Last night my boyfriend (20M) and I (20F) were joking around while he was gaming with friends. Marriage came up, and so did alcohol at weddings. I said I didn’t want alcohol at ours. I thought he agreed since we both like sparkling drinks and we’re underage anyway.
His friends immediately said they wouldn’t come if there wasn’t alcohol and called it a “boring wedding.” I got frustrated and explained my reasoning: when his family drinks, things usually go badly. For example:
At a New Year’s party, multiple relatives got drunk and ended up yelling at both of us, ruining the trip.
At his cousin’s quinceañera, his mom drank and then tried to drive, which put us in a really awkward (and unsafe) position.
I wasn’t trying to attack his family, just pointing out why I personally don’t want alcohol at our wedding. But today he said I was “shit talking his family.” He told me he doesn’t always agree with things my family does either, but he doesn’t badmouth them. I apologized and clarified that I don’t have a problem with his family drinking in general, I just don’t like how they behave when they do.
For context: my own family doesn’t drink much (immediate family doesn’t drink at all, extended family rarely). I genuinely feel like I have valid reasons for not wanting alcohol at the wedding, but now I’m wondering if I crossed a line.
So AITA for saying I don’t want alcohol at our wedding because I don’t like how his family acts when they drink? Or is he TA for accusing me of shit talking his family?
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Last night my boyfriend (20M) and I (20F) were joking around while he was gaming with friends. Marriage came up, and so did alcohol at weddings. I said I didn’t want alcohol at ours. I thought he agreed since we both like sparkling drinks and we’re underage anyway.
His friends immediately said they wouldn’t come if there wasn’t alcohol and called it a “boring wedding.” I got frustrated and explained my reasoning: when his family drinks, things usually go badly. For example:
At a New Year’s party, multiple relatives got drunk and ended up yelling at both of us, ruining the trip.
At his cousin’s quinceañera, his mom drank and then tried to drive, which put us in a really awkward (and unsafe) position.
I wasn’t trying to attack his family, just pointing out why I personally don’t want alcohol at our wedding. But today he said I was “shit talking his family.” He told me he doesn’t always agree with things my family does either, but he doesn’t badmouth them. I apologized and clarified that I don’t have a problem with his family drinking in general, I just don’t like how they behave when they do.
For context: my own family doesn’t drink much (immediate family doesn’t drink at all, extended family rarely). I genuinely feel like I have valid reasons for not wanting alcohol at the wedding, but now I’m wondering if I crossed a line.
So AITA for saying I don’t want alcohol at our wedding because I don’t like how his family acts when they drink? Or is he TA for accusing me of shit talking his family?
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ESH, you and your friends. I think your boyfriend (fiancé?) is fine, based on the info supplied.
Your friends are rude for treating a life celebration as nothing more than an excuse to drink (or possibly free drinks).
You suck for dragging your bf/fiancé’s family completely unnecessarily to people outside the family. If you want a dry wedding, fine, own it. If your bf/fiancé’s family’s bad behavior is part of your reasoning, that’s fine to discuss between you and him, but sharing that with others without talking with him about it first is pretty rude, especially when you did it to try to look better to your AH friends.
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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> 1. Saying I don’t want alcohol at our wedding because of how his family acts.
2. He said I was shit talking his family by saying that
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Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.
ESH. You should not have brought family drama up in front of his friends, although you’re not the asshole for your position on alcohol at the wedding. Your boyfriend sucks because he doesn’t seem to understand the problem, even though he’s experienced it firsthand.
As a side note, I know you didn’t ask for advice on your marriage, but you’re both 20. I’m not saying that relationships CAN’T work out when you get married so young, because they sometimes do. But the majority of them will fail. Give yourself some time to live and breathe.
I don’t blame you for the perspective you have but this was a really bad time, and a bad setting, to have a totally unnecessary conversation. Any SERIOUS conversations you want to have with your husband-to-be about sensitive topics like his family should be done in a 1:1 setting. Even though their behavior sounds abysmal, you were shit-talking his family in front of friends.
I think you should apologize for the misplaced statements and simply say that if and when you REALLY plan a wedding together, you’ll save such discussions for a private setting, but since you aren’t engaged anyway there isn’t really any need to speculate on it.
Because that’s all it was – speculation. You used a speculative conversation to talk about how horrible his family is. Of course he didn’t like that, even if they are indeed horrible. To be clear, I think that IF and WHEN you do plan a wedding with this individual, that you should have those discussions and your preference to have a dry wedding is very reasonable. But none of that matters right now.
NTA but unfortunately society is obsessed with drinking and people get very defensive about it because I think on some level they recognize that it’s normalized but actually not different than any other addiction. I think you either have to accept that this behavior is going to happen or maybe go a different direction for your wedding. I don’t think you were shit talking his family if you were only explaining to him why you don’t want alcohol there, to me shit talking would be saying it to someone else or saying it in conjunction with making a moral judgement about them. He’s probably defensive because it sounds like his mom is an alcoholic and you guys are so young so he still heavily identifies with her and her alcohol use and behaviors… I would be so embarrassed if my mom acted that way. (I’m not saying that his mom is absolutely an alcoholic, maybe that was a one off event, but if it’s a pattern I think that’s alcoholism because it’s endangering herself and others and having a negative impact on her life and sons life and their relationship)
Edit: It was his friends, not my own.
If his friends wouldn’t come without alcohol, are you sure it’s just his family that has a drinking problem? (If you can’t serve alcohol because they’d drink too much and get unruly, it’s a drinking problem.)
Why would you want to marry into this dangerous family and cater to your bf’s rude ass friends? He won’t stand up for you when his friends or family are causing trouble, apparently made you accept his mom trying to drive drunk, and will blame you for bringing up your concerns and reasonings in front of his friends when he left you to deal with his shitty friends rather than stepping up and being part of the conversation.
You’re young. You do not need to get married at 20 to a guy who would rather defend his drunk driving mom and make you endure the unsafe situations his family puts you in. Seriously. Do not marry him yet. You can have a years long engagement. He sounds like a young teen scapegoating you over his own embarrassment at his family’s antics rather than a young adult prepared to build a family of his own.
Seriously. This isn’t a break up forever thing, it’s a seriously pump the breaks thing. Y’all need to have a serious sit down conversation about goals, expectations, lifestyle, values, and how much he expects to replicate the home environment he grew up in with you. You need to talk about what you each think being a grown up means and what responsibilities and accountability toward each other vs your families you each expect, and be prepared to adapt.
My partner and I have been close for 30 years, dating for 20, and married for 12. It took us all that time to work out our old baggage and accept that maybe some of the things we had learned to think of as normal in our different households were not normal or healthy for us and had to build our plan together for our future. It takes time and effort and mistakes and then the earnest attempt to do better and communicate more effectively after every failure. Take your time to try to understand and support each other, but do not allow your partner to insult you for speaking up when he refused to. You both need to be communicating and attempting to interact in good faith, being vulnerable and honest and trusting your partner to accept your honesty even when those feelings are difficult so that they can come back with their own good faith attempt to honestly discuss the feelings that come up in these conflicts. Bad-talking the family is not the same as compassionately pointing out their choices and stating you hope to make different choices from their own. That he is responding to thoughtful criticism as trash talking reveals that he has been taught to respond to this concern with hostility to dismiss its validity. That is a dangerous coping mechanism that he was taught.
Please consider pre-marriage counseling as a couple so you can begin your family as a team rather than being treated like an encroacher or antagonist.
NTA – half of my family is basically functional alcoholics. We’re not doing a full open bar at our wedding.
NTA. It’s your day. If people cant go a single day without alcohol, they are TA.
I mean, YTA for the simple fact that you WERE shit talking his family. No matter their behaviour, these conversations absolutely should not be happening in front of an audience. It makes you look terrible and makes the other person feel like they’re being attacked.
YTA for think that’s your decision alone and talking shit about his family
“YTA” – For not having a respectful discussion about it, throwing it in the middle of their conversation/time as if it was something absolute over his own choices.
Wait until you see how they act when there was a no alcohol 🤦🏻♀️
NTA, but there’s probably a compromise or middle ground somewhere. I’m sure you could find some kind of arrangement that limits the number of drinks people are allowed to consume. 3-4 drinks over the course of an entire wedding is plenty to enjoy yourself, while also not getting sloshed, just as an example.
INFO: are you two even engaged?
Alcoholics, in their mind, are incapable of handling dry weddings. It’s the holy grail of drinking events behind New Year’s eve if not equal to that. They will either refuse to go or leave to drink and come back wasted later if they do or sneak drinks in and get wasted. This will be the case with your wedding.
Your fiancé’s reaction and defense of his family’s horrific conduct is a red flag. Their alcoholism will always come before you and any kids you have. The friends are scarcely any better.
NTA. True drunks will find a way though.
YTA for talking about this outside of a private conversation with your boyfriend, you’re NTA for wanting a “dry” wedding, but that is again something that should not be arbitrarily decided. You and your fiance should decide that together. If I was the bf that would be a clue for me to GTFO and fast.