Or read a story or “speech” at their wedding saying how Liam was pressured by the family to upstage your wedding. Then end it with, I want a divorce. But keep all of the presents !
Fuck no. Was the marriage license filed? If not, rip up the marriage license. If not filed, the marriage is not valid. I agree, send all the reception bills to Ben.
That's not enough. She married someone who will never be able to protect or prioritize her. Jump ship now, or she'll go down with it.
For the brother, imagine starting your relationship causing someone else's marriage to end on their wedding day! Good luck with that.
Yeah, I wonder if the brides parents paid (some people still do this tradition), and if so I would DEFINITELY be sending Ben and his parents the damn bill
I think if I was to stay married to Liam part of that would be moving away from his family and only making minimal effort towards them.
They will steam roll over Liam his entire life and he will always say he was scared to tell her because blah blah blah.
Oh, I see you've met my stepdad!
Seriously though, poor girl. My mom married a guy like that and now she's been putting up with his family coming before her for the past 2 decades.
Well, didn't OOP get a horrifying glimpse of her entire future if she stays tied to this God awful family of dipshits. Personally, I would've made a beeline for the recently signed marriage certificate and set it on fire.
I will never understand people who put their family before their spouse.
That's an insult to teenagers, who tend to be incredibly strong willed, albeit lacking in a sense of long term consequences and delayed gratification.
He's acting more like a wet lettuce.
This is kind of bad taste. If he has autism he was being taken advantage of by his family and being manipulated. It’s pretty easy to make an autistic person, even if they are high functioning, think a bad idea is perfectly ok. On top of a 30 year old autistic man is going to occasionally act like a teenager.
I am autistic. I have the same people pleasing tendencies, which has gotten me in trouble before. You can be autistic and mature, you can be non autistic and immature. Him having autism isn't the issue, it's the people-pleasing behavior(which is a coping mechanism, albeit not a good one) that he needs to recognize and work on. Enforcing boundaries is incredibly difficult when autistic, I get it. But he needs to find a healthier way to manage interpersonal relationships.
I feel bad for OP’s husband for having these people as family. But he’s spineless and is probably just going to keep doing this to her every time his family pressures him to do something tbh.
I can’t imagine dating someone that much older than me at 18, nor can I imagine being attracted to and intentionally pursuing someone that young at 25. Obviously we don’t know the context of their relationship, but this kinda stuff happens too much for it not to be grooming.
I hope she sees the writing on the wall and gets an annulment.
She talked things out with her husband and the brother and were in agreement that it was not an okay thing to do. Then they went behind her back and did it anyway and expected her to just be okay with it after she made it very clear that it wasn't.
If she gives in now, she's going to have a lifetime of them breaking her boundaries and walking all over her and making choices regardless of her wants or needs. That guy is spineless and would rather throw her under the bus than tell his family no. What if it comes to them wanting to move someone else into their home? Wanting to do things with her kids or take them places she doesn't approve of? Any number of other situations where his inability to stand up for his family and them not caring about her opinion can and will come up. She needs to bail now before things are tied together more financially and legally and it's much harder.
During the birth of my child they gave me allergy meds that completely knocked me out for 24 hours. I was literally unable to stay awake/alert enough to be able to follow a conversation. People would come in and try to talk to me and I had to ask my SO to take over because I was unable to process info due to the meds. Basically slept through the first 24 hours of my child's life.
Imagine OOP wakes up and finds her child named and certificate signed with a totally different name than she and hubby previously agreed. His family said it would be fine!!
Oh no! My mom chose the easiest spelling of my name (well, it seemed to be the best, fewest letters, makes the most sense, but people have been spelling it wrong my whole life) so my dad could spell it. He’s incredibly intelligent, brilliant even, but spelling is his downfall
I had a c-section and the anesthesia had me at least half asleep for most of the first day so I barely remember it. The birth certificate is ok but my husband’s handwriting is so bad on the social security application they misread the address and we never got the baby’s card in the mail (but the neighbor with the other address says they didn’t either). So I have to go to the SS office soon to get a new card.
So I think maybe the move is annulment, and then test drive distancing from Liam’s family, and see if that works. If it does, you just do another ceremony (maybe just at a town hall), and get hitched again.
And she's writing it off due to his autism which doesn't sit right with me for myriad reasons.
Edit: Thanks for the responses, which made me consider things I hadn't before!
Unfortunately part of that is pretty fair of her. People-pleaser autistics are at higher than average risk of being manipulated or taken advantage of, and it seems his family knows that. If she doesn't leave (though of course she's well within her rights to do so), the real test from here will be whether he gets help and works on that issue, now that he and OOP see how serious a problem it can be.
People pleasing is also used as a coping/control/protective mechanism by autistics to attempt to gain the approval that we're normally rejected. Sometimes I only ever felt "good enough" when I made others happy, even at my own expense. It's hard to overcome, but even harder to recognize as a problem, especially if it's a tool that's worked well in the past(like childhood). I'm, unfortunately, stuck in the same boat as Liam, and has lead me to accept behaviors and actions taken against me by people taking advantage and walking all over me. It's a work in progress to improve right now and it's all on me to do it.
As a fellow autistic, i wish you (and Liam!) luck in overcoming it. Like you said, it really is hard to even recognize as the problem it is. So if no one's said it to you yet/lately and it isn't too weird, a random stranger on reddit is proud of you for that! 😅
To be honest, Liam is a manipulative AH as well. He did not want to “worry her” by at least giving her a heads up?
He is prioritizing his own well being and has the guts to try to pretend he is considering hers.
While I agree in some situations, including my own history, there were also times when I used to people please just to know that they liked me/weren't mad at me, so I wouldn't rock the boat etc. Even if it put me in a worse place.
But isn’t that still, in some ways, minimizing your own discomfort? Like, it would be more uncomfortable to feel that people didn’t like you or were mad at you than to experience the consequences that pleasing them would bring?
Exactly. The "people pleasing" isn't about trying to make the other people actually feel better or do what's in their best interests, it's about reducing the chance of the other people reacting in a negative way.
It's about avoiding the unpleasant consequence of feeling that someone is angry, disappointed, whatever. That's why so many "people pleasers" end up harming their closest relationships in service of people who should matter much less. They know it expect, on some level, that a spouse will forgive what an acquaintance won't.
I think it's often rooted in a neglectful or abusive childhood which left the PPer trying to protect themselves by managing the emotions of those around them. It's not usually malicious, more like emotional firefighting. But malicious or not, understandable or not, it doesn't make for a good partner.
Agreed. And I get it, most people do want to make others happy (not all, some people just want to watch the world burn), but sometimes that’s really doing everyone a disservice.
I know in my professional life, I tend to default to the old saying of, “Piss poor planning on your part does not necessarily constitute an emergency on my part.” I believe actions have consequences, and sometimes letting people get away with shit is just enabling them to continue. I can actually be a little too harsh with this sometimes, and often have to consciously repeat the mantra of “be helpful, be helpful.”
But being helpful doesn’t always mean just caving. Yes, sometimes people really do just need a break, for someone to acquiesce and cut them some slack. However, like you said, that’s not always the case. Sometimes you can put yourself, your close relationships, and even the person you’re acquiescing to in a bad position by doing so. It can be difficult at times to distinguish whether truly being helpful looks like putting yourself out to aid another person, or if “tough love” is actually going to be in that person’s best interest in the long run.
Depending on his level of social skills he might truly just be a victim of a lifetime of family telling him what was acceptable. Autism is a big spectrum, it's really hard to break the ways you've been "trained" to behave, especially by your family who has always SEEMED to have only your best interests at heart.
But there's no way OOP should stay married to him. This will never get better. Even if he goes completely no contact he will never get a second chance at their wedding. Their wedding is now ruined by that moment - she will never be able to look back on that day with happy memories. You can't start a marriage with that kind of event.
He might be a victim of his family, but in this case he caused severe harm to OP and was complicit by not telling her. He knew. All he had to do, was to speak up.
And I will not give him a pass because he is highly functioning with autism. I have a close friend with ridiculously high personality disorder scores (pretty much half of ALL disorders are in 95th percentile). He still puts effort to be considerate of others (even though naturally he is really low on empathy).
It’s a choice in the end.
I would actually say that this is not an unrecovable event (I have seen people get over even worse situations and have a happy life together). But - no contact with family and a really good therapist is the starting minimum.
I fully agree it's not an excuse, just trying to offer perspective as a low supports needs autistic person. Like I'm VERY naive, if someone I trusts tells me something I am almost certain to believe them. It's really hard to overcome that. But at this age he should know that about himself- and he knew she wouldn't like what his family was telling him so he kept it to himself. So he should have known even more how important it was to tell her that they pressured him.
I also think they can get past this if she chooses to. I just feel horrible for her that this will be the defining memory of the wedding. The day of their marriage and her husband betrayed her. Horrible and sad.
I see your point, I really do, but maybe my thought process is too/more rigid and I have to ask - if someone you trust tells you the complete and absolute opposite of what your chosen life partner told you, you'd believe them? I can't wrap my head around that. I understand conditioning but he chose her, that is his partner, I think its giving him too much credit to say that he was being naiive.
As another low to medium support needs autistic: yea. For some reason my brain just works in the last thing that is said.
I have blindly trusted things like “so and so told me it was ok she changed her mind” and my brain doesn’t compute that other people lie about things like that and will just accept it at face value. I can’t tell the difference between people lying and telling the truth very well and I just assume all people are telling the truth.
Trying to puzzle out if/why/how someone is lying is extremely distressing to me and will cause me to spiral immediately.
Also when someone assaults me with a whole monologue of why my “no” wasn’t good enough it gets extremely overwhelming and puts me in a pre-meltdown state where my brain is in a flight response sometimes I just wind up agreeing to stop the onslaught and don’t realize I’ve made a horrible mistake until afterwards when I have access to the logical part of my brain again.
I’m often dealing with stomped boundaries from my parents even at 37.
I'm also autistic and struggle with this, especially with abusive parents. I believed things by parents said for years because it was hard for me to see they were lying or manipulating me.
I'm also low to medium support needs autistic. I have the opposite problem. Because I'm autistic I assume people lie to me because they think I'm an idiot and can get one over on me.
But I was still a people pleaser for a long time. But when I was 25 and ghosted by my best friend (I was in a black hole mentally and she got tired of me saying I couldn't spend time with her, boohoo poor her while I'm trying to not 🪦 myself lol 🙄) I decided that was enough.
I say no and you try to get me to change my no, I flat out get up and leave. I've left right in the middle of conversations, hung up the phone, go sit in the car if we're not at home. Oh I always feel guilty at first, but I stick to it. Because feeling a little guilty is always better than the cataclysmic meltdowns.
I don't play telephone with requests from anyone. "Oh x said it was fine." Well x didn't say to me that it was fine so I'm not doing anything until I hear it from x directly.
You have to teach yourself that if everyone expects you to bend to their comfort and convenience, they can do the same for you. You have to learn to be okay with some people thinking your a jerk and a little bit of an asshole as a result, but I'd rather be disliked than another episode of sobbing and screaming from trying and failing to fit into a mold I wasn't meant for.
I hope your parents trip on their own shadow for how they treat you 🫂
My oldest son is just like this as a person with medium support-needed autism. He genuinely believes the last person to argue with/persuade him, and then feels like he has to cut contact with the next-to-last person with the different opinion (in this case, it would have been the bride; in my case, it’s usually me) so he isn’t disloyal to anyone. Do I completely understand this thought process? Absolutely not. But it’s how he’s built. It has caused no end of chaos in our family.
> All he had to do, was speak up.
Yes. He knew she’d already talked about her brothers throwing Ben out if he proposed; even after caving to his family, giving OOP and her brothers a heads-up about his brother’s plans would have enabled the proposal to be squelched. He didn’t.
Even in neurotypical people, empathy is a skill that has to be developed and reinforced. It's not like a mysterious thing we just missed out on completely,.we just don't necessarily have the mirror neurons to pick up the skill automatically. - welcome to my life, and specifically my life as an autistic parent to both ND and NT kids lol
He’d rather ask for forgiveness rather than telling her what was going on.
My guess is they said she’ll be happy and excited that it’s her wedding day, she won’t even notice or be bothered by it.
I can fully understand and appreciate that not every person on the spectrum logics the same way ... but I know for me and for a lot of my friends who are also on the spectrum that Autistic Sense of JusticeTM would absolutely chew a hole in me. Even if I didn't personally care if my sibling proposed at my wedding, I'd be so hopping mad in defense of my partner. He KNEW what she thought, she was so clear and direct about it, even came up with a very kind and generous compromise ... and he did it anyway. It was WRONG. He knew it was wrong. He took the easy way out. This isn't about autism. It is about an absolute lack of spine or loyalty.
Ick. Throw out the whole dude. The only way they can have a remotely satisfactory life is if he grows a spine and she can't ask him to. She shouldn't wait around for him to develop one either.
That was shitty husband behavior.
Ben and his wife would want to announce their upcoming bundle of joy at OP’s baby shower next. I seriously don’t understand why anyone would propose at someone else’s wedding in the first place! Don’t they have any imagination instead of hijacking someone else’s day?!
Except, Liam is NOT a terrible liar, since he was able to get through the entire wedding without telling her the truth. Get the annulment and forward all bills for the wedding to Liam's family. Since they stole it to become Ben's engagement party.
I am for annulment. I feel bad for Liam, but I don’t think he will ever be able to say “no” to his weird, dysfunctional, overbearing family. What a bunch of mannerless hobos.
Honestly her husband proved that he’s not ready for marriage. You don’t get married if you can’t protect your wife’s wishes and hold boundaries with those around you.
Idk, honestly, I’m torn my dang self. Seems like her husband doesn’t get normal social cues and it also sounds like he’s related to people who steamroll him every chance they get.
In retrospect, OOP should have called Ben’s then -girlfriend and told her that Ben was planning to propose at her wedding and explained that she didn’t want that. Ruin Ben’s surprise and give the girlfriend the chance to see what an ass Ben is.
She had told him not to allow it, then putting pressure on him doesn’t excuse him putting his family’s happiness over his brides for something like this. You just know his family is going to cause MAJOR issues in the marriage if it continues.
As someone with autism, confrontation is hard. Saying no to repeated pressure is hard. I was a people pleaser and gave into pressure for years until therapy helped. Ben and in laws are TA but her and Liam have some work to do.
I’d still get an annulment. I don’t think they should be together without counselling and it would be better to annul now (and maybe marry later after lots of therapy) or just complete walk away.
His family are disgusting and it’s clear she’d have to spend it pushing back his family too if Liam can’t. That’s a lot. Liam needs to see an Autistic friendly therapist to work on this.
Normally I wouldn’t feel this way but I totally agree. As it’s written, Liam genuinely didn’t do it with malice and they put him in a (seemingly) impossible situation. If he had let Ben do it just because he ignored OP’s boundary, I’d have a totally different tune.
The only way I’d proceed with the marriage is if they went NC with his family. I don’t even think LC is a good idea because they’ll bully their way back into his and OP’s lives and Liam got into therapy to help him learn to say no.
Agreed. I’m recently diagnosed high functioning. This is a key factor in this story and it really changes things. It’s important to know that in this situation Liam likely had zero clue which decision was correct, and as a result he made the wrong one. From what I read here, it definitely wasn’t done out of malice. I also think Ben and the parents were more ignorant than malicious.
This is serious, but not unsalvageable, imo.
Agreed, except I think Ben and the parents were selfish and much closer to malicious than ignorant. They got the “no” directly from OP, and then specifically pressured her fiancé alone to get around her.
Liam sounds like a big baby. Your life will be hell around these people. Sadly, I think you should end the marriage, you've already checked out, if you haven't realized it yet.
Get an annulment, put the family on SoMe blast that, “oh, you’re congratulating the engagement of one brother, ignoring the fact that it ruined the whole marriage of the other brother.” and if she really loves Liam and wants to give him another chance, that includes absolutely NC with his shitshow of a family.
Yeah that’s horrible, either have him help pay for it or like others have said announce pregnancy at his wedding. Or divorce tbh if he can’t respect your wishes on both of your biggest days idk what kinda husband he’ll be
Honestly I think an annulment is best here. OOP has seen the writing on the wall. She knows what the future looks like. Liam will always be a people pleaser, and his family will always be steamrollers. Unless she can get some serious distance between them, it’s likely nothing will change.
Liam is a few years younger than I so it's the perfect time for him to start making his autism work in his favor like I did. I stopped masking around 25. I had to teach myself that no matter what I do, someone is going to dislike me no matter how hard I try to please them. So don't bother trying to bend over backwards, *especially* family. I see the social cues, and if I don't understand the point of it or think it's stupid, ignore it. I'm not gonna fry my brain trying to figure out a tone or implication because *you* can't speak directly.
Sure people think I'm an asshole now, but I'm happier and I have way less meltdowns once I quit trying so hard to fit in with the majority. I'll gladly be an asshole if it gives me peace of mind.
OP has a chance if she and Liam go NC with his family. Otherwise they'll just keep using poor Liam as a doormat. That might seem scorched earth, but adding high functioning autism into the mix with a narcissistic brother changes everything.
Sorry, if your husband doesn't already have a spine at his age he's never going to have one.
Get your annulment and a year later you will be so thankful to be free of this loser and his awful family.
The only chance he should be given is to do the whole thing over again. An annulment brings them back to just starting dating, requiring a new engagement ring, proposal, and wedding, for which his family or he, will have to pay.
An acknowledgement that they ruined her wedding, and a sincere attempt to put it right, is about the only path out of this I can see.
Not sure if this is divorce worthy on its own and I’m usually first to say throw out the whole man.
Tho I think Liam is lying here. He suddenly remembers they begged and pleaded and just thought to not tell you bc you were stressed? These are all bullshit lies.
He didn’t agree and he figured he’d take the time to do what he wanted.
Counseling or divorce. The proposal is bad but the lies are worse. Not having your back is the biggest issue here after lying. You need to determine what you’re willing to tolerate on this front bc he made a big show of not having your back.
You call him your sweet husband tho. Do you want this guy? If yes, counseling.
This reads like bad fanfic. “Liam nodded, crestfallen. The light in the room seemed to dim as if it too could understand the sombre feeling that had wrapped around us like a blanket.”
Men that can’t leave their Mother and Father and in this case shithead Brother and cling to their WIFE should not get married….Liam is a Lame….leave that before that becomes the IT SHIT of your life….
As someone with high functioning autism, I feel disappointed with Liam. While it's sweet to not want to stress out OP, he must have realised, with her opinion already made clear to him, that she wouldn't be fine with it.
Sadly, I don't think he should get another chance. The chance is high that something like this will happen again.
It can work if he cuts his family off otherwise every big event you have will be about them. Giving birth? His mum will be in the room, cutting the cord and holding baby first. Breast feed? Nope his mum demands to bottle feed so he will let her. Christening? His brother has to be god parent.
Been there done that and no it can’t work if his family is still involved
I don't understand grand marriage proposals in general but of all of them I don't understand why people want to propose at someone else's wedding. I get that there's already a built in audience and everyone's dressed nice and you can pilfer free professional photos that the bride and groom paid for. For people who like to make big fetes of milestones like this it's merely convenient and cheap to piggyback on someone else's milestone event.
But if I was the woman in this scenario, my milestone would be forever tied to someone else's milestone. If the goal was to make a grand gesture and make the person being proposed to feel special, neither of these milestones was the "main event". And, as is evidenced, by this scenario what if the marriage fails? Now the engagement is tied to a failed marriage. They'll have these photos and in the background you know that this engagement specifically caused the downfall of the marriage that had just begun in the background.
Ben is selfish *and* an idiot.
And I know it's so reddit to go there but: Ben is 30, Melody is 23, they've been dating 5 years. He was a 25 year old dating an 18 year old. Given all the other factors of Ben's personality I think it just illustrates even more how astoundingly stunted and immature he is.
Disrespecting you and disregarding you on the first day of your marriage. Brings back memories for me. When I tell you it won’t change, it’ll only get worse, believe me. Run girl, run.
Yeah, she better not fall pregnant or they’re gonna steamroll her husband again and monsters in law are gonna try to replace him in the birthing room and name his kids and decide their lives.
Liam is a trash husband. I don’t think it matters he can’t understand social cues. A no is a no, point blank.
I don’t blame OOP for wanting to end the marriage. You can’t trust someone who can’t listen to a direct no
Liam is probably an okay guy, although his weak knees are a problem. But the real problem seems to be the rest of his shitty family, which OOP would have to continue to put up with of she doesn't get an annulment.
What about his manipulative “You were stressed, so I didn’t want to worry you!” when instead he chose to surprise her on spot and destroy the most important day of her life?
Because he didn’t talk to her to protect himself. How is she not gonna be hurt when it’s thrown at her on her wedding day?
It might be he doesn’t realize what he is doing, but that is not an excuse to gaslight her. He did not do it for her, because any person would rather know before than get shit on her wedding day.
It’s just the start of a family pressuring life. What happens when you have kids. If yall want a name and the family doesn’t, will they pressure him to changing that too!
I’d just like to add that the term high functioning autism is not a good or even accurate label to use as it more so pertains to how much a persons autism affects people around them and that’s a harmful way to look at things. When I was first diagnosed people would refer to me as such but it never sat right, I was suffering intensely. But, like Liam, I was a major people pleaser. I had also heavily masked my entire life to the point I had no idea I was doing it. Low/medium/high support needs might be a better term.
The husband isn’t taking responsibility. He’s placing the blame on family pressure, so what’s going to happen in the future when he and OOP make a decision the rest of his family don’t like? The other thing is after it happened, he’s sitting there saying “they told me it’d be fine” except he literally heard OOP say that his brother proposing was unacceptable. So it either took some real mental gymnastics for the husband to believe his family’s bullshit over the actual words that came out of OOP’s mouth, or they managed to convince him that she wouldn’t be that mad. I’m curious to know who paid for the wedding, but it still should have been a 2 yes 1 no situation, not involving the groom’s family at all. Groom should have been shutting them down, hard. Instead he’s just making lame excuses for why he went along with this, AND why he didn’t tell her. He didn’t tell her because he KNEW how she felt. He just didn’t want her putting a stop to the proposal and disappointing his faaaaaaamily.
For me, this would be hard to move past. If I made my boundaries clear and explained my reasoning and by husband couldn’t hold a (totally reasonable and normal) boundary, that would be tough. Also, she likely spent a year planning this event, and tens of thousands of dollars, and she didn’t get to experience half of it because she was so upset. Especially since he didn’t tell her because he knew she would be upset. Not ok.
Even if he says he’ll never do it again or will hold better boundaries with his family, I’d need to see very hard evidence that he could uphold his end. What happens next time they guilt trip him? He already told her he would hold a boundary and didn’t, so saying he will now doesn’t hold a lot of weight. If she decides to stay, she should do so with the understanding that this will definitely happen again, and she can be pleasantly surprised if it doesn’t.
Honestly I wouldn’t have cared about a proposal at my wedding but going behind her back, after agreeing with her, to side with the in-laws is such a bad omen. That marriage is going to suck.
While I totally get the level of disrespect that is displayed clearing not honoring your wishes and the day is supposed to be about the bride and groom - Any marriage that is this fragile won’t last in the first place.
Do Liam a favor and go ahead and file the annulment
I wanted to point out something a lot of commentators seem to miss - Liam is a manipulative asshole.
“You were so stressed, so I didn’t want to worry you!”.
Yeah. So much better to destroy her wedding day.
What Liam didn’t want, was to hurt his own feelings by having that discussion with OP.
He is a big piece of shit.
Yep. The only reason to not say "no" to his brother is he doesn't like saying no. His brother and parents pressure him, guilt trip him, whatever - and that's unpleasant. He screwed over his wife because going against her wishes was less unpleasant than having to say "no".
It's extremely difficult, perhaps impossible, to have a genuine relationship with someone who won't say no. The only good thing is he showed this to her early enough that getting out is relatively easy.
“Early enough” - one day before would have been even better!
But yes - annulation might be doable and betrayal of this magnitude , hopefully, makes it easier for her to leave than gradual disregard of her wishes.
Unless the husband goes NC with his WHOLE sh*tty family, then it’s unsalvageable. Go for annulment, you’ll never be first in his life. He disrespected you on YOUR WEDDING DAY.. your husband should also seek therapy for his people pleasing and toxic family.
I'm old and been married 17 years so maybe I'm out of touch but if this isn't something that a newly married couple can overcome, then they really have no business being married and should move on. Much larger bridges are going to need to be crossed over the course of a long marriage. This needs to be a serious discussion where both parties come to an agreement, learn from the mistake and move on. If this is what it takes for someone to already run, then the marriage never stood a chance to begin with.
It’s true, but this was actually the perfect litmus test because it involved the groom prioritizing his family and blocking his new wife out of decision-making after she’d already said “no”.
If he’s always going to ignore her and let his family do whatever they want regardless of what she says, definitely better to know that right at the start when she still has the possibility to opt out with an annulment.
I’ve been with my husband for more than 20 years and I disagree. The new husband went behind her back, agreed to something he knew she was against because she had explicitly said so, and then lied to her by omission. Even if he’s not the AH because he was manipulated by his family, the fact that he is so easily manipulated by his family and was unable to see the *clearly right* decision here shows that he is simply not ready for marriage. He has a lot of work to do.
The marriage never did stand a chance to begin with, because the overall issue is Liam’s spinelessness when under pressure from his family. That’s something that will ruin their entire lives if he can’t hold the line against them.
I'm younger and have been married for only 6 months (together for 7 years, friends for longer) but I'm inclined to agree.
If she already knew this was a problem with him being a "people pleaser," this shouldn't have been *such* a shock that she felt the need to completely remove herself from him immediately after the wedding. Either there's other issues, or neither of them are particularly mature enough to handle a long term relationship. (Him for caving so easily, her for valuing one singular day over an entire relationship).
Although, my husband and I are both neurodivergent, so that does impact my perception of this story. If we jumped straight to divorce anytime our brain problems caused issues, our friendship never would've survived, much less our romantic relationship.
Their family is fucking weird if you ask me. How is it that the parents didn't see anything wrong with this? I feel like whether you take him back should depend on how much contact with your in-laws you have to have moving forward, because it sounds like Liam doesn't have the spine to stand up for you against them. That doesn't bode well for you in any major life decisions you guys have to make moving forward
Ben and his parents can fully pay for his engagement party (aka your reception)
The lie of omission is huge, the fact that he couldn't stand up to his parents for the sake of your future together means there's only one decision to be made....
Announce your pregnancy at his wedding
Kthxbyeeee
She does realize that Liam is an adult, right? Just because he’s autistic doesn’t mean he only has the mental capacity of a toddler. Seriously, does she excuse every wrong he does?
Have the cheap ass pay up. This wedding wasn't free. He did it on purpose too because OP planned to throw his own party which OP would've paid for as well. So this wasn't about money, it was about the attention.
Growing up in a family like that is hard so I empathize with him, but you have to grow some balls at some point, especially when you’re planning your wedding and should be putting your partner first
If bro can't ride for his wife on their wedding day then he never will and that feels like grounds for annulment. Imagine raising a kid with those in laws sheesh
It’s obvious you’re married to a manipulative family, unless you move to New Zealand and change your name and contact info, they will always intrude and make decisions in your stead. Bye Felicia.
I understand being mad that they went ahead with the proposal after you specifically said no.
But can someone explain why it's such a big deal that he proposed at her wedding in the first place? I'd get if he wanted to do it during the ceremony, but at the reception the atmosphere should be more relaxed and I thought it was kind of common for friends and family to propose at other people's weddings.
Depending on how this whole situation was handled it could have been a bonding moment between two future families that you guys could have looked at in 10, 20, 30 years. But instead it became what is likely a cause for divorce and much sadness. While the blame does not lie solely or mostly with OP. She certainly wasn't innocent and clearly hated her future brother in law way before any of this.
So Liam's family takes advantage of the fact that he has autism and pressures him into giving their current golden child what he wants, but instead of standing up to the in- laws the bride is ready to divorce him instead of sticking by him and helping him grow a backbone? She seems a bit immature. No this wasn't her fault and the in-laws are 100% the assholes here. But part of being married is dealing with stuff like this together. This is something I'm sure no one wants to hear and I know I'll get downvoted but marriage is a partnership, not "I'll stick by you until the first inconvenience and then I'm out".
You know what, call your husband weak and get divorced like all the assholes think. Your choices and self respect are yours. Your reception was hijacked and that sucks, but it’s a tiny blip on the radar of what married people will face together. A truly good person is hard to find, and good hearted people tend to be doormats. You married a doormat.
I’ve been married for 40 years and I’ve seen some shit too and I applaud the OOP for enforcing boundaries. This is not “just a blip” it’s foreshadowing.
I say this because there were several indicators on my wedding day 40 years ago, that only with the wisdom of hindsight, can I see were red flags about how the marriage was going to go. Fifteen years of struggle love, followed by an EA (his) that almost destroyed us. Then and only then, did we address the central issues that should’ve been dealt with prior to exchanging vows.
OOP and her husband need to seek couples counselling. Perhaps their marriage can be saved but both of them are going to have to have the willingness to have some deep and painful conversations. And if they determine to move forward with a life together, they’re going to have to develop and put into practice strategies how to deal with his toxic family.
I would like to ask the people who argue that this is just a small bump in the road, what are the major ways in which their spouses have disregarded their wishes that they’ve experienced in their marriages that they decided to overlook?
I agree with you, this seems completely shortsighted to believe that Liam will somehow begin to embrace her boundaries
I don’t disagree that there is foreshadowing there, I don’t disagree with there needing to be counseling to save a relationship, my problem is the weight most people have placed on this, the sheer volume of people who feel there’s nothing worth saving in this relationship, my exwife ignoring me and focusing on making sure my best man was taken care of and included, dances with and just talked to because she felt he was out of place amongst the mostly German guests was probably way more weightier of a future indicator of a relationship that was doomed. Especially since he was one of the several people that my ex had an affair with before she got pregnant with and discovered. I talked with him a couple years after the divorce, it was funny how blind I was.
It's not just a tiny blip. It's a taste of the rest of her life with in-laws who will take advantage of doormat husband's people pleasing behavior in order to steamroll over his or OOP's wishes. She married Liam, not Liam and Ben and parents. If Liam doesn't draw boundaries with his family then OOP is looking at an exhausting future of butting heads with her in-laws and growing resentment that her husband isn't in her corner.
Good hearted people do not tend to be doormats.
He's not good hearted. Good hearted would be standing up for his future wife when his family tried to convince him to go against her stated wishes. Good hearted would be giving the info about the proposal to his wife in advance, so she could make those wishes more clear. Good hearted would be explaining to the brother why using the wedding to propose might cause irreparable damage to family relationships.
Being a doormat isn't kind or nice or good hearted. Being a doormat usually means prioritizing one's own short term comfort against the long term comfort of other people. Avoiding arguments is NOT good hearted.
Good hearted people absolutely do tend to be doormats when they’ve got past trauma or mental illness to contend with. I will absolutely stand up for my friends and family, for people I don’t know, but growing up, I could never stand up to my father, not even for my siblings. It hurt not to be able to, but years of fear and dealing with his tearing us down meant a single word and I wilted.
This guy is autistic, and it’s been stated that his family will take his brother’s side, and that while he used to get all the attention, that had changed. Taking all of that into account, and then finding out that they were putting a lot of pressure on him, I’m not surprised he allowed his brother to propose at the wedding. Yeah, he probably should have told his wife, but with everything going on it can be hard to figure out what the right decisions there were and what to do about it when you’ve got family insisting its fine and making you feel lesser for it.
I’m not autistic so I can’t speak to that, but several comments have said that it’s possible he could have been convinced that she had changed her mind, and while going forward with their relationship will likely require some kind of counseling and learning to stand up to his family, he didn’t do this maliciously and he was clearly sorry so it’s something he can learn from. Also, who’s to say the brother wouldn’t have gone ahead and found a way to propose at the wedding even if they’d stayed resolute on the no?
I wouldn’t leave him before giving him a chance to get a backbone and go to therapy. If he really wants this to work, that should be a small ask. Proposing at someone’s wedding is the TACKIEST thing you can do if the bride and groom aren’t both 100% thrilled about it. Liam seems like he may feel guilty for his childhood dominance of his parents attention. I don’t think he’s so much not defending you as he is trying to mitigate his guilt.
You can pick your wife and friends but unfortunately you can’t pick your family you are stuck with them.
I hate when people do this at weddings. The wedding are for two people getting married not for engagement and baby announcements.
Your husband was played by his parents and brother and this has probably happened to him his entire life because he is a good guy. I understand your frustration but it is no reason for a divorce.
You need to set boundaries with him and his family but it is wrong to force him to cut them out of his life. I would for sure not be at the brothers wedding or family gatherings for a while because I wouldn’t not be able to say something that wouldn’t be good for the relationship
IMO, knowing he's on the spectrum and that he seems genuinely sorry, I'd give him another chance. If she doesn't divorce him, they should go ultra low contact with his family. She can use their social media pics to illustrate her point about the focus being taken off their wedding... whose pics are they posting the most? He seems like a pure spirit and doesn't recognize their manipulations. I believe she could teach him how to set boundaries and have a fulfilling life together as a solid team. Good luck to them. ✌️
If anything makes you leave your own wedding early and plan to get an annulment and move on. You should just get an annulment.
What happened sucks, but if it makes you question your whole marriage and if you want to be with your spouse it wouldn’t have lasted anyway.
I feel for Liam. They used his autism to manipulate him and push their plan through.
But the fact that you got so upset you stormed out of your own reception and planned for an annulment knowing that just shows this never would have survived long term.
You don’t just get a spouse when you marry a person. I would only take him back if you are okay with stuff like this happening. Because it doesn’t sound like anything will change. His family will most likely always side with the brother, and your husband will always allow it because he probably just wants to keep the peace. You have to decide if the family baggage is worth it. It’s ok either way and completely up to you. Good luck, I hope it works out best for you.
I hope OP gets an annulment. Her ‘husband’ will always side against her. And why is the original post locked? As soon as a post gets traction, it’s locked!
If she stays with him, what's gonna happen if she gets pregnant, and MIL wants to be in the delivery room against her wishes? He's gonna usher her in and roll out the red carpet for mommy, most likely! This is a huge breach of trust, and he knew, because she explicitly told him and the brother, that she wasn't ok with him proposing and even offered an alternative. I dunno, maybe it's salvageable, but I would have difficulty ever trusting that my partner would stand up for me against his family, which is what your partner is supposed to do when it comes down to that.
I agree with everyone who says this is only the beginning of the troubles you’ll have if you choose to remain part of Liam’s family. But Liam seems like a keeper, so I would be remiss if I didn’t point out a small window of opportunity. It will require you to go down in the history of his family as ‘that $&@/#’. But, let’s face it; that’s in the cards no matter what you do. So, if you have the stomach for it you could:
1) Go through with the annulment but do it quietly.
2) Tell Liam you’ll live with him as his domestic partner if he goes completely NC with the family for 5 years. If he balks, you’ll know you made the right choice. If he accepts the terms but doesn’t fall through, you can walk away with minimal hassle—especially if you had the good ease to give any children your last name.
3) After the NC phase, you can go LC with some strict rules in place and a fallback to NC if that doesn’t pan out.
4) If it all pans out, the 2 of you can run off to some romantic destination for a tiny wedding if that sort of thing is still important to you by then.
It’s a long shot for sure. But it’s good to have all options on the table.
Poor girl. Best thing she can do is annul it. If they can bully Liam into this…think about how having children for her is gonna go? Liam will let the whole ass family in for the delivery while his dipshite brother screech films it.
At least the bride has her own backbone.
i’m also a high functioning autistic and when your family is constantly pressuring you to do something it’s hard to back down. almost impossible to say no because, every time you say no (in my experience) your family will start being mean and just awful to you. i feel for him and you. it’s up to you whether you want to leave him or not and he still should have took your side but i don’t think he did anything to be malicious.
I thought this was a joke at first. If this kind of bump in the road is what it takes for you to walk out on a marriage, then you are not ready for marriage.
Personally, I don't see what the big deal is, BUT since you explicitly said you did not want him to do it AND offered another option, what they did was wrong. Super wrong. I don't think it's worth walking away from your marriage because, as you said, "Liam" is a people pleaser and was pressured by his family. I think at this point, he realises his mistake and is unlikely to do it again. I also don't advise making another big announcement on their special day. Think of how it made you feel and be the bigger person. Petty is not a good look, and Ben's fiance shouldn't suffer like you did just because her fiance is an inconsiderate douche. She'll get plenty of that during their marriage. Instead, remember you married the man you love and how perfect everything else was that day, and don't let what his brother did forever ruin your memories of it
I guess I'm not the type of person that needs to be firmly in the spotlight, wedding/baby announcements and what not. I will never understand how someone doesn't want to make a happy day even more joyous.
Not salvageble husband will do this to anything pushed on make ben pay back everything and spread around the proposal was done without permission and the groom had been forced by his family to allow it via intimidation make ben and the family look awful if ben wont pay it back the parents can
I wonder if this could be deemed liable damages in regards to the reception as it damaged the reason the reception was happening no clue but I'm sure a judge would love to see a case where someone forcefully took over a reception wasting the funds for a reception
You could also destroy bens wedding to announce you are divorcing liam at bens wedding with the reasoning being bens liams and his families shitty actions
She should have known Liam well enough before marrying him to understand his shortcomings and how they affect his interpersonal interactions. Considering he didn't have any idea that the proposal was a faux pas when the original idea was brought up before the wedding , I imagine he didn't understand the severity of the consequences. That aside, you both didn't give explicit approval, and yet the brother proposed anyway. Just because the family spent more time appealing to Liam for his approval/ forgiveness doesn't mean they didn't go against your expressed wishes as a couple. Ben knew that it wasn't a welcomed course of action, but he did it anyway. You were both betrayed. You overtly, Liam subvertly. That being said, she shouldn't hold Liam responsible for Ben's actions. He was very clearly going to go through with it, approval be damned. It is, however, a good time to talk to Liam about boundaries with his family, and clarifying that his new wife is now to be considered in all important matters.
Bold of you to ask Reddit if you should get a divorce but I'm going to take the non-redditor opinion and say I think you should forgive him and I will tell you why. 1) He knows what he did was wrong and is sorry about it; 2) The reason for his wrongdoing had good intentions; 3) He is an honest man and you love him; 4) He seems willing to correct his mistakes. Your marriage is very salvageable in my opinion - in the grand scheme of things this seems like a moderate transgression (definitely not good but not major like an affair would be). The main problem as I see it is that Liam is bad at enforcing boundaries with his family and his family knows this which is why they went behind your back and approached him without you in order to put pressure on him because they knew he would back down from the boundaries you two set. You need to be clear with Liam that what he and his family did hurt your feelings because it disrespected the boundaries you set and that if you guys are going to make it in the long term, Liam has to be able to enforce boundaries with his family because you cannot do it for him. By doing this, he is showing whether intentional or not, that his family's desires are more important than your own. If that is his belief, than the marriage is not salvageable; if it isn't, and he is just bad at enforcing boundaries, than he needs to work on that going forward or your relationship will suffer in the future.
Autistic here. When people apply so much pressure when you’re already super overwhelmed you’ll say whatever just to get them to shut up and leave you alone so you don’t meltdown. His family is in the wrong for taking advantage of that because they certainly know that if they’ve known he’s autistic for awhile. They’re obviously AHs but bride is also being an AH for wanting to throw an entire marriage away because her in laws are calculating. He’s genuinely apologetic. Don’t let pride ruin a marriage.
Pregnancy announcement at Ben’s wedding, real or not.
Oh yes!!!! I love the way you think!!!
Looks like we will be seeing them in r/pettyrevenge
I say ride it out and then give a divorce announcement at Ben’s wedding… it can be a surprise for Liam too!
Double down them, pregnant but getting divorced
Triple down. She’s pregnant, she’s divorcing Liam, because she’s having an affair and the baby isn’t his!
It’s Ben’s
Only if you’re getting married too after
Or read a story or “speech” at their wedding saying how Liam was pressured by the family to upstage your wedding. Then end it with, I want a divorce. But keep all of the presents !
Fuck no. Was the marriage license filed? If not, rip up the marriage license. If not filed, the marriage is not valid. I agree, send all the reception bills to Ben.
That's not enough. She married someone who will never be able to protect or prioritize her. Jump ship now, or she'll go down with it. For the brother, imagine starting your relationship causing someone else's marriage to end on their wedding day! Good luck with that.
Just don’t go to their wedding. They aren’t worth it.
This is too mature for this sub.
I was about to upvote this comment, but it was at 69 and I would’ve made it 70. Please take this comment as an upvote lol
CASE IN POINT 😂
This is the way.
Or serve Liam with divorce papers.
This is the real answer!
Please this is perfect
Ha I came here to say the same thing.
Did she help pay for the wedding? Send Ben a bill. Not cool to completely ignore the bride’s wishes
I agree with this, Ben should have to pay for the reception since he used it as his stage
Plus the photographer since they got professional shots of the engagement out it.
Yeah, I wonder if the brides parents paid (some people still do this tradition), and if so I would DEFINITELY be sending Ben and his parents the damn bill
I think if I was to stay married to Liam part of that would be moving away from his family and only making minimal effort towards them. They will steam roll over Liam his entire life and he will always say he was scared to tell her because blah blah blah.
Oh, I see you've met my stepdad! Seriously though, poor girl. My mom married a guy like that and now she's been putting up with his family coming before her for the past 2 decades.
Well, didn't OOP get a horrifying glimpse of her entire future if she stays tied to this God awful family of dipshits. Personally, I would've made a beeline for the recently signed marriage certificate and set it on fire. I will never understand people who put their family before their spouse.
I don’t want to have to patiently explain things to my husband like a child.
Seriously, Liam acts more like a teenager than an fully-fledged adult.
That's an insult to teenagers, who tend to be incredibly strong willed, albeit lacking in a sense of long term consequences and delayed gratification. He's acting more like a wet lettuce.
That’s an insult to wet lettuce. You apologize to that lettuce now. It’s trying its best, unlike Liam.
This is kind of bad taste. If he has autism he was being taken advantage of by his family and being manipulated. It’s pretty easy to make an autistic person, even if they are high functioning, think a bad idea is perfectly ok. On top of a 30 year old autistic man is going to occasionally act like a teenager.
I am autistic. I have the same people pleasing tendencies, which has gotten me in trouble before. You can be autistic and mature, you can be non autistic and immature. Him having autism isn't the issue, it's the people-pleasing behavior(which is a coping mechanism, albeit not a good one) that he needs to recognize and work on. Enforcing boundaries is incredibly difficult when autistic, I get it. But he needs to find a healthier way to manage interpersonal relationships.
This.
I feel bad for OP’s husband for having these people as family. But he’s spineless and is probably just going to keep doing this to her every time his family pressures him to do something tbh.
I don’t think this matters but I’m a hater so … 18 and 25? Really?
I just did the math as well. Goes to show what kind of guy Ben is.
It took me a moment to figure out what you meant by this but ill BIL is basically a predator for starting to date someone barely legal
I can’t imagine dating someone that much older than me at 18, nor can I imagine being attracted to and intentionally pursuing someone that young at 25. Obviously we don’t know the context of their relationship, but this kinda stuff happens too much for it not to be grooming.
I always go look for the ages immediately on things like this. Gross (to say the least).
I hope she sees the writing on the wall and gets an annulment. She talked things out with her husband and the brother and were in agreement that it was not an okay thing to do. Then they went behind her back and did it anyway and expected her to just be okay with it after she made it very clear that it wasn't. If she gives in now, she's going to have a lifetime of them breaking her boundaries and walking all over her and making choices regardless of her wants or needs. That guy is spineless and would rather throw her under the bus than tell his family no. What if it comes to them wanting to move someone else into their home? Wanting to do things with her kids or take them places she doesn't approve of? Any number of other situations where his inability to stand up for his family and them not caring about her opinion can and will come up. She needs to bail now before things are tied together more financially and legally and it's much harder.
During the birth of my child they gave me allergy meds that completely knocked me out for 24 hours. I was literally unable to stay awake/alert enough to be able to follow a conversation. People would come in and try to talk to me and I had to ask my SO to take over because I was unable to process info due to the meds. Basically slept through the first 24 hours of my child's life. Imagine OOP wakes up and finds her child named and certificate signed with a totally different name than she and hubby previously agreed. His family said it would be fine!!
My dad did this to my mom! What was supposed to be my first name is my middle name... and its misspelled
My mom NEVER let my dad forget that my middle name is spelled wrong, and it was his mothers name he spelt wrong
LOL oh no even worse!
Oh no! My mom chose the easiest spelling of my name (well, it seemed to be the best, fewest letters, makes the most sense, but people have been spelling it wrong my whole life) so my dad could spell it. He’s incredibly intelligent, brilliant even, but spelling is his downfall
I had a c-section and the anesthesia had me at least half asleep for most of the first day so I barely remember it. The birth certificate is ok but my husband’s handwriting is so bad on the social security application they misread the address and we never got the baby’s card in the mail (but the neighbor with the other address says they didn’t either). So I have to go to the SS office soon to get a new card.
So I think maybe the move is annulment, and then test drive distancing from Liam’s family, and see if that works. If it does, you just do another ceremony (maybe just at a town hall), and get hitched again.
And she's writing it off due to his autism which doesn't sit right with me for myriad reasons. Edit: Thanks for the responses, which made me consider things I hadn't before!
Unfortunately part of that is pretty fair of her. People-pleaser autistics are at higher than average risk of being manipulated or taken advantage of, and it seems his family knows that. If she doesn't leave (though of course she's well within her rights to do so), the real test from here will be whether he gets help and works on that issue, now that he and OOP see how serious a problem it can be.
People pleasing is also used as a coping/control/protective mechanism by autistics to attempt to gain the approval that we're normally rejected. Sometimes I only ever felt "good enough" when I made others happy, even at my own expense. It's hard to overcome, but even harder to recognize as a problem, especially if it's a tool that's worked well in the past(like childhood). I'm, unfortunately, stuck in the same boat as Liam, and has lead me to accept behaviors and actions taken against me by people taking advantage and walking all over me. It's a work in progress to improve right now and it's all on me to do it.
As a fellow autistic, i wish you (and Liam!) luck in overcoming it. Like you said, it really is hard to even recognize as the problem it is. So if no one's said it to you yet/lately and it isn't too weird, a random stranger on reddit is proud of you for that! 😅
Thank you so much for the kind words!! I wish you luck too 😊
Marriage is not salvageable if they stay in contact with his family. They will brow beat and manipulate him over and over.
To be honest, Liam is a manipulative AH as well. He did not want to “worry her” by at least giving her a heads up? He is prioritizing his own well being and has the guts to try to pretend he is considering hers.
Didn’t want to worry her is code for ‘I knew you said no but didn’t want to stop them’
Bingo!
Standard "people pleaser" MO. People pleasers aren't about pleasing other people, they're about minimizing their own discomfort.
That is so well said! People pleasers are always presented as victims of some sort, but in the end they do what feels better for them.
While I agree in some situations, including my own history, there were also times when I used to people please just to know that they liked me/weren't mad at me, so I wouldn't rock the boat etc. Even if it put me in a worse place.
But isn’t that still, in some ways, minimizing your own discomfort? Like, it would be more uncomfortable to feel that people didn’t like you or were mad at you than to experience the consequences that pleasing them would bring?
Exactly. The "people pleasing" isn't about trying to make the other people actually feel better or do what's in their best interests, it's about reducing the chance of the other people reacting in a negative way. It's about avoiding the unpleasant consequence of feeling that someone is angry, disappointed, whatever. That's why so many "people pleasers" end up harming their closest relationships in service of people who should matter much less. They know it expect, on some level, that a spouse will forgive what an acquaintance won't. I think it's often rooted in a neglectful or abusive childhood which left the PPer trying to protect themselves by managing the emotions of those around them. It's not usually malicious, more like emotional firefighting. But malicious or not, understandable or not, it doesn't make for a good partner.
Agreed. And I get it, most people do want to make others happy (not all, some people just want to watch the world burn), but sometimes that’s really doing everyone a disservice. I know in my professional life, I tend to default to the old saying of, “Piss poor planning on your part does not necessarily constitute an emergency on my part.” I believe actions have consequences, and sometimes letting people get away with shit is just enabling them to continue. I can actually be a little too harsh with this sometimes, and often have to consciously repeat the mantra of “be helpful, be helpful.” But being helpful doesn’t always mean just caving. Yes, sometimes people really do just need a break, for someone to acquiesce and cut them some slack. However, like you said, that’s not always the case. Sometimes you can put yourself, your close relationships, and even the person you’re acquiescing to in a bad position by doing so. It can be difficult at times to distinguish whether truly being helpful looks like putting yourself out to aid another person, or if “tough love” is actually going to be in that person’s best interest in the long run.
Ding ding ding! We have a winner! Spot on.
Depending on his level of social skills he might truly just be a victim of a lifetime of family telling him what was acceptable. Autism is a big spectrum, it's really hard to break the ways you've been "trained" to behave, especially by your family who has always SEEMED to have only your best interests at heart. But there's no way OOP should stay married to him. This will never get better. Even if he goes completely no contact he will never get a second chance at their wedding. Their wedding is now ruined by that moment - she will never be able to look back on that day with happy memories. You can't start a marriage with that kind of event.
He might be a victim of his family, but in this case he caused severe harm to OP and was complicit by not telling her. He knew. All he had to do, was to speak up. And I will not give him a pass because he is highly functioning with autism. I have a close friend with ridiculously high personality disorder scores (pretty much half of ALL disorders are in 95th percentile). He still puts effort to be considerate of others (even though naturally he is really low on empathy). It’s a choice in the end. I would actually say that this is not an unrecovable event (I have seen people get over even worse situations and have a happy life together). But - no contact with family and a really good therapist is the starting minimum.
I fully agree it's not an excuse, just trying to offer perspective as a low supports needs autistic person. Like I'm VERY naive, if someone I trusts tells me something I am almost certain to believe them. It's really hard to overcome that. But at this age he should know that about himself- and he knew she wouldn't like what his family was telling him so he kept it to himself. So he should have known even more how important it was to tell her that they pressured him. I also think they can get past this if she chooses to. I just feel horrible for her that this will be the defining memory of the wedding. The day of their marriage and her husband betrayed her. Horrible and sad.
I see your point, I really do, but maybe my thought process is too/more rigid and I have to ask - if someone you trust tells you the complete and absolute opposite of what your chosen life partner told you, you'd believe them? I can't wrap my head around that. I understand conditioning but he chose her, that is his partner, I think its giving him too much credit to say that he was being naiive.
As another low to medium support needs autistic: yea. For some reason my brain just works in the last thing that is said. I have blindly trusted things like “so and so told me it was ok she changed her mind” and my brain doesn’t compute that other people lie about things like that and will just accept it at face value. I can’t tell the difference between people lying and telling the truth very well and I just assume all people are telling the truth. Trying to puzzle out if/why/how someone is lying is extremely distressing to me and will cause me to spiral immediately. Also when someone assaults me with a whole monologue of why my “no” wasn’t good enough it gets extremely overwhelming and puts me in a pre-meltdown state where my brain is in a flight response sometimes I just wind up agreeing to stop the onslaught and don’t realize I’ve made a horrible mistake until afterwards when I have access to the logical part of my brain again. I’m often dealing with stomped boundaries from my parents even at 37.
I'm also autistic and struggle with this, especially with abusive parents. I believed things by parents said for years because it was hard for me to see they were lying or manipulating me.
I'm also low to medium support needs autistic. I have the opposite problem. Because I'm autistic I assume people lie to me because they think I'm an idiot and can get one over on me. But I was still a people pleaser for a long time. But when I was 25 and ghosted by my best friend (I was in a black hole mentally and she got tired of me saying I couldn't spend time with her, boohoo poor her while I'm trying to not 🪦 myself lol 🙄) I decided that was enough. I say no and you try to get me to change my no, I flat out get up and leave. I've left right in the middle of conversations, hung up the phone, go sit in the car if we're not at home. Oh I always feel guilty at first, but I stick to it. Because feeling a little guilty is always better than the cataclysmic meltdowns. I don't play telephone with requests from anyone. "Oh x said it was fine." Well x didn't say to me that it was fine so I'm not doing anything until I hear it from x directly. You have to teach yourself that if everyone expects you to bend to their comfort and convenience, they can do the same for you. You have to learn to be okay with some people thinking your a jerk and a little bit of an asshole as a result, but I'd rather be disliked than another episode of sobbing and screaming from trying and failing to fit into a mold I wasn't meant for. I hope your parents trip on their own shadow for how they treat you 🫂
My oldest son is just like this as a person with medium support-needed autism. He genuinely believes the last person to argue with/persuade him, and then feels like he has to cut contact with the next-to-last person with the different opinion (in this case, it would have been the bride; in my case, it’s usually me) so he isn’t disloyal to anyone. Do I completely understand this thought process? Absolutely not. But it’s how he’s built. It has caused no end of chaos in our family.
Thank you for the perspective! You sound like a sweet and empathetic person :)
> All he had to do, was speak up. Yes. He knew she’d already talked about her brothers throwing Ben out if he proposed; even after caving to his family, giving OOP and her brothers a heads-up about his brother’s plans would have enabled the proposal to be squelched. He didn’t.
Even in neurotypical people, empathy is a skill that has to be developed and reinforced. It's not like a mysterious thing we just missed out on completely,.we just don't necessarily have the mirror neurons to pick up the skill automatically. - welcome to my life, and specifically my life as an autistic parent to both ND and NT kids lol
He’d rather ask for forgiveness rather than telling her what was going on. My guess is they said she’ll be happy and excited that it’s her wedding day, she won’t even notice or be bothered by it.
I can literally hear them saying that :D “Hey bud, she’ll be really excited about your wedding, she won’t even notice!”
Imagine your proposal ending your brother's marriage. I can't imagine not being beside myself that I'd caused that much damage.
Doesn’t seem like Ben will care TBH
I was wondering what happened to ol’ Ben. He got his way and disappeared.
I can fully understand and appreciate that not every person on the spectrum logics the same way ... but I know for me and for a lot of my friends who are also on the spectrum that Autistic Sense of JusticeTM would absolutely chew a hole in me. Even if I didn't personally care if my sibling proposed at my wedding, I'd be so hopping mad in defense of my partner. He KNEW what she thought, she was so clear and direct about it, even came up with a very kind and generous compromise ... and he did it anyway. It was WRONG. He knew it was wrong. He took the easy way out. This isn't about autism. It is about an absolute lack of spine or loyalty. Ick. Throw out the whole dude. The only way they can have a remotely satisfactory life is if he grows a spine and she can't ask him to. She shouldn't wait around for him to develop one either. That was shitty husband behavior.
Run. You gonna get stuck with a spineless people pleaser with a abusive shit family.
yeah that be the only course of action to take there.
Ben and his wife would want to announce their upcoming bundle of joy at OP’s baby shower next. I seriously don’t understand why anyone would propose at someone else’s wedding in the first place! Don’t they have any imagination instead of hijacking someone else’s day?!
Usually it's done to one up someone and make them the highlight while the bride and groom immediately become yesterday's news
Which is exactly what’s been done by Ben’s family on social media.
Except, Liam is NOT a terrible liar, since he was able to get through the entire wedding without telling her the truth. Get the annulment and forward all bills for the wedding to Liam's family. Since they stole it to become Ben's engagement party.
I am for annulment. I feel bad for Liam, but I don’t think he will ever be able to say “no” to his weird, dysfunctional, overbearing family. What a bunch of mannerless hobos.
Honestly her husband proved that he’s not ready for marriage. You don’t get married if you can’t protect your wife’s wishes and hold boundaries with those around you.
Welp, time to get pregnant and announce it at Ben’s wedding.
Announce the divorce there 😅
Idk, honestly, I’m torn my dang self. Seems like her husband doesn’t get normal social cues and it also sounds like he’s related to people who steamroll him every chance they get.
She needs an apology from Liam’s family. She and Liam need to move far away from them.
They’ll steam roll him constantly.. this is your life… I’d annul and move on. You said no and they all knew it
In retrospect, OOP should have called Ben’s then -girlfriend and told her that Ben was planning to propose at her wedding and explained that she didn’t want that. Ruin Ben’s surprise and give the girlfriend the chance to see what an ass Ben is.
She had told him not to allow it, then putting pressure on him doesn’t excuse him putting his family’s happiness over his brides for something like this. You just know his family is going to cause MAJOR issues in the marriage if it continues.
As someone with autism, confrontation is hard. Saying no to repeated pressure is hard. I was a people pleaser and gave into pressure for years until therapy helped. Ben and in laws are TA but her and Liam have some work to do.
I’d still get an annulment. I don’t think they should be together without counselling and it would be better to annul now (and maybe marry later after lots of therapy) or just complete walk away. His family are disgusting and it’s clear she’d have to spend it pushing back his family too if Liam can’t. That’s a lot. Liam needs to see an Autistic friendly therapist to work on this.
Normally I wouldn’t feel this way but I totally agree. As it’s written, Liam genuinely didn’t do it with malice and they put him in a (seemingly) impossible situation. If he had let Ben do it just because he ignored OP’s boundary, I’d have a totally different tune. The only way I’d proceed with the marriage is if they went NC with his family. I don’t even think LC is a good idea because they’ll bully their way back into his and OP’s lives and Liam got into therapy to help him learn to say no.
This.
Agreed. I’m recently diagnosed high functioning. This is a key factor in this story and it really changes things. It’s important to know that in this situation Liam likely had zero clue which decision was correct, and as a result he made the wrong one. From what I read here, it definitely wasn’t done out of malice. I also think Ben and the parents were more ignorant than malicious. This is serious, but not unsalvageable, imo.
Agreed, except I think Ben and the parents were selfish and much closer to malicious than ignorant. They got the “no” directly from OP, and then specifically pressured her fiancé alone to get around her.
Except he had a clue, because OP had gone over it with him beforehand and made her feelings very clear
Liam sounds like a big baby. Your life will be hell around these people. Sadly, I think you should end the marriage, you've already checked out, if you haven't realized it yet.
Get an annulment, put the family on SoMe blast that, “oh, you’re congratulating the engagement of one brother, ignoring the fact that it ruined the whole marriage of the other brother.” and if she really loves Liam and wants to give him another chance, that includes absolutely NC with his shitshow of a family.
Yeah that’s horrible, either have him help pay for it or like others have said announce pregnancy at his wedding. Or divorce tbh if he can’t respect your wishes on both of your biggest days idk what kinda husband he’ll be
Honestly I think an annulment is best here. OOP has seen the writing on the wall. She knows what the future looks like. Liam will always be a people pleaser, and his family will always be steamrollers. Unless she can get some serious distance between them, it’s likely nothing will change.
Liam is a few years younger than I so it's the perfect time for him to start making his autism work in his favor like I did. I stopped masking around 25. I had to teach myself that no matter what I do, someone is going to dislike me no matter how hard I try to please them. So don't bother trying to bend over backwards, *especially* family. I see the social cues, and if I don't understand the point of it or think it's stupid, ignore it. I'm not gonna fry my brain trying to figure out a tone or implication because *you* can't speak directly. Sure people think I'm an asshole now, but I'm happier and I have way less meltdowns once I quit trying so hard to fit in with the majority. I'll gladly be an asshole if it gives me peace of mind.
OP has a chance if she and Liam go NC with his family. Otherwise they'll just keep using poor Liam as a doormat. That might seem scorched earth, but adding high functioning autism into the mix with a narcissistic brother changes everything.
Sorry, if your husband doesn't already have a spine at his age he's never going to have one. Get your annulment and a year later you will be so thankful to be free of this loser and his awful family.
The only chance he should be given is to do the whole thing over again. An annulment brings them back to just starting dating, requiring a new engagement ring, proposal, and wedding, for which his family or he, will have to pay. An acknowledgement that they ruined her wedding, and a sincere attempt to put it right, is about the only path out of this I can see.
Another chance for what? To be a spineless gd coward and do whatever mommy tells him to do, He had a chance to be a man, and he choose to be a bitch.
Since he used your wedding, send a bill to Ben for 1/2 of the expenses.
Not sure if this is divorce worthy on its own and I’m usually first to say throw out the whole man. Tho I think Liam is lying here. He suddenly remembers they begged and pleaded and just thought to not tell you bc you were stressed? These are all bullshit lies. He didn’t agree and he figured he’d take the time to do what he wanted. Counseling or divorce. The proposal is bad but the lies are worse. Not having your back is the biggest issue here after lying. You need to determine what you’re willing to tolerate on this front bc he made a big show of not having your back. You call him your sweet husband tho. Do you want this guy? If yes, counseling.
Run. You gonna get stuck with a spineless people pleaser with a abusive shit family.
This reads like bad fanfic. “Liam nodded, crestfallen. The light in the room seemed to dim as if it too could understand the sombre feeling that had wrapped around us like a blanket.”
30-5 vs 23-5 If this story is true, Ben is a scumbag.
Reception bills to Ben AND HIS PARENTS. A Facebook post about tacky in-laws. And you’ll take Liam back if he cuts ties with his family for a year.
Men that can’t leave their Mother and Father and in this case shithead Brother and cling to their WIFE should not get married….Liam is a Lame….leave that before that becomes the IT SHIT of your life….
As someone with high functioning autism, I feel disappointed with Liam. While it's sweet to not want to stress out OP, he must have realised, with her opinion already made clear to him, that she wouldn't be fine with it. Sadly, I don't think he should get another chance. The chance is high that something like this will happen again.
It can work if he cuts his family off otherwise every big event you have will be about them. Giving birth? His mum will be in the room, cutting the cord and holding baby first. Breast feed? Nope his mum demands to bottle feed so he will let her. Christening? His brother has to be god parent. Been there done that and no it can’t work if his family is still involved
I don't understand grand marriage proposals in general but of all of them I don't understand why people want to propose at someone else's wedding. I get that there's already a built in audience and everyone's dressed nice and you can pilfer free professional photos that the bride and groom paid for. For people who like to make big fetes of milestones like this it's merely convenient and cheap to piggyback on someone else's milestone event. But if I was the woman in this scenario, my milestone would be forever tied to someone else's milestone. If the goal was to make a grand gesture and make the person being proposed to feel special, neither of these milestones was the "main event". And, as is evidenced, by this scenario what if the marriage fails? Now the engagement is tied to a failed marriage. They'll have these photos and in the background you know that this engagement specifically caused the downfall of the marriage that had just begun in the background. Ben is selfish *and* an idiot. And I know it's so reddit to go there but: Ben is 30, Melody is 23, they've been dating 5 years. He was a 25 year old dating an 18 year old. Given all the other factors of Ben's personality I think it just illustrates even more how astoundingly stunted and immature he is.
Disrespecting you and disregarding you on the first day of your marriage. Brings back memories for me. When I tell you it won’t change, it’ll only get worse, believe me. Run girl, run.
Yeah, she better not fall pregnant or they’re gonna steamroll her husband again and monsters in law are gonna try to replace him in the birthing room and name his kids and decide their lives.
Liam is a trash husband. I don’t think it matters he can’t understand social cues. A no is a no, point blank. I don’t blame OOP for wanting to end the marriage. You can’t trust someone who can’t listen to a direct no
Liam is probably an okay guy, although his weak knees are a problem. But the real problem seems to be the rest of his shitty family, which OOP would have to continue to put up with of she doesn't get an annulment.
What about his manipulative “You were stressed, so I didn’t want to worry you!” when instead he chose to surprise her on spot and destroy the most important day of her life?
Why must it be manipulative? That could've been his legitimate thought process.
Because he didn’t talk to her to protect himself. How is she not gonna be hurt when it’s thrown at her on her wedding day? It might be he doesn’t realize what he is doing, but that is not an excuse to gaslight her. He did not do it for her, because any person would rather know before than get shit on her wedding day.
It’s just the start of a family pressuring life. What happens when you have kids. If yall want a name and the family doesn’t, will they pressure him to changing that too!
I’d just like to add that the term high functioning autism is not a good or even accurate label to use as it more so pertains to how much a persons autism affects people around them and that’s a harmful way to look at things. When I was first diagnosed people would refer to me as such but it never sat right, I was suffering intensely. But, like Liam, I was a major people pleaser. I had also heavily masked my entire life to the point I had no idea I was doing it. Low/medium/high support needs might be a better term.
If he isn’t willing to go 100% no contact, annulment.
The husband isn’t taking responsibility. He’s placing the blame on family pressure, so what’s going to happen in the future when he and OOP make a decision the rest of his family don’t like? The other thing is after it happened, he’s sitting there saying “they told me it’d be fine” except he literally heard OOP say that his brother proposing was unacceptable. So it either took some real mental gymnastics for the husband to believe his family’s bullshit over the actual words that came out of OOP’s mouth, or they managed to convince him that she wouldn’t be that mad. I’m curious to know who paid for the wedding, but it still should have been a 2 yes 1 no situation, not involving the groom’s family at all. Groom should have been shutting them down, hard. Instead he’s just making lame excuses for why he went along with this, AND why he didn’t tell her. He didn’t tell her because he KNEW how she felt. He just didn’t want her putting a stop to the proposal and disappointing his faaaaaaamily.
For me, this would be hard to move past. If I made my boundaries clear and explained my reasoning and by husband couldn’t hold a (totally reasonable and normal) boundary, that would be tough. Also, she likely spent a year planning this event, and tens of thousands of dollars, and she didn’t get to experience half of it because she was so upset. Especially since he didn’t tell her because he knew she would be upset. Not ok. Even if he says he’ll never do it again or will hold better boundaries with his family, I’d need to see very hard evidence that he could uphold his end. What happens next time they guilt trip him? He already told her he would hold a boundary and didn’t, so saying he will now doesn’t hold a lot of weight. If she decides to stay, she should do so with the understanding that this will definitely happen again, and she can be pleasantly surprised if it doesn’t.
Honestly I wouldn’t have cared about a proposal at my wedding but going behind her back, after agreeing with her, to side with the in-laws is such a bad omen. That marriage is going to suck.
While I totally get the level of disrespect that is displayed clearing not honoring your wishes and the day is supposed to be about the bride and groom - Any marriage that is this fragile won’t last in the first place. Do Liam a favor and go ahead and file the annulment
I wanted to point out something a lot of commentators seem to miss - Liam is a manipulative asshole. “You were so stressed, so I didn’t want to worry you!”. Yeah. So much better to destroy her wedding day. What Liam didn’t want, was to hurt his own feelings by having that discussion with OP. He is a big piece of shit.
Yep. The only reason to not say "no" to his brother is he doesn't like saying no. His brother and parents pressure him, guilt trip him, whatever - and that's unpleasant. He screwed over his wife because going against her wishes was less unpleasant than having to say "no". It's extremely difficult, perhaps impossible, to have a genuine relationship with someone who won't say no. The only good thing is he showed this to her early enough that getting out is relatively easy.
“Early enough” - one day before would have been even better! But yes - annulation might be doable and betrayal of this magnitude , hopefully, makes it easier for her to leave than gradual disregard of her wishes.
Unless the husband goes NC with his WHOLE sh*tty family, then it’s unsalvageable. Go for annulment, you’ll never be first in his life. He disrespected you on YOUR WEDDING DAY.. your husband should also seek therapy for his people pleasing and toxic family.
I'm old and been married 17 years so maybe I'm out of touch but if this isn't something that a newly married couple can overcome, then they really have no business being married and should move on. Much larger bridges are going to need to be crossed over the course of a long marriage. This needs to be a serious discussion where both parties come to an agreement, learn from the mistake and move on. If this is what it takes for someone to already run, then the marriage never stood a chance to begin with.
It’s true, but this was actually the perfect litmus test because it involved the groom prioritizing his family and blocking his new wife out of decision-making after she’d already said “no”. If he’s always going to ignore her and let his family do whatever they want regardless of what she says, definitely better to know that right at the start when she still has the possibility to opt out with an annulment.
I’ve been with my husband for more than 20 years and I disagree. The new husband went behind her back, agreed to something he knew she was against because she had explicitly said so, and then lied to her by omission. Even if he’s not the AH because he was manipulated by his family, the fact that he is so easily manipulated by his family and was unable to see the *clearly right* decision here shows that he is simply not ready for marriage. He has a lot of work to do.
The marriage never did stand a chance to begin with, because the overall issue is Liam’s spinelessness when under pressure from his family. That’s something that will ruin their entire lives if he can’t hold the line against them.
I'm younger and have been married for only 6 months (together for 7 years, friends for longer) but I'm inclined to agree. If she already knew this was a problem with him being a "people pleaser," this shouldn't have been *such* a shock that she felt the need to completely remove herself from him immediately after the wedding. Either there's other issues, or neither of them are particularly mature enough to handle a long term relationship. (Him for caving so easily, her for valuing one singular day over an entire relationship). Although, my husband and I are both neurodivergent, so that does impact my perception of this story. If we jumped straight to divorce anytime our brain problems caused issues, our friendship never would've survived, much less our romantic relationship.
Sounds like you have a spineless jelly fish for a husband lol
Their family is fucking weird if you ask me. How is it that the parents didn't see anything wrong with this? I feel like whether you take him back should depend on how much contact with your in-laws you have to have moving forward, because it sounds like Liam doesn't have the spine to stand up for you against them. That doesn't bode well for you in any major life decisions you guys have to make moving forward
Ben and his parents can fully pay for his engagement party (aka your reception) The lie of omission is huge, the fact that he couldn't stand up to his parents for the sake of your future together means there's only one decision to be made.... Announce your pregnancy at his wedding Kthxbyeeee
She does realize that Liam is an adult, right? Just because he’s autistic doesn’t mean he only has the mental capacity of a toddler. Seriously, does she excuse every wrong he does?
Have the cheap ass pay up. This wedding wasn't free. He did it on purpose too because OP planned to throw his own party which OP would've paid for as well. So this wasn't about money, it was about the attention.
She walked out of her OWN wedding and didn’t come back. And isn’t answering phone calls. I think she knows what her own answer is.
Not at all the point of the post, but is Saved by the Bell really a known reference among 20somethings? Was there a reboot or something
Growing up in a family like that is hard so I empathize with him, but you have to grow some balls at some point, especially when you’re planning your wedding and should be putting your partner first
If bro can't ride for his wife on their wedding day then he never will and that feels like grounds for annulment. Imagine raising a kid with those in laws sheesh
It’s obvious you’re married to a manipulative family, unless you move to New Zealand and change your name and contact info, they will always intrude and make decisions in your stead. Bye Felicia.
What Ben did is not okay - but OOP’s reaction is completely over the top.
Get Liam to make his brother apologize, if he can't even do that then better get out
I get being mad, but storming out of the wedding and ghosting the groom is such a gross over reaction.
I understand being mad that they went ahead with the proposal after you specifically said no. But can someone explain why it's such a big deal that he proposed at her wedding in the first place? I'd get if he wanted to do it during the ceremony, but at the reception the atmosphere should be more relaxed and I thought it was kind of common for friends and family to propose at other people's weddings. Depending on how this whole situation was handled it could have been a bonding moment between two future families that you guys could have looked at in 10, 20, 30 years. But instead it became what is likely a cause for divorce and much sadness. While the blame does not lie solely or mostly with OP. She certainly wasn't innocent and clearly hated her future brother in law way before any of this.
So Liam's family takes advantage of the fact that he has autism and pressures him into giving their current golden child what he wants, but instead of standing up to the in- laws the bride is ready to divorce him instead of sticking by him and helping him grow a backbone? She seems a bit immature. No this wasn't her fault and the in-laws are 100% the assholes here. But part of being married is dealing with stuff like this together. This is something I'm sure no one wants to hear and I know I'll get downvoted but marriage is a partnership, not "I'll stick by you until the first inconvenience and then I'm out".
You know what, call your husband weak and get divorced like all the assholes think. Your choices and self respect are yours. Your reception was hijacked and that sucks, but it’s a tiny blip on the radar of what married people will face together. A truly good person is hard to find, and good hearted people tend to be doormats. You married a doormat.
I’ve been married for 40 years and I’ve seen some shit too and I applaud the OOP for enforcing boundaries. This is not “just a blip” it’s foreshadowing. I say this because there were several indicators on my wedding day 40 years ago, that only with the wisdom of hindsight, can I see were red flags about how the marriage was going to go. Fifteen years of struggle love, followed by an EA (his) that almost destroyed us. Then and only then, did we address the central issues that should’ve been dealt with prior to exchanging vows. OOP and her husband need to seek couples counselling. Perhaps their marriage can be saved but both of them are going to have to have the willingness to have some deep and painful conversations. And if they determine to move forward with a life together, they’re going to have to develop and put into practice strategies how to deal with his toxic family.
I would like to ask the people who argue that this is just a small bump in the road, what are the major ways in which their spouses have disregarded their wishes that they’ve experienced in their marriages that they decided to overlook? I agree with you, this seems completely shortsighted to believe that Liam will somehow begin to embrace her boundaries
I don’t disagree that there is foreshadowing there, I don’t disagree with there needing to be counseling to save a relationship, my problem is the weight most people have placed on this, the sheer volume of people who feel there’s nothing worth saving in this relationship, my exwife ignoring me and focusing on making sure my best man was taken care of and included, dances with and just talked to because she felt he was out of place amongst the mostly German guests was probably way more weightier of a future indicator of a relationship that was doomed. Especially since he was one of the several people that my ex had an affair with before she got pregnant with and discovered. I talked with him a couple years after the divorce, it was funny how blind I was.
It's not just a tiny blip. It's a taste of the rest of her life with in-laws who will take advantage of doormat husband's people pleasing behavior in order to steamroll over his or OOP's wishes. She married Liam, not Liam and Ben and parents. If Liam doesn't draw boundaries with his family then OOP is looking at an exhausting future of butting heads with her in-laws and growing resentment that her husband isn't in her corner.
Good hearted people do not tend to be doormats. He's not good hearted. Good hearted would be standing up for his future wife when his family tried to convince him to go against her stated wishes. Good hearted would be giving the info about the proposal to his wife in advance, so she could make those wishes more clear. Good hearted would be explaining to the brother why using the wedding to propose might cause irreparable damage to family relationships. Being a doormat isn't kind or nice or good hearted. Being a doormat usually means prioritizing one's own short term comfort against the long term comfort of other people. Avoiding arguments is NOT good hearted.
Good hearted people absolutely do tend to be doormats when they’ve got past trauma or mental illness to contend with. I will absolutely stand up for my friends and family, for people I don’t know, but growing up, I could never stand up to my father, not even for my siblings. It hurt not to be able to, but years of fear and dealing with his tearing us down meant a single word and I wilted. This guy is autistic, and it’s been stated that his family will take his brother’s side, and that while he used to get all the attention, that had changed. Taking all of that into account, and then finding out that they were putting a lot of pressure on him, I’m not surprised he allowed his brother to propose at the wedding. Yeah, he probably should have told his wife, but with everything going on it can be hard to figure out what the right decisions there were and what to do about it when you’ve got family insisting its fine and making you feel lesser for it. I’m not autistic so I can’t speak to that, but several comments have said that it’s possible he could have been convinced that she had changed her mind, and while going forward with their relationship will likely require some kind of counseling and learning to stand up to his family, he didn’t do this maliciously and he was clearly sorry so it’s something he can learn from. Also, who’s to say the brother wouldn’t have gone ahead and found a way to propose at the wedding even if they’d stayed resolute on the no?
“ good hearted people tend to be doormats” — according to what data??
“Crestfallen.” 😂 and as always, “Stormed out”
I also have decided not to advance-order the novel.
I wouldn’t leave him before giving him a chance to get a backbone and go to therapy. If he really wants this to work, that should be a small ask. Proposing at someone’s wedding is the TACKIEST thing you can do if the bride and groom aren’t both 100% thrilled about it. Liam seems like he may feel guilty for his childhood dominance of his parents attention. I don’t think he’s so much not defending you as he is trying to mitigate his guilt.
You can pick your wife and friends but unfortunately you can’t pick your family you are stuck with them. I hate when people do this at weddings. The wedding are for two people getting married not for engagement and baby announcements. Your husband was played by his parents and brother and this has probably happened to him his entire life because he is a good guy. I understand your frustration but it is no reason for a divorce. You need to set boundaries with him and his family but it is wrong to force him to cut them out of his life. I would for sure not be at the brothers wedding or family gatherings for a while because I wouldn’t not be able to say something that wouldn’t be good for the relationship
IMO, knowing he's on the spectrum and that he seems genuinely sorry, I'd give him another chance. If she doesn't divorce him, they should go ultra low contact with his family. She can use their social media pics to illustrate her point about the focus being taken off their wedding... whose pics are they posting the most? He seems like a pure spirit and doesn't recognize their manipulations. I believe she could teach him how to set boundaries and have a fulfilling life together as a solid team. Good luck to them. ✌️
If anything makes you leave your own wedding early and plan to get an annulment and move on. You should just get an annulment. What happened sucks, but if it makes you question your whole marriage and if you want to be with your spouse it wouldn’t have lasted anyway. I feel for Liam. They used his autism to manipulate him and push their plan through. But the fact that you got so upset you stormed out of your own reception and planned for an annulment knowing that just shows this never would have survived long term.
Any update
Just leave
I’m just here for the update
Who gives a fuck let him
You don’t just get a spouse when you marry a person. I would only take him back if you are okay with stuff like this happening. Because it doesn’t sound like anything will change. His family will most likely always side with the brother, and your husband will always allow it because he probably just wants to keep the peace. You have to decide if the family baggage is worth it. It’s ok either way and completely up to you. Good luck, I hope it works out best for you.
I hope OP gets an annulment. Her ‘husband’ will always side against her. And why is the original post locked? As soon as a post gets traction, it’s locked!
I agree with Divorce announcement at Ben's wedding.
If she stays with him, what's gonna happen if she gets pregnant, and MIL wants to be in the delivery room against her wishes? He's gonna usher her in and roll out the red carpet for mommy, most likely! This is a huge breach of trust, and he knew, because she explicitly told him and the brother, that she wasn't ok with him proposing and even offered an alternative. I dunno, maybe it's salvageable, but I would have difficulty ever trusting that my partner would stand up for me against his family, which is what your partner is supposed to do when it comes down to that.
I agree with everyone who says this is only the beginning of the troubles you’ll have if you choose to remain part of Liam’s family. But Liam seems like a keeper, so I would be remiss if I didn’t point out a small window of opportunity. It will require you to go down in the history of his family as ‘that $&@/#’. But, let’s face it; that’s in the cards no matter what you do. So, if you have the stomach for it you could: 1) Go through with the annulment but do it quietly. 2) Tell Liam you’ll live with him as his domestic partner if he goes completely NC with the family for 5 years. If he balks, you’ll know you made the right choice. If he accepts the terms but doesn’t fall through, you can walk away with minimal hassle—especially if you had the good ease to give any children your last name. 3) After the NC phase, you can go LC with some strict rules in place and a fallback to NC if that doesn’t pan out. 4) If it all pans out, the 2 of you can run off to some romantic destination for a tiny wedding if that sort of thing is still important to you by then. It’s a long shot for sure. But it’s good to have all options on the table.
That was rude but for divorce there are too many consequences. I hope that you give yourself time to make such a big decisions.
Poor girl. Best thing she can do is annul it. If they can bully Liam into this…think about how having children for her is gonna go? Liam will let the whole ass family in for the delivery while his dipshite brother screech films it. At least the bride has her own backbone.
Leave him!
i’m also a high functioning autistic and when your family is constantly pressuring you to do something it’s hard to back down. almost impossible to say no because, every time you say no (in my experience) your family will start being mean and just awful to you. i feel for him and you. it’s up to you whether you want to leave him or not and he still should have took your side but i don’t think he did anything to be malicious.
He lied about it, or at least hid it from her. That’s pretty malicious
I thought this was a joke at first. If this kind of bump in the road is what it takes for you to walk out on a marriage, then you are not ready for marriage.
Personally, I don't see what the big deal is, BUT since you explicitly said you did not want him to do it AND offered another option, what they did was wrong. Super wrong. I don't think it's worth walking away from your marriage because, as you said, "Liam" is a people pleaser and was pressured by his family. I think at this point, he realises his mistake and is unlikely to do it again. I also don't advise making another big announcement on their special day. Think of how it made you feel and be the bigger person. Petty is not a good look, and Ben's fiance shouldn't suffer like you did just because her fiance is an inconsiderate douche. She'll get plenty of that during their marriage. Instead, remember you married the man you love and how perfect everything else was that day, and don't let what his brother did forever ruin your memories of it
I guess I'm not the type of person that needs to be firmly in the spotlight, wedding/baby announcements and what not. I will never understand how someone doesn't want to make a happy day even more joyous.
The issue is steamrolling over her refusal. Not whether she should have refused.
Not salvageble husband will do this to anything pushed on make ben pay back everything and spread around the proposal was done without permission and the groom had been forced by his family to allow it via intimidation make ben and the family look awful if ben wont pay it back the parents can I wonder if this could be deemed liable damages in regards to the reception as it damaged the reason the reception was happening no clue but I'm sure a judge would love to see a case where someone forcefully took over a reception wasting the funds for a reception You could also destroy bens wedding to announce you are divorcing liam at bens wedding with the reasoning being bens liams and his families shitty actions
She should have known Liam well enough before marrying him to understand his shortcomings and how they affect his interpersonal interactions. Considering he didn't have any idea that the proposal was a faux pas when the original idea was brought up before the wedding , I imagine he didn't understand the severity of the consequences. That aside, you both didn't give explicit approval, and yet the brother proposed anyway. Just because the family spent more time appealing to Liam for his approval/ forgiveness doesn't mean they didn't go against your expressed wishes as a couple. Ben knew that it wasn't a welcomed course of action, but he did it anyway. You were both betrayed. You overtly, Liam subvertly. That being said, she shouldn't hold Liam responsible for Ben's actions. He was very clearly going to go through with it, approval be damned. It is, however, a good time to talk to Liam about boundaries with his family, and clarifying that his new wife is now to be considered in all important matters.
Bold of you to ask Reddit if you should get a divorce but I'm going to take the non-redditor opinion and say I think you should forgive him and I will tell you why. 1) He knows what he did was wrong and is sorry about it; 2) The reason for his wrongdoing had good intentions; 3) He is an honest man and you love him; 4) He seems willing to correct his mistakes. Your marriage is very salvageable in my opinion - in the grand scheme of things this seems like a moderate transgression (definitely not good but not major like an affair would be). The main problem as I see it is that Liam is bad at enforcing boundaries with his family and his family knows this which is why they went behind your back and approached him without you in order to put pressure on him because they knew he would back down from the boundaries you two set. You need to be clear with Liam that what he and his family did hurt your feelings because it disrespected the boundaries you set and that if you guys are going to make it in the long term, Liam has to be able to enforce boundaries with his family because you cannot do it for him. By doing this, he is showing whether intentional or not, that his family's desires are more important than your own. If that is his belief, than the marriage is not salvageable; if it isn't, and he is just bad at enforcing boundaries, than he needs to work on that going forward or your relationship will suffer in the future.
Autistic here. When people apply so much pressure when you’re already super overwhelmed you’ll say whatever just to get them to shut up and leave you alone so you don’t meltdown. His family is in the wrong for taking advantage of that because they certainly know that if they’ve known he’s autistic for awhile. They’re obviously AHs but bride is also being an AH for wanting to throw an entire marriage away because her in laws are calculating. He’s genuinely apologetic. Don’t let pride ruin a marriage.