Bride 'fires' bridesmaid for discussing her diagnosis at bachelorette party. UPDATED
Bachelorette party turns major bummer.
One bride-to-be was excited to celebrate her bachelorette party with her closest friends. What was suppose to be a night of light-hearted silly fun turned into a depressing evening when her friend decided to disclose her medical diagnosis in the midst of the festivities.
'AITA for firing my bridesmaid for disclosing her diagnosis at my bachelorette?'
I’m getting married in 3 weeks, and I just had my bachelorette over Easter weekend. During a quiet moment one of my bridesmaids took me aside and told me that about three months ago she was diagnosed with fetal alcohol syndrome.
Obviously I asked her what that meant for her and she started crying because she feels differently about her relationship with her mother. We met in elementary school and she’s always had a learning disability, but she didn’t know that there was a preventable cause. My other bridesmaids noticed her crying, and the evening ended up being about her.
We skipped out on going to a bar in the limo I had hired because she was upset. I thought about it all today and ended up emailing her to tell her that she took away an important moment from my life.
I feel bad about this happening to her, but even though she didn’t always know it’s been going on for her whole life. If this was a recent thing she found out about or it was some kind of deadly disease I would feel differently, but she was sitting on this for months before bringing it up at an event that was supposed to be special to me.
You only get one bachelorette and mine was totally overshadowed. I felt really hurt that she did that, and told her that I didn’t want to have her in my wedding if that’s how she’s going to treat me at a time where the focus was supposed to be something good in my life instead of something sad in hers.
She could have waited a few more weeks until after the wedding if she wanted to have this conversation. She’s still invited to the wedding but I don’t want her to be a bridesmaid after this.
I was just texting my cousin (my maid of honour) and she disagreed with me doing this. She said that it sucked that we didn’t go to the bar, but this other friend has already paid for her dress so I should just let her stay. My fiancé supports my choice, but I wanted another opinion. AITA?
The top comment on this initial post was lengthy but intense:
The entire situation sucks. I'm curious here... was this the first time your friend was going to be around alcohol since finding out her lifelong issues stem from alcohol? Is it possible the idea of taking a limo out for a night of heavy drinking after learning heavy drinking caused her disabilities was overwhelming?
If the answer to either of those questions is yes, then she may have been triggered with a real PTSD episode like she never would have experienced before. If both of those answers are no, then ESH.
Here's the thing - your friend has been living an entire life of trauma and JUST found out the reason for it (3-4 months is nothing compared to 20-30 years). And now, it's possible in her head, going out for a night of drinking meant she was asking herself to pull the trigger on a fully loaded gun pointed at her temple.
I can't even imagine the stress her brain and body were subconsciously going through. SHE probably doesn't even have any kind of idea the stress her brain and body were going through. It might take years of therapy for your friend to unwind her entire existence around alcohol.
Now, if she's been drinkin' it up like her normal self, going out to bars, and partying like she always did since finding out about her FAS, she IS definitely the AH for bringing it up when she did.
But because she pulled you aside to talk to you in private, I'm pretty sure that's not the case. You didn't say how the other bridesmaids noticed, if one person pointed it out, or if they all barged in on a private conversation or what. Those people may very well be the actual AHs. But you?
I'd reflect on the above, and then reflect on HOW you chose to approach this with your friend. Telling someone you're hurt over their behavior is perfectly acceptable. Punishing them, on the other hand, will lose you friends. I guess it depends on whether you value her friendship or just wanted someone looking the part to be in your photos.
Listen, I imagine you're still young. Your bachelorette party didn't go as planned. One night out in a limo didn't happen. Money was wasted. It seems like a BIG deal. A huge wasted memory. But it's not. You still have all the rest of your life ahead of you. Your wedding wasn't ruined.
OP was quick to respond after this:
For those wondering I had actually seen her on two occasions since her diagnosis, including getting coffee one week after it happened where she could have told me. It was the fact that she waited until my event to tell me and then derailed it that had me so upset.
I hadn’t considered the fact that everyone pre drinking might have set her off. After reading a bunch of comments here I called her. I asked why she hadn’t told me before and she said she was still trying to process when I had previously seen her.
She didn’t realize she was going to cry so much and distract everyone and ruin the mood. She said she felt really horrible about doing that and that she hadn’t meant to ruin the evening. I apologized for acting on my own hurt feelings and asked if she’d be willing to consider still being a bridesmaid.
She said she really wanted to still be in the wedding. I don’t have the budget to have another bachelorette party, but I realize that I was only making that loss worse by hurting an old friend in addition to losing out on an event. I was definitely attributing her behaviour to malice when it was actually bad timing.
Here were the top comments after the OP's comment:
ESH - I get it! She found out months ago and waited until that night to say anything, took the attention, and you lost out on the money you paid. It was completely understandable to be hurt and frustrated. BUT you didn't need to cut her from the wedding. That was retaliation, pure and simple.
You could have called her and opened up the door to have an honest conversation about how you felt and allow her to respond, this would've shown compassion and grace. Instead you made a decisive decision because your feelings were hurt.
It is your wedding, but she is also a close enough friend where you asked her to be a bridesmaid and she deserved that conversation before you decided to push her out. I would absolutely apologize to her and realize that in this case you've both been sh*tty to each other.
NTA: She knew for three f*%$ing months. She knew what the hell she was doing.
Big NTA. I don't understand the y.t.a comments. She had 3 months to process her diagnosis and ask for support from friends. The thing that really angers me is that she turn a special moment that was supposed to be about having fun into something sad.
And quite literally ruined your plans by using social pressure, because if you wanted to go to the bar anyway you would have looked like you don't care about her. I honestly wouldn't invite her to the wedding until she apologies, because this seems intentional.
I have been in several situations where someone has had to turn another's happy occasion into all about themselves. NTA. Yes, you deserved to have your own moments. It is too bad that someone couldn't have escorted your friend home and stayed with her a bit to get her off of your case.
INFO: But it's info I think you should get from her. Was this the first time she was going to be around a bunch of alcohol since the diagnosis? If so, is that what triggered the disclosure at that moment? She may not have known how she'd feel about it, and it caught her by surprise. I think you kind of feel like this was intentional, but it might not have been.
OP returned with an update to answer Reddit's questions:
Things are now resolved. With more time to get over it and some perspective I realized I wasn’t proud of this. This friend and I aren’t as close as we used to be (I moved away for college, she stayed in our hometown), but I’m not ready to lose her entirely.
I hope I won’t ever be. She’s done something like this once before, but she was 15 then and I shouldn’t have assumed she was intentionally trying to steal the attention as an adult.
As for your questions she works in a restaurant so she’s been around alcohol since she was diagnosed, but it’s different when you’re serving it and not consuming it. We also saw each other at a mutual friend’s birthday party after her diagnosis where there was wine but I don’t remember if she was drinking.
I think we need to have some more conversations eventually. I’ve gotten the sense that she resents me lately for having a different life than her. I went to college, graduated, and got engaged, and she’s never had a long term relationship and couldn’t finish community college.
My fiancé and I have student debt and don’t make a ton of money, but we have an “adult” life. Now my friend has something to blame for not getting what she’s wanted from life so far, and it ends up being her own mom’s fault. Her mom isn’t perfect, but this is a big loss of trust.
I’ve been focused on my own life problems. Wedding stuff, moving to a new apartment, my grandpa getting sick, etc. I think we both had a lot of big emotions building, and they came out at a super inconvenient time.
After the update, here is what people had to say:
I remember this one. It really did sound like just bad timing of trauma rearing its ugly head, and no one being quite prepared to deal with it. I'm glad OP and her friend communicated.
I get both sides of this argument tbh. It could have been handled better by both sides but I really get OP's upset at having this moment swiped away from her. I strongly remember being at a friend's wedding reception when my sister rang me and told me my mum had died.
I sobbed in a corner with a good friend and my wife blocking everyone's view, and then cleaned myself up and was up giving a speech five minutes later. No way in hell I was going to bring that pity party to their wedding.
But if you can't keep it in, you can't, and it's nobody's fault, and actually repressing my grief pushed it away so far that I acted out for something like six months afterwards without shedding another tear over her, so I feel overall it had a negative effect on me.
An AITA commenter giving actual good advice? And everyone resolves the situation with maturity and communication? What is happening here?!?
You know, I genuinely really get the OP's reaction. If an old not super close friend, about whom one of my main memories was ruining something for me because I was getting attention, came to my event as an adult and made a big hairy deal about something she'd known about for months and never mentioned.
I would probably also immediately think 'Welp, Becky never left high school I guess' and probably make my future plans involve her a lot less. I think the OP is being gracious, and I hope her friend appreciates that.
'I overreacted, and I honestly appreciate the tough love from this sub. It made me reconsider what I was doing and probably just saved a friendship.'
That's probably the best thing she could have concluded from this unfortunate incident. I'm so glad they communicated and did not just leave it to rot and sever their friendship like in so many incidents I've come across.