The internet has slammed a man for inviting his fiancée’s high school bullies to their wedding in a viral Reddit post.
Shared on Monday by user JThrowawayK57, the story was posted on the popular Reddit forum r/AmITheA**hole. The post currently has over 9,000 upvotes and more than 2,000 comments.
The user explained: “I am getting married to my fiancée next month. We knew each other from when we were in high school. I had an old group of friends that I wanted to invite to my wedding because they were close to me back then. When my fiancée found out and read the name on every invitation, she went into panic mode.
“She said she doesn’t want any member of this group in our wedding whatsoever. She claimed they had heavily bullied and harassed her in high school.”
Throughout the post, the Redditor explained that his future wife had said the friends had “made her life hell.” He explained: “I asked her if she was serious because this was many years ago and everyone has matured by now.
“I argued that it was ridiculous that she is so hung up on some petty high school drama. she started crying saying I have no consideration for how she feels.” The Redditor finished the post asking “AITA?” a phrase used on the forum to ask “Am I The A**hole?”
A study into the long-term effects of bullying by academics at the University of Warwick, England found that bullying in childhood is a major risk factor for both poor physical and mental health, but also that it leads to reduced adaptation to adult roles, including forming lasting relationships, integrating into work and being economically independent.
The study also said: “Children who were victims of bullying have been consistently found to be at higher risk for internalising problems, in particular diagnoses of anxiety disorder and depression in adulthood.”
In the comments, Reddit users slammed the groom-to-be. One user said: “Let me get this straight, you want to invite them because ‘back in the day’ you hang out with them, but her being bullied does not count because it’s ‘years ago?'”
Shocked by the account, another Redditor said: “How can you say you love someone, but you expect them to relive trauma just because you wanna catch up with some people you haven’t seen since their first chest hair appeared?” While another commented: “It sounds like you don’t care about your future wife.”
A 2020 survey by Zola found that 72 percent of couples use the terms “very” and “extremely” to describe how stressed wedding planning made them.
The study also reported that 10 percent of couples said that they felt their relationship was strained by wedding planning.
One commenter asked the poster: “Do you even like your fiancée? She’s talking about the trauma caused by these people and you’re being so dismissive.”
JThrowawayK57 replied: “Yes I do. I don’t know why you’d think otherwise. I feel like the whole invite thing was an overreaction on her part because we’ve already been arguing about a lot of wedding planning recently.”
Newsweek has reached out to JThrowawayK57 for comment.
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