To not want my husband to attend his female best friend’s wedding without me?

[BluntAzurePeer]

My husband has a long-time female best friend - they’ve never dated but had a brief “thing” years ago before we met. She’s getting married abroad and due to work and budget, I can’t attend. He still wants to go alone, says it’s important to him and it’s “just a friend.” I trust him but I’m not entirely comfortable with the idea of him flying off solo to a wedding of someone he once had a thing with. AIBU for saying I don’t want him to go?

I don't think it's about trusting him but I think in reality you'd get different replies to the majority on here. I don't think I'd be arsed enough to leave mu husband and kids to go abroad to someone's wedding and my husband wouldn't either. In fact I think it's odd.

You’d skip your longtime best friend’s wedding because you ‘couldn’t be arsed’?

Fine, be honest with yourself about how you feel, but recognise from this thread that your feelings aren’t proportionate to the situation. Your feeling in this case really shouldn’t be used to control your DH and prevent him from going to the wedding.

I’d probably be more worried if him and the woman were both guests, but are you worried he’ll run off with the bride?

Do you have no friends that he isn’t friends with?

What is she walking into? Your oh singing Elton John Wanna Kiss The Bride

You are being absolutely ridiculous.

I’ll be honest, I couldn’t be married to someone who was good friends with someone they’d slept with.

Saying that, you chose to. You knew the history, you knew they remained friends. This is just part of what you signed up for.

Sorry op. You’re going to have to grit your teeth.

This is not an issue for married couples who trust each other. Either you don't trust him or you're controlling. Either way, you're a giant red flag.

I’ll be honest, I couldn’t be married to someone who was good friends with someone they’d slept with. Saying that, you chose to. You knew the history, you knew they remained friends. This is just part of what you signed up for.

Yes, I don’t understand people who are okay with this. One of my kids broke up with someone as the person wanted a commitment and my child said they weren’t at that stage of life and wouldn’t be for many more years. It wasn’t a case of they were not ‘the one’, it was that it just didn’t fit with the timescale they were looking at for their life. The other person was several years older. So, the person got another partner, however my child is in the circle of friends as they became tight with all the other partners, so they see each other all the time as everyone still gets together as a group frequently. So, current partner has to see my child all the time.

To top it off, the current partner has been pressing for a commitment and so the person went to my child to ask if they could get some guarantee that when they are ready for a commitment on their timeline that it could be with them, if so they’d now be happy to wait (but with other girlfriends obviously😳), if not they’d crack on with the current partner. Child responded they honestly didn’t know what they’d think 7/8 years down the line so couldn’t say, and so best if they wanted to move ahead with someone else now. I see the new partner, now fiancé, occasionally (when dinners etc are held at our house), and I can’t help but think ‘WTAF, how low is your bar’, but guessing he really hasn’t told her about that conversation, but irrespective it’s still weird she hasn’t clued on, as everyone else seems to know how the wind blows. It seems like wilful ignorance. I couldn’t be with someone in that situation.

Sorry I got a bit lost reading that- you have dinners at your house with your child, their ex and the ex's fiancee?

I don't see how this is a part of a 'healthy relationship'
I was a bridesmaid at an ex-boyfriends wedding. We'd dated for 2 years, his wife was a friend of mine. My DH wasn't in the least concerned.
Does he have other female friends? Do you have male friends?

What??

Well, that's a strange attitude! Of course you can have a best friend of the opposite sex.
Have we woken up in 1920?

🤣🤣

@Winifredtabago Sorry I got a bit lost reading that- you have dinners at your house with your child, their ex and the ex's fiancee?

Yes, there are dinners or movie nights or party nights or whatnot at our house with my child, and their group of friends, which includes their ex-partner and the ex-partners new partner/fiancee. I don’t attend as my child is an adult, and if they have people over I don’t join in, as that would be really odd, but I’ll get home and they will be there so I politely say hello before excusing myself and leaving them to it.

However, that means I have to look at the ex’s new partner/fiancee and think ‘wtf is wrong with you’, based on the fact they are with someone who really wants to be with my child instead. Per my initial post, it’s my child that isn’t interested in getting engaged for several years, hence why they broke up. How the fiancée hasn’t clued on (although I believe, as it’s obvious, they are just refusing to see it), and thinks it’s an acceptable situation they should be in is baffling to me. I just couldn't be that wilfully ignorant and accepting.

Although, my example also went to the ‘I could never be with a DH who was friends with previous girlfriend’ line. I mean in such a situation, where it’s a group of close friends, it would mean the DH exiting the entire friendship group, and how fair/feasible is that?

And what makes you think the fiancee is aware they are with someone who wants to marry someone else? I'm guessing also that they are all still fairly young.

And what makes you think the fiancee is aware they are with someone who wants to marry someone else? I'm guessing also that they are all still fairly young

It’s obvious to the blind the way they look at my child, take the opportunity to do ‘friendly’ touching, their constant desire to have individual photo’s with my child at occasions/events - usually they request the fiancée to take them🫣. That’s just what I have observed myself when I do the polite 10min chit chat with everyone if they are doing something at my house, or all meeting here before going out etc. It’s like they are deliberately blind. On the other hand, he will then turn around and kiss the fiancée and tell them how much he loves them (yep, what a prince!), while everyone, myself included, looks around uncomfortably.

The group are all late 20’s so not so young, except for my child who is the outlier being 7/8 years younger than the rest. They very sensibly refused the ‘ultimatum’ of moving in together with view to marriage. They have head screwed on, want their own property, career established and firm exit strategy where they will not be screwed over financially before they move in and commit to anyone and have kids, be it this person or anyone else. Ironically, they have not had a boyfriend since as they really did/do love them, and hasn’t found anyone yet they feel the same about. Irrespective of how they feel, they won’t cave to ultimatums and also can’t say where they’d be or how they may feel several years down the line when they do see themselves as being in the position they want to be in order to commit to anyone in a marriage/kids.

ETA - when my child started a relationship with them, they basically became her new friendship group. Friends her age didn’t want to hang out with older people, and she basically swapped friendship groups. Best friends for years now with the long term partners of the other guys in the group. So for all those on the thread saying ‘I’d never have a DH that’s friends with his ex’, my question is how does that work in such a situation. The DH is expected to leave the friendship group they have had for at least half their life? No way my child is giving up her friends and leaving it, and she’s been told the rest of the group doesn’t want that either.

All sounds very complicated.

I guess it depends on each individual circumstance as to whether remaining friends with an ex (in the case of OPs case it was an ex 'thing' rather than anything serious). When a whole friendship group is tied in maybe becomes more complicated. And if marriage proposal or moving in together was on the cards in your daughter's case then that's again different from an ex thing.

100% you would be. Why would you ever think ANYTHING was going to happen between your husband and his female best friend on a trip for her WEDDING to another man? Not only has he known her longer but even this so-called "thing" they had was a year before him ever meeting you. He obviously could have pursued her for some sort of relationship then but also could have pursued it at any time YOU were dating him before you got married too. The fact you were invited to her wedding and it was you, not her, that was the reason you aren't going to be there means there's no ulterior motive between your husband and the best friend bride-to-be. Honestly if I were your husband and found out about how you feel, I'd be questioning my own marriage with you because of how little you trust me and how controlling you are attempting to be to him.

I went to my ex-boyfriend’s wedding. We were together on and off for 4 years, even lived together for maybe 2 of those years. Awkwardly enough, he even has the same, not super common, name as Dh.

I was invited to and went to his wedding abroad with Dh. If Dh couldn’t go, I probably would have still wanted to attend. He’s been in my life a long time. I’ve now been with Dh for 17 years, so have known this ex probably 25 years. I’m friends with his wife now too.

Absolutely nothing weird would have happened at the wedding if Dh hadn’t come with me. I barely even talked to my ex or his new wife. They were enjoying their lovely day together. I wasn’t off shagging him in the coat cupboard before the cake cutting. 😂 He should go be there for his friend, unless there is a huge backstory.

Do you think she will look at him and say his name at the altar? "I take thee, Rachel..."?

I think you should def go, it is quite odd for him to go alone, and barring medical/pregnancy reasons I think you should go as a couple.

That’s why this is contradictory though because if you trust someone then you don’t have those feelings of discomfort because you umm…. trust them..