I Told My Friend The REAL REASON I Won't Be At His Wedding - NEW UPDATE r/Relationships

[00:00:03] Hey Waffle Gang, I do hope you are well. My name is Mark and today we're checking out some more Reddit Stories. And if you do love a Reddit Story why not consider hitting that like subscribe maybe that notification bell too. And let's crack on with today's first

[00:00:18] story. Much love guys. Now today's first story comes from the Am I The Arsehole Here subreddit from mightafuckedup97. And it may be a story that you've heard on other channels before

[00:00:29] but it has a new update as well so if you want to use the timestamps always down below and in the description. Up to you. And let's crack on with it. It's titled Am I The Arsehole

[00:00:38] For Telling My Best Friend Why I Wasn't Attending His Wedding. I might have fucked up. Me 32 male and my best friend Alex 32 male have been friends since diapers. So basically family. After college we both moved back home so we could live at home and get our feet underneath

[00:00:58] the covers. Alex started dating Stella 35 female a lovely girl around 4 and a half years ago. And from the get go she seemed to politely dislike me. I don't know why but oh well c'est la vie. Alex and Stella moved across the country in 2021 after Stella

[00:01:16] earned a promotion at work. In 2022 Alex proposed she said yes and they set a wedding date for the end of September 2023. I got a save the date card at the beginning of the year and

[00:01:28] based on the conversations I had with Alex assumed I'd be in the wedding party either as a groomsman or the best man but never received any official confirmation from either of them. A couple of months before the wedding I saw that wedding invitations had gone out on social

[00:01:43] media and figured mine was en route. It never came. I waited a couple of weeks and figured it might have just gotten lost in the mail before I checked in with him. I called Alex

[00:01:55] and had a brief conversation with him where he was clearly agitated and said he was dealing with a lot, would be incommunicado for the near future to direct any wedding related questions to Stella and he'd call me when things cooled off. I called, text and emailed

[00:02:10] Stella several times over the course of a week but she didn't respond to any of them. At this point I figured I wouldn't be attending the wedding and that things were really fucked up for some reason between the two of us. Yesterday, a little over three weeks

[00:02:24] after our last conversation Alex DM'd asking if I was free to chat. I jumped at the opportunity to get some answers and after exchange in pleasantries Alex jumped right into a spiel

[00:02:35] saying he knew I was super busy with work and dealing with a lot of personal stuff but he'd love it if I could attend his wedding. Even just as a guest and wanted to know if

[00:02:45] there was anything he could do to make that happen. I just blurted out that I'd love to but hadn't received an invitation. Alex stared blankly at me and said what? I just kind of verbal vomited out that I hadn't received an invitation. That was the reason

[00:03:01] I'd called him a few weeks ago, that I'd contacted Stella about it but she never got back to me and left me on read and that I have no idea what he was talking about me

[00:03:10] dealing with too much to be involved in the wedding. After a very pregnant pause he said he needed to go sort things out and that he'd call me when it was done. My phone's

[00:03:20] blowing the fuck up since with wedding attendees asking me what the fuck happened and why the wedding might be off now. My girlfriend has reaffirmed to me that I did nothing wrong but I've had people from all sides saying I stuck my nose where it didn't belong and

[00:03:34] caused a stink which is really fucking with my head. Am I the asshole? Edit. After he DM'd me we switched to video chat, meant to include that, whoops. Edit 2. I may not be able to respond to everyone's responses but I've read them all and appreciate

[00:03:53] each and every one of them. My girlfriend is also having way too much of this and is kindly giving me shit for doubting myself. Someone asked Sophie they said why didn't you ask any of your other friends if they knew what was going on? Sophie says I asked

[00:04:07] a couple who I knew could be trusted to keep it on the down low who were both surprised I hadn't gotten an invite and encouraged me to talk to Stella. I've had some bad experiences in the past but shit interpersonal drama was happening. I reached out to people

[00:04:21] looking for answers and it made it 10 times worse. I tend to just shell up and wait nowadays. Someone says is there any reason she might think you're a bad influence if you'd known him since diapers? Sophie says it's possible, Alex was raised kinda sheltered

[00:04:36] and I wasn't. I think we only got in trouble one time in high school not like she had much room to judge though. As far as I know her high school experience was pretty bulk standard,

[00:04:46] in college we all got into some shit as most people do. Some extra info on Stella. Sophie says funny part is everyone loves Stella except me and another guy in the group who's autistic.

[00:04:58] Edit, I just want to clarify something, I did not mean autistic as a pejorative because of his neurodivergence, he has a completely different perspective, one I find incredibly valuable. Yeah kinda, she's really good at the fake polite thing, especially to me,

[00:05:14] everyone else eats it up. He doesn't but has learned over the years not to say anything. Someone says are you gay? Sophie says not gonna lie, expected this question way sooner but no I'm not gay or queer, not there is anything wrong with that. Someone says possible

[00:05:29] biases she might have, Sophie says ethnicity no, socioeconomic kinda, religions kinda, I'm agnostic, so is Alex. Stella's non-practicing Christian. Different school, no we all went to 4 years university. Bathing? Lol no that's nasty. Controlling behavior none that I know

[00:05:52] of. Past info, not that I can think of, Alex was raised fairly kinda sheltered and religious. Me and Stella had more traditional high school experiences, college was more or less the same for all of us. Someone suggests there must be some missing info here, Sophie says

[00:06:08] I don't disagree, I feel like I'm missing a lot of pieces of the puzzle but Alex delegating to Stella is pretty normal. He gets overwhelmed easily in high pressure situations and tends

[00:06:19] to defer and she's much more of an alpha personality. That's one of the things he loves about her, the wedding might be getting called off, as far as I know because she lied to him. People

[00:06:30] are mad I exposed this instead of going along with her story. The wedding's massive, this isn't some small personal affair with 25 people. Then the final question to Opie is why the fuck would you think you are the arsehole? Opie says a. When you got a bunch of people

[00:06:45] spamming your phone it makes you question whether you're in the right or not. b. I didn't want to cause a bunch of drama and make shit worse for what I thought was an honest mistake

[00:06:54] at first. Blowing a whole friend group when the person you're going against is way better liked than you is a dangerous choice. Also, a lot of these people just assumed I was invited.

[00:07:05] c. Alex is pretty easily overwhelmed and tends to defer. One of the reasons he loves Stella is she's a go-getter who will handle stuff for him. I don't know why he didn't or why he had

[00:07:16] to go incommunicado though, guess I'll find out soon I hope. So Opie did come in with an update and says Alex and I text Tuesday night slash Wednesday morning. He said he was handling

[00:07:27] stuff and asked if I'd be free to talk Thursday afternoon with him and Stella, which I agreed to. This is just a rough summary and I probably forgot some stuff. Frankly, I'm too mentally fried to

[00:07:39] weave a narrative right now so this can just be bullet points. A couple of pieces of info about Alex to provide some context. Alex was raised fairly sheltered and religious until he was 18

[00:07:50] when he went to college and opened. As a result, he still has some, I don't know, blind spots about certain things. Alex has mild to moderate OCD. He's managed with low levels of medication and maintenance therapy, which is one of the reasons he gets overwhelmed easily,

[00:08:06] especially from unexpected stressors, and weddings are chock full of those. Now for the actual update. The wedding is still happening. I will be the best man, I've been read in on all the shit I need to do. The person who was filling in for me,

[00:08:21] Matthew, 34 male, one of mine and Alex's good friends who's also neurodivergent is thrilled not to have to spend the day peopling and can instead party his ass off. As a result of this clusterfuck, Alex, Stella, whoever parents are paying for the wedding will be comping me plus

[00:08:38] girlfriend's plane tickets and hotel stay and my best man tux. What was the main driver of this mess in the first place? Stella's pregnant. Yay. They found out a couple of days after the wedding invites got sent out. Apparently they were passively trying, then actively trying in 2022,

[00:08:56] but stopped and swapped back to heavy birth control once the save of the dates went out because Stella did not want to be pregnant on her wedding day. This led to several changes to the wedding,

[00:09:06] for a bunch of other planning into disarray. Sent Alex into an OCD hole for a couple of weeks, which is why he was agitated when I called him and why he needed time to get his head around it all

[00:09:17] and get the intrusive thoughts managed. And one of the reasons why Stella ignored or missed my messages and calls. Why did Stella not respond to my messages? Besides surprise pregnancy, Stella said that she's on her phone for work a ton and gets hundreds if not thousands of emails,

[00:09:33] texts and calls per day. She misses some stuff, especially since she didn't have my contact info saved. Lol. I also emailed her work email instead of personal email which I don't have and my own

[00:09:45] personal email handle is not my name. In the future I was told to be more insistent in my communication with her to break through her everyday noise. What happened to my invite?

[00:09:56] Stella claims that she sent me one but must have sent it to my old address. I did move in March to my current residence and the save the dates were sent out in January. What did Stella tell Alex

[00:10:07] about me not being in the wedding? Apparently nothing. According to Stella, he either 1. believed one of his intrusive thoughts was real when he was in his OCD hole. 2. He got confused

[00:10:19] when she told him one of her cousins with a similar sounding name to mine wouldn't be attending. Or 3. Some combination thereof. According to Stella, she always wanted me in the wedding. Why did

[00:10:30] Stella not contact me after I did an RSVP back? She assumed there was something going on with me and Alex that would sort it out and he'd tell her. In the meantime, she was busy with work,

[00:10:40] wedding planning and an unexpected baby. How did a bunch of wedding guests find out about this mess? Alex called his mum for advice after our convo. Mum had church friends over. Church ladies overheard

[00:10:52] a good chunk of their convo. Church ladies are gossipy fucks. Alex has spent a decent chunk of time the last couple of days putting out fire so to speak. After about an hour, Stella left to go

[00:11:03] deal with some wedding stuff and me and Alex chatted about shit for a couple of hours. Do I believe Stella's explanations? Kinda. The baby is real as far as I know, confirmed by a medical

[00:11:14] professional. She does have a cousin I know she's close with who has a similar sounding name to me and she does work from her phone a lot. But the rest of it just seems a little too convenient

[00:11:24] and I feel like I'm left with more questions than answers. The good news is, since I'm in the wedding I should have great access to figure out what the fuck is going on. I hope.

[00:11:33] Someone says to OP, I don't believe Stella at all. OP says neither do I. It should be a mildly entertaining mess based on the guest list. Checking with Alex, OP says after she left I asked him if he was sure he wanted to do this

[00:11:47] and I'd support him no matter what. He said yes so he seems committed. I've generally found when people are this determined to see something through, any action taken to get them off course

[00:11:57] will fuck up your relationship just as much as it'll fuck up their determination. Better to just be there, be supportive and be ready for the mess. OP's theory on what really happened. OP says

[00:12:09] she's intended to wait and see how long she could delay my invite until Alex noticed. The pregnancy situation gave her a good crisis to take advantage of and she did. She hoped he'd be stuck in his OCD hole until the wedding ended. That's the rough version anyhow.

[00:12:23] Someone says any examples of why you think she doesn't like you? OP says I don't think she's ever given me a real smile. It's all dead-eyed fake ones. Body language is usually defensive around me. A lot of crossed arms, hunched shoulders. She makes a lot of subtle

[00:12:39] snide remarks. I.e. I got him a $100 bottle of Japanese whiskey a few years ago. She mentioned how it looked great on the bottom shelf. Someone says why you weren't best man in the first place?

[00:12:51] OP says Alex treated me like the best man in the first place. His OCD kept him from making it official because he couldn't find the right time according to him. So now OP's update which came 8 months later says well it's been a while sorry all for taking so

[00:13:06] long to get this update out. Been absolutely swamped at work putting out fires with my hair on fire for the last 6ish months. So here's the cliffnotes version of the wedding and some post

[00:13:17] wedding shit. Lead up was boring. Shit ton of emailing back and forth between me, Stella, other wedding people, venues, vendors etc. Me and Alex had some pretty deep conversations over the week and reaffirmed the importance of our continued friendship. Shit was really

[00:13:34] fucking awkward the first night we were there for dinner. Especially considering both Alex's stepsister Sam 32f and Stella's younger sister and maid of honor Diana 29f were already staying there. We stayed at an airbnb within walking distance of Alex's house. I went into event

[00:13:52] work mode pretty quick and that smoothed things out right quick and put Stella at ease. I spent most of the lead up to the wedding either at the ceremony slash reception site doing liaison or set

[00:14:02] up, gaffing, running cables, setting up monitors, hanging and focusing, building shit etc. Or running around picking shit slash people slash shitty people up with Sam. My girlfriend Alice 29f was kinda miffed about the whole thing. She's never worked a wedding before just attended so

[00:14:20] she expected it to be like 50% working 50% vacation when it ended up being more likely 90% me working and 10% vacation. She spent most of her time helping Alex out with wedding support related shit or gaming on my laptop when she gassed out or got too overwhelmed. Wedding was

[00:14:38] a fun mess, tons of unrelated drama. Stella sure knows how to design a beautiful ceremony and plan a fucking party. I'll give her credit for that. Didn't get to enjoy much of it since I was working

[00:14:50] the wedding with a few other people in the wedding party more than attending but c'est la vie. Ceremony took fucking forever though, felt terrible for all the bridesmaids who had to wear heels through that shit. Unfortunately there was no gotcha moment or come to Jesus moment where I

[00:15:06] got the full story as to why shtmff? Google says shit hit the motherfucking fan. I've never heard that acronym before but based on what I observed while working the wedding I think I've been able

[00:15:20] to piece together roughly what went down. Why wasn't I the best man? I think this had more to do with Stella's parents, Ken and Karen 60s than her although she still doesn't like me. My main

[00:15:32] reasoning, Ken and Karen were paying for the majority of the wedding, more than Stella, Alex and Alex's parents combined. Alex and Stella sketched out pretty early what they wanted the wedding to look like. Throughout the process Stella made several significant changes out of the

[00:15:47] proverbial blue. For example, they originally agreed on a smaller wedding, something like 50-60 people. Then one day Stella wanted a big ass wedding. Alex didn't really care all that much and just figured she'd changed her mind. He just somehow missed that most of these changes occurred

[00:16:03] after Stella either had a phone call or in person meeting with her parents, which is on brand for him. Her parents were very standoffish towards me, to be expected, feelings mutual, and made a lot of frankly weird comments about Stella's younger, totally not a cokehead brother, Chase 23 male.

[00:16:22] Often times in comparisons between us that flattered him and kept insisting he was the perfect best man material. Alex has barely met Stella's parents, maybe a dozen times over the last 5 years. Every time they visit for the holidays Stella has them leave early for whatever

[00:16:39] reason and Stella rarely initiates calls with them. Stella acts really fucking weird around her parents. Around everyone else she's a badass modern woman but around her parents she gets super meek. For example, her mum asked her to go drive to some specific store over an

[00:16:56] hour away to get her a specific food item in the middle of wedding planning shit and she just did it without any protest and left the rest of the wedding party in a lurch. When she got back 3

[00:17:06] hours later, her mum took like 2 bites then threw it away. If I hadn't seen the shit with my own eyes I wouldn't have believed it. It was that bizarre. Lots of other innocuous shit that individually means nothing but when combined together provide a decent amount of circumstantial evidence.

[00:17:24] So here's what I think happened, roughly. Ken and Karen wanted Chase to be the best man in the wedding. Alex really wanted me to be the best man. Rather than make a choice, Stella appeased both parties telling them what they wanted to hear while making no actual decision.

[00:17:39] The longer it went on the more complex the lying got. When Alex had his breakdown, Stella saw a way to get out from under her body and not of lies by taking advantage of this crisis.

[00:17:48] Unfortunately for her, Alex came to his senses before the wedding, started asking questions and when push finally came to shove she chose her relationship over whatever the fuck is going on with the family, much to their apparent chagrin. Why does Stella not like me?

[00:18:03] I have two main guesses here. One, I swear a lot. I tend to forget most people don't use the word fuck as a noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, preposition, conjunction, interjection,

[00:18:16] numeral article and determiner since I was working the wedding. And in I was on my best behavior and cut down on my swearing by a good 90%. Which led me to noticing that anytime swear or anyone for

[00:18:28] that matter curses, Stella has a little grimace slash cringe reaction. Stella herself also rarely curses and if she does it's something pretty small like hell or damn it followed by a quick apology. I was probably exasperated by the fact that in spite of my generally unprofessional behavior,

[00:18:46] I hold a fairly professional job. Dissonance can bother folks. Two, politics and before people freak out I'm somewhere between a democratic socialist and socialist on the political spectrum. I'm a far cry from conservative but for Stella that's not

[00:19:02] far enough left. As from what I can tell she's either a tankie or tankie adjacent. This has been more or less confirmed to me based on her social media engagement relating to the major

[00:19:12] geopolitical events of the last six months or so. I was probably exasperated by the fact that my job involves working in geopolitics so I'm a part of the repressive imperialist western system.

[00:19:23] And as it turns out I'm not the only person in the wedding who isn't super fond of Stella. Found my flock so to speak. So post wedding shit. Alex and Stella had a healthy baby girl named Iris. Me and Sam are the godparents. Me and Alex

[00:19:39] have been talking a lot more. For whatever reason he asked me for child care tips. Like bruh I'm just as lost as you here. And I've set up a weekly gaming sesh where we slowly slog through Baldur's Gate 3

[00:19:51] with Sam and Matthew. As far as I know Alex and Stella are in couples counseling which seems to be helping from my vantage point. Stella was weirdly against it but Alex pushed for it so he

[00:20:02] could be a better husband to her and she relented. As far as I know Stella's already back at work and on most of her pre-baby schedule. Alex's stepsister Sam has been checking in on them periodically and according to her there's no major red flags at the moment.

[00:20:18] Stella actually texts and emails me stuff now. It's mostly baby pictures but it's a step in the right direction and I appreciate it. I send cat pictures in response. Hopefully this is the last

[00:20:30] update. My life got far too interesting for that month and with my current workload I doubt I could mentally handle more drama. So I was looking in the comments after this one because I sort of felt

[00:20:41] after this that the parents got a big big part to play in this behavior that we've seen within this story. The control that they're showing like the example that OP gave when the mother just said

[00:20:52] oh you need to go get something for me a food item and she just immediately went and got it in the middle of wedding planning. Other people are suspecting that this still isn't going to end

[00:21:02] well but now I'm going to turn this one to you guys. What do you guys make of this situation? What do you think is going to happen the future of these relationships, the friendship and the

[00:21:13] husband wife relationship at the same time? Let us know your thoughts down in the comments below. And just a huge thank you from the bottom of my heart for getting involved in today's stories.

[00:21:22] Your love, your support, your time always means the absolute world to me so thank you so so much and hopefully I'll see you in the next one. Take care and much love.