Hi there! First off, I’ve been “lurking” on these boards for
a few weeks now, and this is my first post – sorry if I don’t quite get the
lingo right! J
I’m posting on the Etiquette board because I have a conundrum about inviting an
old friend and his two boyfriends, one of whom picked a fight with me and threw
FI and me out of their house. Sorry it's a bit long.
I have a friend I’ve known since elementary school (about 16
years). We’ve been through a lot together and our families have always been very close.
So, of course FI and I sent him a save the date for our wedding in August. At
the time we sent out the save the dates I wasn’t sure of his relationship
status since we hadn’t spoken in several months, so I addressed it to “Friend
and guest.” Because I was going to see him the next week at the engagement
party his parents threw for FI and me, I wanted to ask him in person.
When I got to the engagement party, he introduced me to
Boyfriend A and told me he was sorry that Boyfriend B couldn’t make it. He said the three of them had
been together for a year and a half. FI and I went to their apartment a few
days later, where Friend introduced me to Boyfriend B. FI and I decided not to
drink since we had to drive home, but Friend and Boyfriends A & B were
drinking pretty heavily. Over the course of the evening, Boyfriend A made a few
snarky remarks about how “your people’s” wedding traditions are so stupid and
how he’s glad he doesn’t have to deal with any of that. What was more
disturbing to me was to see how Friend was around him. Friend has always been a
little edgy with his humor, but he was going along with Boyfriend A’s comments
about our wedding and lifestyle and even made a snarky comment about how much
of a burden the engagement party that his parents thoughtfully planned (and
which was absolutely lovely) was and how he “f***ing hated half of the people
at the party.’” At that point, FI and I had had it with the snark and decided
to politely get our coats and leave.
As we were leaving, Boyfriend A got in my face about our
respective universities’ football rivalry completely unsolicited. Even though I
was minimally engaging in the conversation, he continued to try to push my
buttons and even told me to “be careful what you say in my house.” I tried to
end the conversation by saying, “I think you care a lot more about this than I
do, so we are going to go.” Maybe I could have said that better, but I was
tired and just wanted to get out of the conversation. Then, he slammed his
glass of whiskey on the counter (amazingly enough, it didn’t break) and yelled
at me to “get the hell out of his house” and that he didn’t want “people like
me” in his house.
At this point FI pulled me out the door as
Friend and Boyfriend B tried to restrain and calm down Boyfriend A. I was
distressed at the way the night went, from Friend and Boyfriend A's snarky comments to the unprovoked
football blow-up at the end of the night. Friend texted me an apology, saying
that Boyfriend A had been drinking a lot and is very passionate about football,
especially when he drinks. Boyfriend A has not apologized.
My concern is this: we have already sent Friend a Save the
Date. However, neither FI nor I want Boyfriend A at our wedding. Many of our
close friends and family members are huge football fans of many different
schools and love discussing football together; I don’t want any drama just
because Boyfriend A can’t handle his alcohol and gets too worked up over
football. Plus, why would we have someone at our wedding who threw us out of
his apartment after meeting us twice?
Boyfriend B seemed nice and certainly wasn’t part of the
blow-up, so I would be fine with Friend bringing him. But, how do I approach the
invitations in light of the fact that one
boyfriend’s inappropriate and hostile behavior makes both FI and me very
uncomfortable? My initial reaction is to address the invitation to “Friend and
Boyfriend B.”
TL; dr:
How do I handle inviting my friend and his two boyfriends to
our wedding, when one of the boyfriends tried to pick a fight over football,
lost his temper at FI and me completely unprovoked, and threw us out of his
apartment?
Thanks in advance for the input and for reading, if you got
through all of it!