Trouble in Paradise
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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I hated my wedding and can't get past it!
Hi,
I got married in 2006. I planned every last detail to be perfect, and it was as far at the decorations, the food, my dress etc. etc.
What didn't go right was the behavior of my guests and the groom.
My mom and dad, (divorced a long time ago) were each separately being selfish and focused on their own needs the whole time. Even my bridesmaids were shocked at what jerks they were both individually being. My grandmother threatened to not show up due to some 20 year old feud between me and my crazy uncle that I had not seen in 20 years and didn't want at my wedding. One aunt didn't show up because she said she was too uncomfortable to be around my rude step mom. And another threatened at the last minute because all of a sudden she decided to get a divorce and said it would be too hard for her to attend a wedding. That aunt was the one bringing my grandmother in her car from out of state. And my wedding planner was the biggest waste of money ever because I was dealing with all of the particulars all night. I was personally dragging chairs where they should have been at my ceremony site, I was writing checks for all of the vendors at the end of the night, taking down decorations, loading presents into our car by myself etc.
My groom was the worst though. He is such a social butterfly by nature, that he often ditches me at parties till the end of the night. I knew this ahead of time and made him promise to not do this at my wedding. But he did. I sat at our Sweetheart Table alone through most of dinner, very embarrassing, and even leveled with him outside at one point telling him that his behavior was ruining the wedding for me and begged him to stop ditching me, but he angrily brushed me off and didn't change his behavior. And also drank too much, forgot to bring my ring, never brought me a gift, even though we agreed to exchange gifts, and never took care of finding us a ride home after, even though he agreed to make that his responsibility. I ended up being afraid to get in his car because he insisted on driving us even though he had drank too much.
Once we got to our hotel, he socialized with his friends in the lobby for about an hour. I got so tired, I started to fall asleep on the lobby couch waiting for him to wrap it up with them. He chose to walk me upstairs to our suite, DROP ME OFF, and then go back down stairs to hang out with his friends more. I was trying my best to be easy going and not pick a fight on our wedding night, but needless to stay, the fact that he did that, really hurt.
Then my cousin from out of town did not have a room to stay in at the last minute for some reason, so my fiance offered to let him sleep IN OUR SUITE! He thought it would be ok because it was on a couch outside the bedroom part of our hotel suite.
we fought about all of this all night, and I cryed for hours saying I want an anullment, worrying the whole time that my cousin could hear us right outside the door. Of course we never even had sex.
We have now been married for 5 years and I can't seem to get over what a nightmarish failure my wedding day was. I resent my husband, and still feel unimportant to him in many ways all of the time. He says he is sorry, but feels the wedding day was a success because the guests had a good time and everything looked pretty and the food was good.
Should I renew my vows with him in a small private ceremony to try to replace the bad experience in my mind and start fresh? I can't think of another way to recover from this very painful experience.
Thanks for your advice.
Amber
I got married in 2006. I planned every last detail to be perfect, and it was as far at the decorations, the food, my dress etc. etc.
What didn't go right was the behavior of my guests and the groom.
My mom and dad, (divorced a long time ago) were each separately being selfish and focused on their own needs the whole time. Even my bridesmaids were shocked at what jerks they were both individually being. My grandmother threatened to not show up due to some 20 year old feud between me and my crazy uncle that I had not seen in 20 years and didn't want at my wedding. One aunt didn't show up because she said she was too uncomfortable to be around my rude step mom. And another threatened at the last minute because all of a sudden she decided to get a divorce and said it would be too hard for her to attend a wedding. That aunt was the one bringing my grandmother in her car from out of state. And my wedding planner was the biggest waste of money ever because I was dealing with all of the particulars all night. I was personally dragging chairs where they should have been at my ceremony site, I was writing checks for all of the vendors at the end of the night, taking down decorations, loading presents into our car by myself etc.
My groom was the worst though. He is such a social butterfly by nature, that he often ditches me at parties till the end of the night. I knew this ahead of time and made him promise to not do this at my wedding. But he did. I sat at our Sweetheart Table alone through most of dinner, very embarrassing, and even leveled with him outside at one point telling him that his behavior was ruining the wedding for me and begged him to stop ditching me, but he angrily brushed me off and didn't change his behavior. And also drank too much, forgot to bring my ring, never brought me a gift, even though we agreed to exchange gifts, and never took care of finding us a ride home after, even though he agreed to make that his responsibility. I ended up being afraid to get in his car because he insisted on driving us even though he had drank too much.
Once we got to our hotel, he socialized with his friends in the lobby for about an hour. I got so tired, I started to fall asleep on the lobby couch waiting for him to wrap it up with them. He chose to walk me upstairs to our suite, DROP ME OFF, and then go back down stairs to hang out with his friends more. I was trying my best to be easy going and not pick a fight on our wedding night, but needless to stay, the fact that he did that, really hurt.
Then my cousin from out of town did not have a room to stay in at the last minute for some reason, so my fiance offered to let him sleep IN OUR SUITE! He thought it would be ok because it was on a couch outside the bedroom part of our hotel suite.
we fought about all of this all night, and I cryed for hours saying I want an anullment, worrying the whole time that my cousin could hear us right outside the door. Of course we never even had sex.
We have now been married for 5 years and I can't seem to get over what a nightmarish failure my wedding day was. I resent my husband, and still feel unimportant to him in many ways all of the time. He says he is sorry, but feels the wedding day was a success because the guests had a good time and everything looked pretty and the food was good.
Should I renew my vows with him in a small private ceremony to try to replace the bad experience in my mind and start fresh? I can't think of another way to recover from this very painful experience.
Thanks for your advice.
Amber
Re: I hated my wedding and can't get past it!
This.
If he still puts you after everyone else in social situations and generally ignores your feelings then you both need counseling. If not, then you need to put it all behind you (and maybe get counseling to help you with this) and move the heck on.
This is what you need to work on. The rest of it doesn't matter one bit. Find a counselor to help you work through this.
The problem isn't your wedding day (I don't know anyone that didn't have some sort of family drama on their big day) the problem is, indeed, your groom. Not for his behavior that day/night, but for his behavior all during your dating/engagement and now currently your marriage.
You know that saying "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me"? That is exactly what you'd be getting if you renewed your vows. His behavior hasn't changed at all, it sounds like. And who gives a flying fvck if the food was good and everything looked pretty? That sort of thing doesn't really matter in the long run - what matters is the actual marriage, not the Pretty Princess Day.
If you've told him time and again about your feelings, tried talking calmly and figuring out something that will work for each of you, etc., and he's STILL not holding up his end of the bargain? Well, I guess counseling would be worth a shot, but for me personally, after 5 years (and then some) of being treated like a second-class citizen, I'd be done. I can't love a man who doesn't respect me, and that, my dear, is precisely what you've got.
Agreed! Couples therapy and individual therapy for you. I don't think this has anything to do about your wedding day.
I know of a wedding where the groom got so smashed that he blacked out for most of the night and had no recollection at all of his wedding day. How's that for some sh!t...guy had to be a hard boiled alcoholic if he had a blackout -- how would you like to be married to somebody like that?
I also know of a wedding where the flowers never arrived, the BM dresses didn't show up, and one where the gowns actuall split and ripped open on the BMs before the ceremony began (gotta love those David's gowns)
Your real issue is your putz husband. Putzery knows no special day of the year. You have my sympathies.
1.) Your H sounds like an inconsiderate, emotionally dense, self-serving A-hole. Why in the world would you want to renew vows with someone that treats you like that? I would have been thinking annulment at midnight on the wedding night.
2.) I hear a lot of "my my my" in your post. A lot of thinking about the Pretty Princess Day, and not a whole lot of "we". You are in a marriage now and as such you should go to couples counseling if you want to salvage things. Your wedding day is not the problem here, neither is your family drama. Sorry to say your choice of husband is the issue here.
Honestly? If it was like this from day one then it is very unlikely that the situation will* change without some serious work on all sides. I am skeptical that it will work for you, but if you really want to do it more power to you I guess.
I would bail it if was me. What is in it for you anyway?
Why would you want to renew your vows? If my husband treated me like that on our wedding day it would have been over. I think truly you are upset you ever actually married him. GL
This.
You need to seek help.
I think that your husband was under the impression that you both were throwing a wildly expensive party where you were the hosts.....
It does sound like you had some crap to deal with that day (to put it mildly), but honey it was five years ago. It's time to let it go.
I'm not saying this excuses your H's behavior in any way, but just from the tone of your post I wonder if you weren't a bit of a 'zilla about it. Having your heart set on a perfect wedding is setting yourself up for disappointment.
But I'm going to agree with all the other ladies in that if you want to start fresh, I think you need to work on your H's respect towards you in public through counseling. Is there something about the way you two interact that triggers him to be that way? Once you get that figured it out, then yes, maybe a private renewal ceremony would be a good way to start fresh and feel like the wedding problem has been resolved.
I do think if you renew your vows your H will magically start paying attention to you. We hear about that kind of thing here all. the. time.
Doooo eeeeet!!!!
You're focusing on the wedding because you know a vow renewal is an easier task than reforming a husband who has never treated you very well.
So yeah, good luck with that.
Click me, click me!
Renew vows with him??
I would not renew a library card with him.
We got into a really big fight the night before our wedding. My cake got dropped on the way into the hall that morning, the bakery cleaned up, went back, made another smaller cake quickly and never told me....that cake melted and it wasn't big enough to serve even half our guests. I was a foster child and for the first time in my life all my foster parents, birth family, and DH's family who hate me for the most part were in the same room...it was very stressful. DH's father didn't attend and everyone kept asking us where he was. We had one groomsman who didn't show up and one bride's maid. My little sister's dress was ruined, because she held my neice and got pooped on. Somehow my little brothers (who were underage) were able to drink and both were a little bit tipsy...which pissed me off.
BUT our ceremony was awesome. I will remember every single last detail for the rest of my life. When I think about my hubbs and our wedding, my mind goes right to our ceremony. And I did enjoy my wedding even though a million things went wrong.
Let me ask you, honestly, do you think any part of your day going badly falls on you? Maybe you're having a hard time getting over it because you haven't squared with it. The way you talk about your wedding makes me think that you built your day up so much, that it couldn't possibly live up to your expectations. It sounds like you went into stressed and every little thing that went wrong weighed on you.
Now, if you weren't so stressed and high strung over everything, you may have decided to get up and join your hubbs while he was walking around and socializing with guests. But you sat in your seat by yourself and allowed yourself to feel humilating. I would have gotten up, joined him, linked my arms with his and halfway through said something like "I'm going to steal my hubbs for a dance" instead of pulling aside and giving him a stern talking to in the middle of things.
I don't know the details and it would be unfair of me to say that you weren't justified on that day, but if things are good day to day now....then I do think its unfair of you to resent your H for one night. And if things aren't good from day to day, renewing vows won't do anything about that.
Exactly. Even if you were able to go back in time to make your wedding "perfect" in your eyes, it wouldn't change the situation you're in now. Not one iota.
You do realize you're not really upset over the wedding, right? You're upset over your marriage. And from what you've described here, I would be too.
A vow renewal isn't going to magically change YH into a decent human being who loves and respects you. But, go ahead and knock yourself out, it's your money. Just know that once it's over, you won't have a scapegoat for your unhappiness any longer. You'll have to face the cold, hard truth that you married someone you're not compatible with (which is almost a positive...I wouldn't want to be compatible with an azzhole).
You post is full of "I", "me" and "my". You keep saying "my wedding" instead of "our wedding". You come across just as selfish in your post as your husband does.
If you are still upset about your wedding day five years later, you need some help. Our wedding day wasn't perfect but I had the time of my life and I wouldn't change one single thing about it.
I'm so so sorry your wedding went that way. I know how you feel. I just got married this past June and I HATED it!!! You're groom kind of sounds like how mine was. He didn't even seem to give two shits about spending OUR wedding day with me. I spent a lot of the time outside with people while they were smoking or whatever because I couldn't handle the anxiety of being in there. People bitching you need to do this! You need to do that!... Uh, no... my wedding day... I don't need to do anything I don't want to. (FYI- I'm also pregnant and was still really sick at the time of my wedding) And when he would come outside and I was out there he didn't even acknowledge me. He was too busy getting drunk and stoned with his stupid friends. Ugh! Everyone treated it as a big stupid drunken party and it was just not ok. I almost snapped when I walked inside and saw my groom leaning up against the wall getting grinded on by this girls a**. NOT OK EVER!! (And IMO a girl grinding her a** on a guys d*ck is NOT dancing!!) I never even wanted a big wedding. I only did it because my husband made it seem like it meant so much to him and that he wanted to show everybody how much he loved me and that he chose me to spend the rest of his life with. I wanted something just me & him & our kids on the beach or something like that. Ya know, something small and intimate. Something that was about US and not about us paying for a bunch people to eat and get drunk and that's all our wedding day was. Such a joke. I also think we got married at the wrong time, we were not getting along at all constantly fight over the 2 months prior to the wedding. The only reason I didn't cancel it was because everything was done, paid for, contracts were signed and I was constantly in hope that things would get better at the time. And I just figured it's all done, might as well just do it, get it over with. (Things are better now and have been for the past month) But I get so upset everytime I think about it. I completely break down. Sometimes to the point of an anxiety attack. I just hate everything about that day. Do I regret marrying my husband?? No. But I 100% regret how we did it.
I've been thinking the same thing as you... I want a do over! I deserve a day to remember with happiness and not with constant tears and anger. I say talk to your hubby about it and do it! It's sad when you think about your wedding and all you want to do is cry. That's a huge day in anybody's life no matter how they do it and nobody should ever feel like that when they think about it. I can't wait for the day I can say we finally got our perfect wedding
And no longer have to think about that BS day.
Good luck hun... I hope everything works out for you and your husband