My best is getting married to a girl that all of his friends despise. She’s the most “politically correct” and “polite” person you will meet until she starts talking about how she doesn’t eat Vietnamese food because she doesn’t like Vietnamese people. Or that she supports Meg Whitman because she agrees that all Mexicans should go back to their own country. Should I also tell you that my friend wasn’t allowed to watch Glee in concert because his fiancée felt he liked Lea Michelle too much? Basically whatever she says goes, and my best friend sits there in silent obedience.
When I asked him why he is marrying her, his first response was “because he owed it to her.” They have been together for five years and are tying the knot next May. I’m the best man at his wedding. But the question is, does my opinion matter? I want him to be happy, but I can’t tell you if he is because she won’t shut her mouth long enough for him to let me know. Should I keep my mouth shut or should I just keep working on my dinner speech?
Thanks for the help Dan, and my boyfriend and I both commend you on the new YouTube channel.
My Best Friend’s Wedding
My response after the jump…
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Stop working on that speech, MBFW.
Get your friend alone—show up at his place of employment if he isn’t allowed to leave the house without an escort—and tell him that he’s making a huge mistake and that you do not approve of his rude, racist, and controlling fiance, and that you will not be the best man at his wedding. It’ll be difficult to say, and it may be hard for him to hear, but telling someone a difficult truth is one of the primary responsibilities of friendship.
Also, MBFW, I suspect that you haven’t gotten around to calling this woman on her shit when she starts in on the Vietnamese, Mexicans, and whoever else she’s hating on at any given moment. She doesn’t sound like the kind of person who would hang out with someone—or allow her whipped boyfriend to hang out with someone—who confronted her for being the racist POS that she is.
You need to speak the fuck up—you and the rest of the Hee-Haw gang. You say that all of his friends despise her. Great, then you can all swear a blood oath to confront her, in real time, and aggressively, when she says something stupid and hateful. The worst that could happen is that this woman—a woman you despise, remember?—would refuse to hang out with any of you anymore.
Not only would that be a relief to you all, MBFW, it might also help to bring your friend to his senses.
I’ve been in this situation three distinct times, and I’ve told my “friends” that they absolutely shouldn’t marry this person, and I was of course ignored. Example: In one of the situations the groom 3 months before the wedding “fake” karate chopped his fiancee in the neck (to the point of obvious pain for her) during a birthday party with about 15 of his friends present. He thought it was funny, the rest of us looked on in horror. We’d had our doubts before, that pretty much sealed the deal that the guy had major issues.
So now I simply refuse to bother interfering with other people’s relationships, or even really give advice, because frankly they aren’t going to listen anyway, they are looking for validation, not advice or knocking them off their pedestal.
seriously…? A fake karate chop? He should have been thrown into jail… WTF?
@ first commenter: don’t let the three times with no results stop you. I think it is important for friends to say these things to other friends, like Dan has suggested. Dan didn’t say that saying something would -do- anything… and usually it doesn’t (immediately). I think however it does help for over time. These types of people do usually still get married, but if given a heads up by friends they can feel less guilty about wanting to end the marriage when it comes to that.
Speaking as someone who was in the relationship where friends and family were telling me to get out, I’d like to chime in with another “please continue to tell your friends to get out.” People telling me that made me go through phases starting with “no one understands our love” to “all relationships are like this and all people have friends that don’t like their s.o. and feel the need to tell them” and then to “okay, you’re right but this is too difficult to get out of” and finally on to “what the fuck am I doing here and how quickly can I pack?”