Husband didn’t like how I looked on our wedding day

[PeppyDenimSheep]

I’m not sure if I’m being overly sensitive or if I’m justified in feeling upset about this.
I got married last year and we only recently received our wedding photos. When we sat down to look through them together for the first time, there were lots of pictures of me getting ready with my bridesmaids before walking down the aisle. Obviously, my husband hadn’t seen any of that because he wasn’t in the bridal suite but when those photos came up, he quickly skipped past them without looking. I asked him to go back because I wanted to see them, there were special moments, like my mum helping me into my dress.
As he looked through some of the photos of me in my dress before I walked down the aisle, he said, “Jesus, there are SO many of you, you’re really playing up to the camera.” I actually found the wedding morning quite awkward. I hate being the centre of attention and I’m not a naturally “posey” person and he knows that. Having constant photos taken was outside my comfort zone but the photographer guided me and reassured me I would like how they turned out. Surprisingly, I actually liked the photos of myself, which is rare because I’m usually very self critical. My husband also made remarks about how the photographer seemed to focus on me all day and must have “loved” me. We had a husband-and-wife photography team, so it wasn’t a guy being creepy with me. I explained that photographers typically take more photos of the bride because of the dress, hair, makeup, and flowers, that’s just standard for weddings.

This isn’t the first time he’s made comments like that. In the lead-up to the wedding, he would say things like, “How comes you get a bridal suite? Why don’t I get a groom’s suite?” or make comments that he and his best man would be getting ready in a cleaning cupboard. He also said he could already tell the wedding would be “all about you.” Anyone who knows me knows I’m not that type of person.
A few days later, we showed the wedding photos to some family. My aunt asked him what he thought when he first saw me walking down the aisle and whether my dress was what he imagined. He replied, “I thought it was just a dress.” That comment, combined with the earlier ones, really upset me.
It’s also brought back other things from the wedding that didn’t bother me at the time because I was in such a happy bubblem, but now they do. The night before the wedding, he stayed up drinking with friends until 4 a.m. On the morning of the wedding, we had planned to exchange letters and asked the photographer and videographer to capture it. When my bridesmaid handed me his letter, I opened it in front of everyone with cameras pointed at me. (I already felt awkward being the centre of attention). When I opened it, it was actually a birthday card with a kids cartoon on the front and the word “birthday” crossed out and replaced with “wedding.” Inside, it just said, “To (my name), love (his name).”
People I’ve spoken to say he’s just being a typical man, that men don’t care about these things. I understand that and at the time, none of it really bothered me. But after the comments about me “playing up to the camera,” it’s made me rethink everything. Now I can’t seem to get it out of my head.

Am I being too sensitive?

It doesn’t sound like he likes you very much, OP. He sounds awful. What age is he? Are your friends already married? Does he feel like he’s settled?

A horrible, nasty, petty, ugly little man.
Clearly you have been ignoring huge red flags.
He certainly doesn't love you.

You would be out of your mind to stay married and inflict him on children.

He's the type that at the very very least will emotionally abuse you.

He is already grinding you down and reducing your self confidence.

This is from the basic playbook of abusive men.

Ignore these red flags and you have a truly miserable life ahead of you.

Talk to family, get legal advice and get the hell away from this awful man.

Can’t get my head round someone trying to justify this low level insidious abuse.

Yeesh red flags all over the place here. At best it sounds as though he finds you seriously annoying and/ or he has a massive inferiority complex and needs to be the centre of attention at all times.

At worst he actually hates you.

Seriously though if his behaviour in normal situations is anything like this (putting you down, dismissing you, devaluing and belittling things that you want to do), I don’t think I’d be staying in this marriage for much longer. Don’t feel as though because you’ve had the wedding and spent money you have to stay for X amount of time. It’s not the army.

Oh and for the love of god, do not get pregnant.

I'm really sorry. He sounds uncaring and thoughtless.

Given that you don't like being the centre of attention I'm surprised that you didn't have the phtotographer for just the wedding.

Yep. This I’m afraid. Run.

This needs repeating 1000 times!

It is simply not true.

Unfortunately, women will say it to other women to make themselves feel better about their own crappy husband but it lowers the bar for other women's expectations too.

Then any man who isn't completely shit seems amazing in comparison and so the cycle continues and women continue to accept less.

Do some people honestly believe that one half of the population is predisposed to a complete inability to function independently, relate to others, care or be kind? It's just nonsense.

If he didn't want to participate in the letter exchange he could have just said something. Tbh, I wouldn't have gone along with that either. It does seem a bit odd to be describing events at your own wedding as things you don't like but other people suggested and you just agreed to though, OP.

I wonder why you did those things rather than discussing it with your partner and just doing things you genuinely wanted to do?

Lots of people have said how awful this and I agree.
i had a similar experience with my ex husband, i remember on our wedding day we did the vows and when they said you may now kiss the bride he leant in and gave the small peck on the lips it was so quick it knocked me off balance and everyone laughed. Then he stood on my dress as we were walking out and caused me to stumble again. And at the first dance he heard the dj call our names and ran and hid in the men’s toilet (not shy or embarrassed just to be funny. I was stood about five minutes while the dj kept asking where he was and everyone laughed/looked embarrassed for me. He also spent the final balance so the wedding nearly didn’t go ahead got into a row with a guest and took all the left over buffet to our room. It took me way too long to realise that a man does not behave like this if he genuinely cares for you wants you to be happy.

Yikes! He doesn’t sound very nice at all! Is he just like this when it comes your wedding? The only way I could kind of give him the benefit of the doubt is if he really did not want the big white wedding and he was forced into it? Then perhaps he still holds a lot of resentment.

I think if this behaviour is confined to your wedding or other events like Valentine's Day for example which don't suit the way he expresses his love for you and are very driven by marketing/people trying to sell you crap you don't really need and you spending more money than you'd like, then its not too worrying. But if he has contempt for you in other parts of your life, then it's more of a red flag!

I imagine your full day two-person photography/videography package cost a small fortune (£2-3k?), as did your bridal suite and your venue if it's the sort that has a bridal suite - maybe he's a bit resentful of how much the day cost in the end?

I know you said he wanted a wedding, but it sounds like what he wanted was to celebrate your marriage with friends and family, not necessarily spend thousands on all the frills that can be added to such an event. I'm not saying he wasn't aware of the cost and I'm sure you made decisions together about what to do for the day, but these things can snowball and maybe he has a bit of buyers remorse - and that resentment is coming out when looking through the photos together?

I might be completely off the mark, just a thought as we had a "cheap as could be whilst still feeding and watering 100 odd guests" sort of wedding which we planned to spend £5k on, but it ended up being closer to £10k as costs had gone up so much in the few years it was postponed due to COVID, and it really bugged us for a while that it had cost so much more! We're over it now though! But if the day had cost what I'd heard others did (£60k is the worst I've heard of in my circle!) then I would still be feeling awful about that, as that would now be stopping me affording other things like a bigger house or new car, or funding a maternity leave!

I agree.

Whose idea was the wedding, OP?

Why do you have so little agency in your own life?

Oh WOW
Does he even like you?? Is he always like this? This isn't something a loving person would say, even if he isn't interested in looking through multiple similar photos saying so wasn't necessary AT ALL! Skipping through them when you clearly wanted to see them wasn't cute either!

So why do you think he was the one who insisted on a bigger wedding than the OP wanted then?

Divorce him and don't waste any more time with this man.

Well said. My thoughts exactly.

You aren't the type of person who likes being the centre of attention, and I understand that, I'm the same. You must have agreed to the photos in the bridal suite, prior to the wedding, to be taken..if you felt uncomfortable why did you agree to it? The same with the letters, it was the wedding planners idea, you both went along with it (well your husband didn't really) but again it wasn't something you both really wanted, so why agree to it?

I absolutely agree that your husband's attitude towards you, is utterly dreadful. This isn't a 'men aren't interested in this type of thing' situation at all. Your husband is openly jealous of the fact you had the bridal suite on the day of the wedding, the amount of photographs taken with you in and that you were 'centre of attention'. He couldn't say anything nice about you or the dress you were wearing, on your wedding day, the day where most women look and feel magical. My husband cried when he saw me the first time in my wedding dress, walking towards him!!!

You need to take a very long honest look at your relationship. Is your husband usually this jealous and awful towards you? Is this behaviour he frequently shows, but you have normalised it? How is your relationship generally?

It's very clear that your husband didn't want to participate in the 'letter giving' at your wedding. The way he chose to give you a naff card, says it all really. He didn't want to do it, so decided to punish you for him 'having' to do it. I would be questioning how much of the wedding he just 'went along with'? Did he actually, truly deep down, even want to marry you? It's a horrible thought, but it feels very much, like he didn't, but felt he couldn't stop the wedding. So now he's punishing you, because he didn't have the balls to stop it.

He's disrespectful and jealous of the attention you got on your special day. As the bride. BTW it happened to me too and it's an awful feeling so I really sympathise. We're not together any more.

it's up to you op but you deserve a husband who celebrates you and respects you.

I'm sorry he's been nasty to you. You deserve better 💐xx

Look, I have a healthy Gen X cynicism about wedding planners, IG wedding hashtags, vow poems, Team Bride dressing gowns, etc etc, but in a healthy relationship, you either have an honest conversation about how you actually don’t want to write wedding letters, despite what the wedding planner says, OR, if your partner really wants it, and finds it meaningful, you find it in yourself to respond in a gracious way.

You don’t pull a Colin the Office Jokester gag in front of the photographer, and then make your new wife feel even smaller and more stupid afterwards.

I am looking into it too much, which is what my family tell me when I try to speak to them about this

Your family are as bad as your husband.

He definitely doesn’t like you. It’s true, a lot of men don’t care for the sentimental lovey stuff like the letters (some definitely do) but if the love you they will do it anyway. I doubt my DH actually cares about my silly TV shows but he still pays some interest, and I (try) and show interest in sports. I’m not saying if you love someone you fake a whole personality but you at least try and be (bare minimum) respectful of things that mean a lot to them.

He sounds mean and inconsiderate.

I’m sorry to say you’ve made a big mistake marrying him, he is not nice and it will get worse now he’s got you on the hook. His mask has slipped.

on the positive you’ve seen this really quickly and don’t have kids (I think) so you can get out reasonably easily.

He sounds awful. I feel for you.

I am so sorry that your life partner has persistently sullied your wedding experience. I expect he delivers his contemptuous, belittling attacks in a way that he can claim ‘plausible deniability’ if you call him out - basically he gets in the punches below the belt as intended but it’s just confusing enough for you to feel it would be petty to speak up and even if you did he would call you too sensitive.

But this is bullying - each of these ‘attacks / assaults’ compound on each other.

It seems you are from a family who told you to ‘put up and shut up’ - so it’s no wonder that you have tolerated shit from
this bully. What’s happening now is the little day to day shit is showing up in your lifetime milestones - he is intent on annihilating your sense of self - so you are compliant. I agree it has the sniff of Andrew Tate / Red pill process.

When you write down every single incident over the years that have left you sad, disappointed, confused or unsettled - you will see the full extent, consolidation and pattern of his bullying behaviours.

Take yourself out of punching distance.

If it helps list out any random incidents that impacted you that might on their own seem irrelevant or petty or other have dismissed for you - use this as your sounding board. Your feelings are real, these incidents are repeated, you deserve to be heard and prioritised.

So you're really of the opinion that "abuse" is the only possible way to read this?

As far as you're concerned it's not possible that he's just not a wedding kind of a guy, for example, or that he's stressed about the cost or resents the ridiculousness of it all and is now reacting badly?

We know absolutely nothing about him. I would just suggest that labelling him an abuser is perhaps a tad premature.

@PeppyDenimSheep I hope you manage to talk about how you feel, openly and honestly, and end up finding some common ground and mutual understanding.

Well, I am someone who hates being the centre of attention and would hate having my photos done all day, so that is why I eloped. The letter thing sounds incredibly cringe and awkward, why would you choose to do that in front of loads of people?

However, he sounds like a thoughtless, insensitive prick and I am not sure why you married him