another 4 years, until he did leave his wife - or rather she threw him out after the junior colleague he had also been having an affair with ( the level of subterfuge must have been huge ! ) grew impatient and contacted the wife who had no idea, just thought he was overworked and played an awful lot of golf in his rare time off whilst she dealt with the children.
My husband’s comment to me rang true - it wasn’t just them coming to a party, it was attending and hypocritically witnessing wedding vows.