'AITA for defending a bride who left her husband at the altar?' UPDATED 3X

"AITA for defending a bride who left her husband at the altar?"

Okay so boom me and my husband attended a wedding. It was his kinda cousin/ niece’s wedding I’m not sure how to describe the relationship but they were close growing up. The wedding was a bit unique.

There was a brunch before the actually ceremony with bride and groom. Then for an hour the wedding party left to get ready while all the guests were still at brunch, then the actually ceremony and the real reception was supposed to happen after.

I thought everything was normal. At the brunch the couple looked happy and excited and a little nervous maybe. My husband had told me there had been a little drama leading up to wedding because the grooms family insisted that the groom's ex should attend wedding because they have a good relationship.

The ex is an EMT and she apparently saved mother in laws life once. The bride didn’t want the ex to attend but she caved in. At the actual ceremony as you might’ve guessed from the title the bride never showed.

After a few minutes of awkward silence with the music playing as we waited for the bride, the bride's father came told everyone she left. Groom was crying, mother-in-law was screaming it was such a huge mess. At the reception they basically just told people to take To go boxes of food so it didn’t go to waste.

Since a lot of family was in town for the wedding, bride's side of the family was hosting a reunion. At the reunion the bride said the reason she left groom at the alter was because at the brunch the ex told her that she slept with the groom and apparently showed the bride an adult tape she made with the groom. Bride was distraught and left because she didn’t wanna marry a cheater.

Groom's side of the family were slandering the bride on every social media platform possible. So the bride's side decided to fire back and they were publicly accusing the groom of cheating on her and it was just a big sh%t storm. Groom comes to brides house to try and clear things up.

So the groom didn’t actually cheat on the bride. The tape was from years and years ago, the groom's appearance just hadn’t changed that much so bride believed the ex when she said it was recent. The ex was just trying to break them up. The ex confessed to it too.

To my surprise instead of everyone being angry at the ex, everyone turned on the bride. Her family was pissed at her for wasting money, being gullible, not letting the groom defend himself first. Everyone was yelling at her, I thought it was crazy so I spoke up in her defense.

I would’ve believed it too if there was video evidence + the fact that she was practically forced into the ex attending their wedding. Now the whole family is against me and the bride and it’s so awkward and everyone acting cold.

My husband is upset because she now feels like if someone accused him of cheating on me I’d just take their word for it but I feel that’s completely unfair.

Here's what top commenters had to say about this one:

Gh0stp3pp3r said:

Sounds like the Groom's family still likes his Ex more and wanted her at the wedding for that purpose. Otherwise they wouldn't be acting so stupid and putting the blame all on the bride-to-be.

LibraryMouse4321 said:

The fault lies with the MIL for insisting on the ex coming, and the ex for lying to break them up. MIL was probably behind the lie as well, and got what she wanted, which was for them to split.

Anyone defending the MIL or ex should be ashamed. Ex is an EMT? Bride should go to get job and report her behavior. What she did has nothing to do with the job, but it shows bad character. Bride should also sue the ex for the cost of the wedding. She intentionally caused the problem that ended the wedding, so she should pay for it.

ashleymiaba said:

Criticizing the bride for reacting to what she believed was evidence of infidelity overlooks the fact that she was misled. Her family and the groom's family should focus on the ex's deceit rather than blaming the bride for the fallout.

OutragedPineapple said:

NTA. I don't understand at ALL how she's getting blamed when the ex orchestrated this whole thing, admitted to it, and shouldn't have been there at all. The bride asked for her not to be there, but they steamrollered her (which would've been enough for me to cancel the whole thing) and decided that she needed to be there anyway.

Then when the ex lies and causes all this chaos, they're blaming the bride, not her? And not the MIL for demanding that ex be there? They're trying to redirect their own guilt and it's pathetic. I hope she doesn't take fiance back and cuts ties with all of these idiots blaming her, because she deserves better, and I hope the ex and MIL rot.

Status-Pattern7539 said:

NTA. Just start re-directing the blame any time someone mentions it- “If anyone is to blame it’s The MIL, she is the one who forced the bride to let the ex come. None of this would have happened if MIL wasn’t obsessed with the ex and trying to force ex’s presence in the life of bride/groom."

stroppo said:

NTA. As you say, sounds logical that the bride could be fooled. And it's bizarre no one's mad at the ex. I guess they would rather the groom have married her? Let this be a warning to you. Sounds like to your husband's family, you will never be "family" to them. At the first side of trouble, they'll toss you under the bus with glee.

UPDATE:

Okay so my hubby came back to hotel room and I showed him the post. I mentioned I specific comment to him where one person asked me how are we sure the tape was old and that the groom and ex aren’t just covering their affair up by lying and saying it’s old.

I told my husband and at first he laughed but he started to think about the whole situation I guess. While hubby was still at the brides house trying to help with situation after I left (the environment was getting too much for me so I went back to hotel).

The groom had been groveling to the bride. Even tho he was exonerated by ex admitting it was fake he was still being very apologetic which threw my husband off a bit. Like even tho he maintained he didn’t cheat. Instead of husband being angry about being left at the altar and publicly humiliated he seemed to just want wife to forgive him.

I thought this would be normal because groom probably feels horrible about allowing the ex to ruin the day and hurt the wife like that but my husband said it was unusual behavior for the groom.

Apparently the groom is the high horse type and he would “never apologize for a mistake that wasn’t his." Husband knows the groom better than me so my husband thinks it’s plausible that the groom did cheat by the way he’s acting but he’s not gonna bring it up because of how high tensions are and it might just make things worse.

I also explained how and why I felt like my husband was being unfair to me by saying he thinks I’d believe anyone who accused him of cheating on me. He apologized and told me he was just stressed out earlier and he feels like we wasted money in this trip and went seen our kid for days over this wedding that got blown up over a lie.

Bride texted me thanking me for defending her. Most of the slandering social media posts were taken down. The ex posted on social media playing victim. Well not really but she’s posting like heartbreak stuff and those fucking depressed Bart simpson memes, at her big age…

The grooms mother pulled up the brides house after I left and was threatening to “burn the place down” because she was mad the bride humiliated her son over a lie because it was such a huge wedding he had many coworkers and stuff there. I feel like I’m missing something but I’m tired and it’s been a long day.

EDIT:

A few people are saying I should show this post to the bride but I’m a bit scared she won’t react well to me putting her business online because I don’t know her that well, but at the same time I feel like she might appreciate that most people are on her side? But also I don’t really want her to see my “theory” about how the husband actually cheated on her because there’s no actual proof. Should I?

OP came back with a second update later:

Okay so I decided to send this to bride, I also told my mother in law who I’m super close with what was going on. I’ll start with bride first. So as I predicted she was a little mad I put her buisness online.

I called her and we made small talk for a couple on minutes avoiding the elephant but then I told her I posted about this online. I sent her the link while we were in call. She didn’t yell or anything but she told me I shouldn’t have done that. I assured her I didn’t use any names or defining descriptions and she hung up the phone.

A few minutes later she called me back and told me she scrolled through the comments and stuff and it made her feel a bit better. Then she apologized for “snapping” at me but I don’t feel like she did. She told me that she felt like a lot of the comments were “blowing things out of proportion” when it comes to how you guys speak of the mother in law and groom.

She said MIL isn’t evil like the post made her out to be, she also said she understands why MIL insisted on ex being bc at wedding and that when MIL threatened to burn down the house she wasn’t being serious and it was taken out of context.

When I asked stuff like are you still gonna get married to groom she just kept saying idk and she sounded sad so I dropped it. She also told me she doesn’t think groom cheated on her and that my husband just has a bad perception of groom because he has a “hard shell to crack.”

After we hung up me and my husband called his mother to update her on what’s happening because she couldn’t make it to the wedding.

My husbands mother told us that the ex never really saved MILs life, basically all she did was inject her with an epi pen for a mild allergy. My Mil feels like saying “she saved her life” was just for dramatics to guilt the bride into letting ex attend wedding.

My MIL also feels like the brides MIL had nothing to do with the ex sabotaging the wedding. She said that the brides mil isn’t an idiot and even if she did love the ex that much she would never purposely ruin her son’s wedding cuz she’s one of those boy moms.

About 2 months later OP came back with a 3rd update:

People wanted to know if they are still together sooo here I am. In the weeks following they made up somewhat and agreed to do couples counseling to rebuild trust.

They decided to remain engaged until they felt they fully trusted each other again which happened way too quick in my opinion cuz like 3 weeks after they started counseling they announced another wedding ceremony. I was not invited to this one! then this new wedding got called off.

Ex moved states away like a month ago. Groom removed the ex on all his social medias as far as I could tell. The bride removed all the pictures she has with the groom off social media after the wedding was called off but the groom still has photos and videos of the bride in his.

My husband said the bride wanted to break up but the groom is holding on TIGHT and completely lovebombing her like handwritten letters in the mail, roses at her work place, (straight out of a movie)

The bride won’t tell anyone why the wedding was called off the 2nd time. She’s kinda distancing herself from everyone which I understand but kinda hurt cuz me and her started texting and being friendly after the first fiasco but she’s having a rough time so I’m not too upset over it.

My mother-in-law told me that she heard the bride is pregnant but honestly I don’t think that’s true because me and the bride were friendly and she told me before she started pulling away that her and the groom were abstaining from sex until their relationship was mended