My friend is getting married

The BBQ Pit
1

So my friend called me last night and asked if i would be the best man at his wedding. I should be happy for him and happy he asked me, right? yeah, except HE SHOULDEN’T GET MARRIED!!!

Let me elaborate: He has been going out for this girl for 3 weeks. yup, thats right, 3 whole weeks. Guess when there wedding is? one week from tommorow for a grand total of a month. Sure, he says, I’ve known her alot longer then that. How much longer? I have no idea buy I’m guessing not more then a few months.

It gets better/worse though. This is his first serious relationship. ever. Yup, and he thinks despite that he should marry her after a month. :rolleyes:

To top it off, maybe the best reason he shoulden’t marry her… He is, plain and simply, her rebound. She just broke up with her old boyfriend not even a week before they started going out. Joy.

I’m gonna go over to his house later and try and convince him to wait a little while and think it over but I doubt he will listen. I guess it’s his life and his mistakes to make but… bleh. I’ll still be the best man at his wedding though, can’t turn down free cake :smiley:

I just really hope I’m wrong about how long his marrage is going to last. I hate being right about things like this :frowning:

2

I hear ya, dude. Last July my friend met this awesome woman, and in August announced that they were having a baby, and by September they didn’t like each other any more. Fucking idiots.

Good for you for being a good friend: by (a) telling him that you really think it may be a bad idea and (b) being there for him anyway.

3

I think that if you truly don’t approve of his marrying this woman, then you can’t be the best man. But hey, if you can’t turn down free cake… :rolleyes:

4

You know, it is possible it could work out. My husband’s divorce was final in July, we met late Oct/early Nov. We dated 4 weeks, then eloped. That was 20 years ago.

Of course, he was 27 and I was 29, so we weren’t dumb kids. Still, it could work out. But if the worst happens, please resist the urge to yell “I told you so!”

5

The problem you’ll run into, as you’ve guessed, is that no one wants to hear “You haven’t known her long enough!” because the subtext of that is, “Maybe you’re not going to love each other as much when you know each other better.” It’s a valid concern, but no one caught up in wedding whirlwind wants to think about that.

You might try a different approach. Tell him that the process of dating and romance and engagement and marriage is really special, and it ought to be ENJOYED. Why rush their asses off to get married right away when, by taking it slow, they can really do it right and enjoy all the privileges and joys of getting serious, proposing, being engaged, etc. It’s really kind of special time, having people oohing over the ring and asking about wedding plans and hosting showers and choosing stuff for the registry. If they rush, they don’t have time for all that. Plus a rushed marriage shocks some people so they aren’t as likely (or as able) to support them. Why go into a marriage with less familial and friend support?

It’s like driving through the fall colors in New England at 200 miles per hour, looking at nothing along the way, to get to a destination. Why not drive a little slower? They’ll still get there (or not, but that’s something you don’t have to say).

6

I wish so much that someone had sat me down before my wedding, slapped me around a little bit, and asked me just what in the hell I thought I was doing. As it was, everyone was kissy-huggy supportive instead and I ended up in a shitty marriage to a shitty man.

Everyone makes mistakes, those of us who are really lucky will have somebody to step in and let us know when we’re doing so.

He might not like hearing it, but you never know, and at least you won’t feel like you’re doing him a disservice by biting your tongue. (But I agree that once you’ve officially objected to the union, you really shouldn’t be best man. It kind of goes against the whole idea of what a best man is.)

7

Lord Ashtar: I thought about saying no, but even if it is a poor descision he is still my friend and it is still his life, so I’m gonna stick with him on it. That being said, If he decides to turn and run at the alter i’m not so sure I’ll go chase him down :wink:

FairyChatMom: Yeah, I’m really really hopeing it works out, and while I understand it’s possible I also understand it is unlikely. And if they do end up getting divorced I make no promises but I’ll do my best to not say it :smiley:

CrankyAsAnOldMan: Thank you very much for the advice, I haden’t really thought about it like that. I’m not sure if he will listen but it’s worth a try.

8

BurntToast, part of being a good friend is stopping your friend when he’s doing something stupid.

Your friend is going to walk out in front of a bus. Do you grab him, or do you let him go because “it is still his life” and he can walk in front of a bus if he wants to?

Your friend is drunk and wants to get in his car. Do you confiscate his car keys, or do you hop in the passenger seat because “it is still his life?”

Your friend is going to jump into something stupid and probably cause himself pain and anguish, FCM’s example notwithstanding. She is the exception, not the rule. It is your duty as a friend to help him see perspective.

That said, I would not be his best man. Your turning him down, “Dude, I love you man, but I can’t support you in this” may open his eyes.

9

The point is ivylass that his friend is almost certainly not going to listen.

A friend of mine did a very similar thing and although they are still married (with a six month old baby) their lives are a nightmare. It’s ugly, sad and horrible to watch. He was saying himself, before the wedding, “I don’t know if this is the right thing to do…” and yet still he married her.

What chance has BurntToast got?

CrankyAsAnOldMan has got it bang on.

No one wants to hear that they are being foolish when they are on a romantic whirlwind. If you do try and tell them, 10-1 they’ll see it as disloyalty.

FWIW - my take on it is: If my friend is that foolish, and if he / she is likely to blame me for sticking my oar in, then I’ll let them do it and hang around to pick up the pieces later.

It takes a special sort of person to follow advice they don’t want to hear. (I’m as bad as anyone I know)

10

Please share your feelings with your friend. If you don’t, he (and you) will both regret it later on. My best friend got married nine months ago, after living with the guy for three or four years and having a son with him. I could see at the time that she was getting married to him only because she wanted to create the facade of a “life” that she wanted. In other words, she loved the idea, not him. Now she realizes that she doesn’t love him, is completely miserable, and keeps asking me questions like, “why didn’t you tell me I was making a mistake?” Well, I’ve repeatedly told her, as her best friend, I’ve tried to be supportive of her no matter what she does, whether I think it’s the right thing or not. I felt it wasn’t my place to interfere if that’s what she wanted to do. Besides, I’m not always right! So, to make a long story longer, my advice to you would be to express to your friend your concerns over his rush to marriage, but also express that you’ll be there to support him in his marriage or in whatever happens. It’s what I wish I would have done. If this doesn’t work out, as you suspect, he’ll need you more than ever.

11

One of my good friends has been going out with a real asshole for almost 4 years. She keeps talking about when they get married, and how her sister and I will share the title of “maid of honour”.

I DON’T THINK SO!!!

There’s more crap that’s gone in her life than I care to mention here. Put it this way: He’s very controlling. She’s not allowed to go out with her friends unless it’s to his restaurant, where he can watch. On the one night that she decided to go out ‘with the girls’, to celebrate her birtday (of course, not on her birthday ~ she wasn’t allowed) he walked into the restaurant where we were and watched from the door for a while. Finally, someone said, “Jimmy’s at the door. And he’s been there for at least 20 minutes.” He took off his jacket and told her to cover herself up and stop looking like such a whore. He’s mad if I visit her at her apartment. He says we’re sleeping together (we’re both straight and I’m engaged). Not to mention that after I left her home once, when he was none too pleased that I was there, she “accidentally fell” and broke her jaw in three places. It was wired shut for weeks. What a coinkydink!

Her sister hates him as much as I do. I’ve spoken to her about it. She’s positive that he’s even controlling my friend’s food intake. (She isn’t allowed to eat anything that’s not from the restaurant. He will have a driver send it over to her place in ‘controlled portions’.) The girl is 110 lbs soaking wet (at 5’6"). He’s 40 years old, lives with his parents, spends his money on looking like the big man in town, and though my friend moved next door to the restaurant to see him more often, he never sleeps over.

I might add that my friend sings at his restaurant on Saturday nights. She makes $100 a night doing this (which she really needs to cover the bills). She’s contemplated singing in other restaurants; he’s told her that if she leaves his place, the relationship is over.

Anyway … It’s obvious that there’s not much her sister and I can do for her except be there when she falls. And she’ll fall, eventually. I just hope he doesn’t kill her first. But the thought of being a *maid of honour * at her wedding? I gave it some thought. On one hand, I’m there for her through thick and thin. On the other, there’s just no way I can support her marrying this prick (who btw has his ‘ex’ girlfriends visit him regularly at his restaurant and when they do, my friend is instructed to sit at the bar ~ where she isn’t allowed to drink ~ and give him some ‘space’).

So the next time she brought the wedding up (which is only being talked about, nothing planned for a long time from now), I told her. I said, “I thought about it and there’s no way I can be a maid of honour at this wedding. As a matter of fact, I won’t even be a guest.” After she challenged me for reasons why, and I was brutally honest, she said, “My sister said the same thing.”

In my opinion, if you’re a real friend, you won’t go for the free cake. (I know you were joking about it). I don’t think you should stand for him at all, if you feel the relationship is doomed.

12

If I may add to my response, perhaps this would be more compelling if you talked to your friend about denying HER these things. Your friend might not really care about the fuss and fun involved with getting engaged and waiting for a wedding, but you can suggest to him that by rushing, he’s denying his bride these things. Maybe she’s pushing as hard as he is but you could plant the seed in him that she might later look back and regret missing out on some of it.

13

Hey BurntToast, it sounds like I’m in a vaguely comparable situation to your friend…

Just in the last four weeks I have fallen head over heels in love with the woman I know for certain I want to spend the rest of my life with. I’m 32 and although I’ve been in love before, it’s never been anything as intense or as right as this. It came as something of a surprise to me to find that sometimes it is possible to just know when you’ve met your perfect partner.

And she feels the same way, and everything’s peachy to put it mildly… we’ve never been happier in our lives.

That said, we’re not about to waltz down the aisle together. Maybe in a year, or two, or three, or whenever… we know we’ll be together then anyway, so what’s the rush to set the seal?

I guess that’s my question for your friend - What’s the big rush??

14

I’ve been in a similar situation before; friend asked me to be the best man, but I was convinced she was cheating on him, and that she was going to tear him apart. I refused to be the best man, she found out why, admitted to him what was going on, and he promised never to doubt anything I said ever again.

If you won’t refuse the position on principle, then at least get these two words into his head: pre-nuptial agreement.

15

I second this.

16

A friend of mine did the EXACT same thing in 2002.

Met this guy who hitchhiked (?!) from Arizona and was living with his sister.

Hooked up, and got married 3.5 weeks later.

About a month later, he TRIED TO KILL HER. Not only her, but our pregnant friend.

:eek:

So, sometimes waiting can be a good thing.

17

Sorry to rock the boat, folks, but love and marriage is unpredictable: I met my wife on December 7th, proposed on New Years Eve, and we married a little over a month later. THAT was over 24 years ago. We’re still thumping like bunnies.

But like I said, love and marriage is unpredictable. What works for one couple won’t for another. So who’s to judge? :confused:

18

Look, man, bunnies really aren’t much like Bambi made them out to be…

19

I guess you’ll have the opportunity to NOT hold your peace when the minister asks. Let us know what happens!

20

Yes, so remember girls - date the guy, but if he tries to kill you within a month, it probably isn’t going to work out. :wink:

To the OP; yes, a lot of whirlwind marriages end in tears, but not all of them. Love is something you do, as well as something you feel.