Need advice on a sticky situation...(long post)

[dockman3]

So here''s the story:

One of my best friends and I had been roommates for about 5 years, three in undergrad and two in grad school when he got engaged and his fiancee moved in with us. A year later, they got married and then my gf moved in with us when a different roommate moved out, so there were now 4 of us living in the house, my friend and his wife and me and my gf. Before my gf moved in with me, we had been doing extreme long distance (Seattle to Chicago) and I didn''t see her more than once every other month, so I spent a lot of time with my roommate and his fiancee while we were apart. Once my gf was there and they were married, everything was fine for a while, but then my gf and my friend''s wife started to not get along as well. My roommates were feeling abandoned because I was spending all of my time with my gf and had cut back significantly on the time I spent with them. Long story short, when they finally moved out of the house, his wife and my gf were not speaking and have not spoken to this day, over a year later. I was best man at their wedding and he will at least be a groomsman at mine.

So here''s my problem:

My gf will only let my good friend come to our wedding if he leaves his wife at home. She doesn''t want somebody at her wedding who has called her all sorts of bad names. While I can understand that, I''m still good friends with my roommate, but in all honesty, I haven''t spoken to his wife since they left either. I want him there and his wife was always nice to me and we never had any problems. The problem is between the girls and I don''t see a way out of this situation. My gf won''t give in and I don''t want to tell one of my groomsmen that he can come only if he leaves his wife at home. Does anybody see a solution to this?? Thanks in advance.

 

[nclrgirl]

A lot of people won''t like my post, but here it is. First of all, if there is ONE person who has offended your gf so much that she is uncomfortable having them at the wedding, if she is going to be your wife, her feelings should come before any friends'' feelings.

That being said, I do not think that you can invite a married man and not his wife. Looks like you have to choose.

Why do the girls not get along? What has happened between them?

 

[aprilcait]

That IS a sticky situation. Not to rub it in or anything, but I am quite happy not to be in your shoes right now.

If I can be completely blunt here: you do risk your friendship if you end up only inviting your buddy (ex-roommate) and not his wife. IMHO, I believe your FI needs to stop with the grudge and be the bigger person here (no offense intended). I mean, I get where your FI is coming from but she''s putting your friendship with your ex-roommate at risk because she has a problem with the guy''s wife. To me, that seems a bit unfair. If she doesn''t like the wife, there will be plenty of other people at the wedding with whom she can make chit-chat. Heck, there were people at my wedding whom I would have much preferred to not have had in attendance, but I danced, I ate, I chatted (with people other than the ones I was not o'' so fond of), and didn''t focus on the guest list. It''s your wedding... you have a ton of distractions. But that''s just my view. I''m sure others here will see it differently.

If your FI continues to be completely immoveable on the topic, I would suggest talking to your buddy about it to see if he has any input. I would assume he is well aware of the feud and might even be wondering how you''re planning on handling it. Maybe his wife wouldn''t want to attend anyway???

 

[dockman3]

NCL - I agree with you. She is going to be my wife and her feelings do some first, but should they come over mine? I was my friend''s best man and I want him there. As for why they don''t get along, my roommates were kind of lazy and sloppy and my gf was getting sick of the mess in all of the common areas. Well I asked them to keep the place a little bit neater and they went crazy and cleaned out everything they had in common areas and that''s what started it. From there, they would over hear each other saying things about the other and it just got out of hand.

Aprilcait - I''m trying to get my gf to be the bigger person, but that''s not going over so well. I''ve tried to tell her that she won''t have to speak to her, but she still thinks that since the wife will be there, she''ll just focus on it and won''t be able to let it go. And yes, I''m going to talk to my friend, I guess I''m just nervous about broaching the whole subject since things have been calm for so long now. But that would be a good place to start.

 

[galeteia]

If his wife has gone so far as to call your girlfriend 'all sorts of bad names', she does not belong in your wedding and your girlfriend should not have to endure her presence on what is supposed to be a happy day.

I'd advise you to tell your friend that his wife has made herself unwelcome at your wedding due to her inexcusable rudeness towards your future wife.

You can express your regrets that the situation between them makes it inappropriate for her to be invited to your wedding, but that you value his friendship and hope he will reciprocate you being his best man by being your groomsman.

 

[kcoursolle]

Personally, I just probably wouldn''t invite either of them and tell them you are having a small intimate wedding if he asks. I understand that you are good friends with him, but personally I think it is rude to ask him to keep his wife at home. I think it''s really an all or nothing deal and you are going to upset your wife if they both come.

 

[dockman3]

Date: 6/12/2008 4:23:50 PM
Author: kcoursolle
Personally, I just probably wouldn''t invite either of them and tell them you are having a small intimate wedding if he asks. I understand that you are good friends with him, but personally I think it is rude to ask him to keep his wife at home. I think it''s really an all or nothing deal and you are going to upset your wife if they both come.

I was afraid somebody would say that, but that does make sense.

 

[dockman3]

Date: 6/12/2008 4:17:55 PM
Author: Galateia
If his wife has gone so far as to call your girlfriend ''all sorts of bad names'', she does not belong in your wedding and your girlfriend should not have to endure her presence on what is supposed to be a happy day.


I''d advise you to tell your friend that his wife has made herself unwelcome at your wedding due to her inexcusable rudeness towards your future wife.


You can express your regrets that the situation between them makes it inappropriate for her to be invited to your wedding, but that you value his friendship and hope he will reciprocate you being his best man by being your groomsman.

This could work too. The only problem is that I don''t think he''d come without his wife. But the way I see it, I''m going to be with my wife for the rest of my life and see her everyday. She is my best friend now and always will be, so if I absolutely have to pick, I''d pick her and hope that I can patch things up with him later.

 

[cara]

This is a situation where you really do have to judge what happened between your wife and this woman and who was at fault then and who may be being childish now.

"Calling your wife all sorts of names" is a problem. Not apologizing after calling your wife all sorts of names and not speaking to her for a year (even just for the purpose of making it easier for her husband to maintain a close friendship with you) is a problem. You are in a position to know what your FI might have done to provoke this attack (and if asking roommates to clean up after themselves is all it was, well, I hope you don''t need us to tell you what to do here) and what, if any, attempts either party made to mend fences once the war began.

See, if you want to remain good, close friends with this guy, then at some level your SOs have to get along enough to be civil to one another. If either of you has chosen a woman who, for whatever persons reasons such as childishness or grudgeholding, makes that quite difficult, well then the nature of your friendship is going to be limited by the fact that your wives don''t get along and you will only be able to see each other when the women are excluded.

While generally married couples must be invited together to social events, there are exceptions for extreme behavior and a certain level of name-calling without apology might qualify. However, your friend might well choose not to attend without his wife, and that will simply be a sad situation you will have to accept.

Unless you can convince your wife to invite this woman for your sake. Do not bring up that the woman has done nothing wrong to you personally - if she has unjustly insulted your future wife, then that is a problem for you. If you feel your wife may have played a substantial contributory role in the devolution of things, obviously you can discuss your feelings with her and ask her to now be the bigger person for your sake. But I would tread carefully.

 

[dockman3]

Cara,

Sadly, I know that my future wife didn''t do a whole lot to fix the situation. She can be pretty stubborn and mean at times if she wants to. Neither one of them has ever apologized for anything they said, as far as I know, so that doesn''t help. Right now, I don''t think either one of our SO''s would be civil to the other. It would probably explode pretty quickly, but I think they are both at fault here, I just can''t get mine to admit it and I doubt my friend''s wife will admit it either. If I could just get them to speak to each other, I bet they could work it out, seeing as it has been over a year, but I don''t know how to arrange that?

 

[Munchkin]

Do you think your friend's wife would actually show up? If they dislike each other so much, I am inclined to this that his wife will dig in her heels and refuse to go in an "I'll show her" move.

I had a similar issue. My husband had a friend that I was once friends with. (call him S for scumbag

) S began dating a toxic woman. She changed him for the worse and she said some horrible things about me. S then jumped on the hurtful bandwagon. In the process, he alienated a bunch of other friends and their significant others in a similar manner. They are married and my husband was in his wedding.

When our wedding was happening (a few years after theirs') I debated long and hard about including them. I invited them out of respect for my husband as he felt it was the right thing to do. I was convinced that I wouldn't be able to focus on anything but her. They RSVP-ed yes. I assured myself that I could handle it. I would be civil to her and revel in being surrounded by lots of others who truly care about me.

They backed out at the last minute. By that time, I was actually a shade disappointed! I had worked myself into being excited to show that I could be a such a strong person!

In retrospect, I would have interacted with them for MAYBE 3 minutes on the wedding day. The whole thing was a crazy whirl, and their presence definitely would not have ruined it. I probably would have been too busy and blissfully happy to even remember that I dislike them. (Seriously!)

 

[brazen_irish_hussy]

You should talk to your friend. He may be willing to go without his wife or when faced with reality of the situation, her or your FI might grow up a little. I don''t think you should invite her if it truely bothers your FI that much, but I also think if she really loved you she would see how hurtful this ridiculous behavior is to both of you. Is there anyway you could make her see how much this upsets you?

I am glad you will choose her over your friend, but I also think you should push harder since this is your wedding too.

 

[movie zombie]

well, i can''t believe i''m about to write this but here it is: the wedding day has in recent times been marketed as being the bride''s day. its supposed to be the most important day of her life. if this is the case, asking her to accept your friend''s other half is unreasonable given the two don''t get along. you can be friends with him w/o having the women be friends. you just have to do things together without your other halves. but on your wedding day which is really her day, she shouldn''t have to put up with this woman. your description of what happened sounds like both he and she over reacted; however, is it possible he could just have been going along with the reaction of his now wife to your discussion with him when they cleared out the common areas? learning lesson: two women in the same household is never a good idea....... marriage is hard enough without one of the partners festering a wound or perceived wound and if this woman shows up at your wedding, your wife i think will never ever forget it. talk to your friend, do the guy thing and lay it out. guys get over this kind of thing much more easily than we women.

movie zombie

 

[LostSapphire]

Would it be possible to use the upcoming wedding as an opportunity for the 2 of them to make peace?

Just a thought.....

 

[dockman3]

Thanks for all of the advice everyone! I think I''ve got a better handle on the situation now. All of my friends that I''ve talked to about this I think are too close to the situation to be of any help. They have all already chosen sides. So thank you for the fresh perspective. I''ve only been a PSer for about two weeks now, but I have to say that this place is awesome! Thanks again!

 

[gailrmv]

Your FI would make things easier on you if she would let you invite your friend and his wife.... I hope she will reconsider.

I really don''t think your friend will come w/o his wife - if the wife is like most people she will not like that a bit, and he will probably put his wife over his friend (you). So I don''t think you will win with that situation either.

I really hope the two girls can patch things up at least to the point of being civil. I totally understand why you want your good friend to be there - I would too. I really hope it all works out.