TELL ME ABOUT IT
Dear Carolyn: My girlfriend and I decided to have a small, intimate wedding in a foreign country and invited guests with one month’s notice. We anticipated most wouldn’t come, so we clarified that there was no pressure at all and that we didn’t want gifts.
My best friend, however, was silent until I followed up. When I did, he launched an avalanche of complaints: that he would have to ask for days off, pay for the plane ticket, buy a suit, and so on. He wrote that he detests me 5% of the time and called me a “wedding terrorist.” He was given the days off, but when he realized travel time would be six hours each way, he canceled.
I told him I don’t mind that he’s not coming, but I was hurt and upset that instead of congratulating me he adopted a victim mind-set and complained for nearly two weeks before ultimately reneging. Am I wrong to be angry?
– The Uncongratulated Fiance
The Uncongratulated Fiance: Adult tantrums never fly, and you’re also hurt by his lashing out, understandably. But you’re reacting to the wrong thing.
It’s clear you took pains to let guests off the hook, which is good and necessary when asking them to take a 12-hour round trip out of the country on very little notice during a yep-still-there pandemic.
But it seems you’ve failed to consider that not everyone sees wedding attendance as a hook they’re grateful to be off.
You “don’t mind that he’s not coming,” but he does. He minds. He wanted in on his best friend’s wedding!
Plus, he could be processing the effective loss of your old relationship as you re-center yourself on your wife-to-be. That can be normal, healthy, and hurt like a kind of death.
Again, he could handle these things better. Much. But so could you.
You took the imposition on your guests into account, yes – on the very surface, regarding money and time. About your loved ones’ attachments and feelings, you’ve been pretty self- and girlfriend-absorbed.
That’s hardly rare and to some extent understandable at a time like this – a multibillion-dollar industry was built on that reflex – but still, when it happens, and when a best friend winds up on the receiving end of the resulting thoughtlessness, then a prompt, thorough and heartfelt apology is due on receipt.