Man makes brother's school bully his Best Man, brother says 'I'm skipping the wedding.'

People carry memories of childhood bullying well into adulthood.

Sadly, these formative memories can majorly influence how people view themselves long-term, their self-esteem, and how they believe they fit into the world at large. At the same time, bullies are also just kids, with the capacity to grow and change. And many bullies are lashing out in response to the ways they've been mistreated at home.

Still, even adults who move on and forgive their bullies are unlikely to be excited about the idea of running into them.

In a popular post on the AITA subreddit, a man asked if he's wrong for putting his brother's bully into his wedding.

He wrote:

AITA for choosing my brother's school bully over him for my wedding?

My brother in middle school had a bully Max. School kinda sucked and didn’t do anything about it. I am 4 years older than my brother and Max. I didn’t have the money to go to college so I spent a few years saving up cash. I went to a community college and Max was there with me. We were in the same track, so we worked together before.

I don’t get close to him until my grandfather died and my family didn’t tell me until the day of the funeral. It was rough and he really helped me out. I brought up his bullying and he told me he will send a letter to apologize. My brother got it and basically said I don’t forgive him which is his right. I am 34 now and I am still close with him. He is being my best man.

I told my family this and most were happy since they know how much he has helped me out before. My brother on the other hand hates it. He told me he won’t come to my wedding if he is invited.

We got in an argument with me just saying you can’t be in the same building and not talk to someone. He claims it’s is the principal of it and won’t go to the wedding unless I uninvited him. That I am picking a bully over him, but it’s been almost 15 years and he has helped me so much.

People weighed in with all of the thoughts.

Wintery1 wrote:

To me YTA, you don't get to decide when someone gets over being bullied. Some people never do, it scars them for life. If your brother still feels this strongly years after the event it was clearly worse for him than you know however much you want to minimise it.

SomeAd8993 wrote:

YTA. I think you are ignoring what actually happened, because you already made up your mind. You said in the comments that 'bullying' consisted of 'name calling' and 'not inviting to a party', which even barely qualifies as such. Did you learn that from Max? Are you sure there isn't much more to the story your brother doesn't even want to tell you?

It would be extremely unusual to not want to be in the same building with someone who didn't invite you to a party 20 years ago...it wouldn't be strange if someone shoved your head into urinal and spit in your face.

New-II-Reddit wrote:

YTA. It's your wedding sure enough and you do what you want. Unfortunately, you aren't entitled to your brother's presence, nor is this other person entitled to forgiveness. Bullying can have deep and long-lasting impacts on people. Your brother doesn't have to go anywhere he doesn't want to be.

When he said he wasn't going, instead of respecting him as an autonomous individual you started a fight about it.

My_friends_are_toys wrote:

You can pick whoever you want to be in your wedding, but those choices have consequences. There is no time limit on being hurt. There is no law or rule or anything that says your brother has to get over his being bullied by a certain time. You're not the AH for picking whoever you want at your wedding.

You are the AH for picking someone who bullied your brother. Also, that bully didn't even apologize until you said something...doesn't sound to me like they are sorry for anything.

After getting lots of criticism, OP jumped back on with an update:

Edit: Anyways I talked to my brother this doesn't really have anything to do with Max and more with me, he is upset that he isn’t best man. He was upset by that and didn’t want to go at the beginning when he heard it was Max that made it worse and brought up old feelings about middle school. We had a nice conversation and I explained why he wasn’t chosen, we aren't close.

I brought up I wasn’t in his wedding party either. We are all good and he is gonna go. Also showed him this thread and we had a good laugh about it. I find it really weird that people don’t believe people change especially, since this happened in middle school.

Luckily, despite all the AH votes, it looks like OP was able to smooth it out with his brother.