When two people are about to get married, at least in most cases, not only are they deeply in love, but they typically have very high opinions of one another.
Any threat to breaking that illusion, especially on the wedding day, tends to be avoided, even by going to preposterous, delusional lengths, cringed the members of the “Am I the A**hole?” (AITAH) subReddit.
Redditor InvestigatorOk7152 was excited to be a groomsman in his best friend’s wedding and was taken aback on the bachelor party night when his best friend kissed him while under the influence.
But when the bride found out and felt insecure enough about it that she did not want him to be a groomsman anymore and also didn’t want him to attend the wedding, the Original Poster (OP) was hurt.
He asked the sub:
“AITAH for not telling my best friend the real reason I’m not at his wedding?”
The OP had an awkward experience at his best friend’s bachelor party.
“I (29 Male) was supposed to be a groomsman for my best friend (30 Male) as we’ve been tight since we were kids.”
“This weekend, he’s marrying his fiancée (28 Female), who I’ve known since they were dating long-distance in high school.”
“At his bachelor party last weekend, we started off at my place and transitioned to bar hopping, and by the end, my best friend was drunk and the guys (all our mutual friends and some of his cousins) were egging him on to do a last kiss before marriage dare.”
“For extra info, I’m not a fan of that ‘custom’ at bachelors or bachelorettes because it honestly makes it look like you’re being held hostage to marry the love of your life; plus it’s just disrespectful to your partner (but that’s just an opinion I have, and to each their own, but I knew my best friend shared it, too).”
“Still, I figured if he had not been drunk, my best friend wouldn’t do it, because I know he loves his fiancée very much.”
“To my literal shock and horror, he turned around, grabbed me, and kissed me.”
“It was not even a dumb peck, either. He actually dipped me and held it for a few seconds until everyone was laughing obnoxiously.”
“I didn’t kiss back, I just froze and laughed it off when it finished. Later, I realized I wasn’t having much fun anymore and bailed early, taking some of our drunker friends home with me.”
The OP was mortified when the bride found out about the kiss.
“The next day, his fiancée first texted me on Instagram and then on WhatsApp, asking to talk, and then called me.”
“She wasn’t yelling or anything, but was just kind of awkward. She said she knew about the kiss, and that while she didn’t love it, she was glad it was me and not some random girl.”
“She said if he’d kissed another woman, she’d have taken it as cheating and dealt with it worse.”
“I agreed and backed her point, saying I wouldn’t have encouraged or allowed that, and was still caught off-guard by what happened.”
But he was even more mortified by what the bride did next.
“Then she admitted she didn’t feel comfortable with me being at the wedding now, either, because it would just be in the back of her head the whole time.”
“I was admittedly stunned at first, and then mad, and then upset, but came to the conclusion that it was her wedding at the end of the day, and told her I got it and wouldn’t go.”
“She thanked me for understanding, but also asked me not to tell my best friend that she was the one who asked me not to go.”
“I have already sent the text backing out, giving reasons regarding work, and my best friend was very upset and asked me if I could back out in any way.”
“I freelance, by the way, and he knows this, so my lie wasn’t a good one, and he went from upset to straight up mad at me for bailing out on his wedding day for work.”
The OP struggled with not telling his best friend the truth.
“All our mutuals have texted me in our shared wedding group chat and have asked me to reconsider and told me there’s no way I’m skipping his wedding for work I myself manage, some being harsher and some passive aggressive, all very valid.”
“Now I’m stuck looking like the a**hole when I was literally asked not to go, and also asked not to say that I was asked not to go.”
“Everyone around me thinks I’m this a**hole for prioritizing work over my best friend’s wedding, and I honestly don’t know how to navigate this without losing people.”
“AITAH?”
Fellow Redditors weighed in:
- NTA: Not the A**hole
- YTA: You’re the A**hole
- ESH: Everybody Sucks Here
- NAH: No A**holes Here
Some pointed out that the bride should own her decisions, not just with the OP.
“NTA, but bro, don’t do this to yourself and come off as the bad guy.”
“He shouldn’t have kissed you, that was disrespectful to his fiancée, but his fiancée shouldn’t be asking you not to tell people either. She needs to own her decisions.”
“You are literally shooting yourself in the foot. Just come clean.” – Bubblegumpsplant
“If she had the balls to ask him not to go, she should have the balls to tell her fiancé. It is ridiculous that the OP is being made out to be the bad guy in this when he had nothing to do with anything. It all happened to him; he didn’t want any of it.” – erabera
“The kiss was just as disrespectful to OP. If a man grabs a woman at a bar, dips her, and tries to open-mouth kiss her against her will, that would be assault.”
“Regardless, I would’ve told her that I won’t come if that’s what she wants, but I am DEFINITELY going to tell him why I’m backing out BEFORE the wedding. She can deal with the consequences. I did nothing wrong, and I will not take the blame for her insecurities.” – imnickelhead
“We need to remember it’s assault even if it happened to a man. This was completely messed up, especially with the OP taking the fall for it, and the OP is NTA.” – katied1183
“This whole thing is crazy, because the groom probably kissed OP because that was the safest option in a pressured situation. No big deal.”
“Of course, he should’ve asked first (it’s actually more disrespectful to OP than to his fiancée), but in the crazy ‘one last kiss before marriage’ thing that they’re apparently doing, kissing his best friend is probably how to get out of cheating.” – Bananabreadtyrant
“Personally, I think the bride and groom are as bad as each other. The groom assaulted OP. Simple as that.”
“The bride, on the other hand, is victim-blaming the OP and has insisted on a course of action that will make OP a pariah amongst his whole friend group. She’s ruining his life! And all because she doesn’t want to get any flak for this.”
“She doesn’t give a s**t that OP is actually the wronged party in the kiss scenario, or the effect this is having, so long as she gets to have her special day and come out of it all smelling of roses.”
“I personally feel OP needs to ensure the story is told to both of them, and then drop both of these horrible people as soon as possible.” – Maria_Dragons
Others pointed out that there were ways for the OP to tell the truth without telling the groom himself.
“Tell another groomsman why you’re not coming. It will get back to the groom without you breaking your promise to the bride, who should not have asked you to keep that secret when you’re taking the brunt of it. That’s s**tty of her.”
“I also hate that peer pressure ‘just one last time’ thing, for the record. Ugh.” – SueShe19
“Pick the most gossipy groomsman in the group. The groom will know in no time flat. Make sure to emphasise how badly this unreasonable request is affecting you, and that you’re the only one suffering consequences when it wasn’t even your actions that caused the situation.”
“Use emotive language. People will flock to your side, and the bride will be getting some serious side eye.” – PepperPhoenix
“I suggest telling all the other groomsmen why OP is not going. All of them. It’ll definitely get back to the groom without the OP breaking his promise, problem solved.” – Araxanna
“You need to tell her to tell him, or she can at least delegate the responsibility to someone else in the wedding party if she doesn’t feel up to having this conversation yet, but it NEEDS to be had before they exchange their vows.”
“Her lying and uninviting his friends behind his back is wrong. Building a relationship like this is wrong.”
“Plus, she screwed you over. You lost money with all the things you did as a groomsman, and your friendship WILL be fractured no matter how much you and he try to pretend it isn’t. Not only that, but your mutual friends who may have wanted you as a groomsman/godfather/etc now see that you will bail.” – AliveAbbreviations67
“I have no idea why OP would feel obligated to keep that ‘promise’. She is letting OP take all the blame for not being at the wedding. The groom deserves to know what kind of person he is marrying.” – Mpegirl2006
“I would have told the fiancée NO when she told OP not to tell his friend that she told him to back out. I would tell her that I will back out if that makes you feel better, but I am not going to lie to him about why. OP did nothing wrong. He did not instigate the kiss.”
“It was probably meant to be funny to shut the ‘one last time’ people up without him having to say, ‘no, I don’t want to do that,’ and hear the, ‘aww come on, everyone does it’ (not true) crowd.”
“So, drunk as he was, the groom probably thought, ‘okay, I’ll kiss my best bro for laughs, and that will shut them up.’ It worked. And telling his fiancée, he probably didn’t think she would act like she did.”
“NTA, but you should not have promised her you wouldn’t tell. You did nothing wrong. I would call her and say, ‘Sorry, but I am coming to the wedding, or I’m telling him why I am not; I cannot continue to take the blame for something I didn’t even do.'” – Frequent_Couple5498
After receiving feedback, the OP shared an update in a second post.
“Hi guys, the wedding and pre-party happened last weekend, and I’ve had a few days to process, so here’s the update as promised.”
“First off, I found out through a bridesmaid messaging me on Instagram why my best friend’s fiancée reacted the way she did. As it turns out, it wasn’t just about the bachelor party kiss; it was about him in general.”
“For context, ever since I’ve known Andrew (my best friend), he’s had a history of being impulsive when drunk. I know this is fairly common, and I had the same issue in high school, but I learned to just drink less and eventually leveled out, but Andrew didn’t, and his now-wife has always had a problem with it.”
“Over the years, he’s done a bunch of crazy s**t, most of which I’d forgotten or never even knew about. The bridesmaid listed examples his fiancée had mentioned, like when he streaked through campus at midnight on a dare no one pushed him into, or when he kissed mutual friends (including me once) during drinking games in high school, and many other things. Nothing that counted as cheating, but enough of a pattern that he’s got a reputation for taking jokes and dares too literally.”
“His fiancée, of course, knew about a lot of this, and it had been a sore point in their relationship early on. So when the kiss with me happened at the bachelor party, she didn’t see it as a one-off joke, but rather she saw it as proof his old habits weren’t gone, and she panicked.”
“In her mind, if he could do that in front of everyone, then what else might happen? And because it was me this time, that ever constant part of his life, I became part of the problem.”
The bride also did not hear about the kiss in the most graceful way, either.
“Apparently, Andrew made things bad from the get-go when he got back from the party, as he walked into their hotel room with her and her mom there and blurted out the story very obnoxiously.”
“That p**sed her off and made her mum (who’s pretty conservative) really uncomfortable. According to the bridesmaid, her mum had clashed with Andrew before, and this was the last thing she wanted to see before her daughter’s wedding.”
“That same night, the fiancée and her mum talked, and her mum was the one who pushed the idea that I should quietly back out. She basically told her it would be a bad look to have me standing up there as part of the wedding party, which did explain why I got that message the next morning.”
The OP did go to the wedding but still felt something in his friendship shifting.
“In the end, I did go to the pre-party and the wedding. Both went fast but well and very beautifully.”
“The part that really did unexpectedly hurt me was after, regarding the honeymoon. Many, many months before, I had suggested this one destination I had gone to on vacation when I was way younger, and back then, they’d both been excited and even asked me for hotel and restaurant recommendations in preparation.”
“After the wedding, I asked Andrew when they were leaving, and he kind of hesitated before saying they’d changed plans to somewhere completely different.”
“I was very surprised, to be honest, but we just laughed about it and closed it up with me saying, ‘Oh well!’ and wishing them a great time. With more thought given, I realise that it’s another way of cutting out my influence and icing me out, and it was the point that the reality of it was coming down on me.”
“Now that it’s been a few days and I’ve driven back home, I have just conceded. While I’m glad I went, I’m not very hopeful for our friendship being the same.”
“I love Andrew dearly, and I really do love his wife, too, and I understand why things turned out this way, but I just wish I hadn’t f**king been the one involved (targeted more like). Drama is very f**king fun to watch when it isn’t you, but not when you’re at the center of it.”
“I do want to be clear, though, that the blame is on Andrew. While I don’t think I deserved to be put in this position, I also believe they (his wife and her mom) tried their best to treat me fairly, even when it was hard for them.”
“I do also forgive them, and I hope to move forward, even if the friendship I had with him for 20 years won’t probably ever look the same again.”
“Thank you truly for all the comments, advice, and support.”
The subReddit was upset on the OP’s behalf that not only had a kiss been pushed on him against his will, but he’d also been blamed and punished for it happening, in the form of almost not attending the wedding and being criticized by the entire wedding party.
Fortunately, things worked out well enough that the OP could still attend and enjoy, but it seemed that his friend would be forever impacted by this kiss, no matter how unfair it was to him, as a final stamp of confirmation that this marriage was built on shaky ground at best.