Officiant's affair and my wedding.

mrsconn23

Dear Prudence,

When I got engaged recently, we asked a mutual friend of many years to be our officiant. We were really excited … until she told us that she was in a relationship with a married man. She’s convinced that he’s “the one” and plans to continue this relationship while he divorces his wife. She even asked if he could be her date to the wedding. I’ve told her this makes me uncomfortable, since he’s still married and we’ve had to scale back our guest list because of COVID. She has continued to ask about it and sees any disapproval of her relationship as a personal attack on her happiness. I haven’t told her that my fiancé and I are both becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the idea of her officiating our wedding, since she clearly doesn’t respect her boyfriend’s marriage and I’m not sure she will respect ours enough to perform the ceremony how we want it. How do I approach this with her and let her know that we want to find a new officiant? Am I being unreasonable? Should we still have her officiate our wedding?

—Officiant Sleeping With Married Men

banana468

I need more info. 

Is the divorce happening for realzies? 

Is it happening because of the affair or was he married on paper and separated? 

If he's going to "get around" to divorcing the wife because he's found the new friend then I think a heart to heart is in order. "When we asked you to officate it was before we understood what was going on.  We're going to be exchanging vows to be faithful to one another and to honor one another.  It feels disingenuous to us for you to remain as the officiant when your actions with Bill indicate that the vows he exchanged are being broken while you both are part of an extramarital affair.  I certainly want you to be happy however as that relates to our wedding we do have to tell you that we found a new officiant.  You are welcome to continue to attend as a guest by yourself."

I don't expect things to go well with a conversation like that - but I also have a low tolerance for the response of "what about my happiness"?  Sometimes life is full of hard choices and you put ethics before happiness. 

If the dude's separated and just not divorced yet and this is a legal matter that just needs a court date then I vote that she brings him.  

charlotte989875

I agree with the need more info. Are they separated and just waiting to finalize everything? This seems fine to meet. These things can take a long time and it doesn’t seem wrong. 

Are they living together and the wife has no idea this is happening or he wants a divorce? Big red flag and agree that I’d feel weird about having someone honor my marriage while knowingly disrespecting someone else’s. I firmly believe that it’s the person who is cheating who is wrong (less so the person they’re with) but I can see how LW would feel weird about this. 

banana468

charlotte989875 said:

I agree with the need more info. Are they separated and just waiting to finalize everything? This seems fine to meet. These things can take a long time and it doesn’t seem wrong. 

Are they living together and the wife has no idea this is happening or he wants a divorce? Big red flag and agree that I’d feel weird about having someone honor my marriage while knowingly disrespecting someone else’s. I firmly believe that it’s the person who is cheating who is wrong (less so the person they’re with) but I can see how LW would feel weird about this. 

I feel like if you knowingly engage with someone who is in a committed relationship then you may not be AS guilty but you are clearly assisting him in breaking his vows/commitment.  

If you drive the getaway car from the bank robbery you may not have taken the cash out the door but you're in possession of it as you help others with their actions. 

mrsconn23

OK, LW loses me with transferring this affair on to their relationship.  Friend is not doing this at LW and it has no bearing on friend's ability to say words and marry LW and their FI.   So stop dragging your upcoming marriage into this situation. 

I need to know more about the boyfriend and where's he's at with his marriage.  And yes, he could totally be snowing LW's friend on whether or not he's leaving his wife.  Also, LW's friend is not the one cheating on the wife.  Is this ambiguous territory?  Yep.  But the boyfriend is the attached one.  

If BF is working out the legalities of ending his marriage, but is separated, has moved out, etc. then they're doing nothing wrong.  If friend is saying to LW that he's gonna 'leave her soon' and whatnot...It's definitely an, "Oh honey" situation.  If LW's friend gives zero fucks what the boyfriend is or isn't doing about the marriage and will continue on, then yeah...there's some questionable morality going on.   

IDK, I get the impression LW shut down any possible dialogue and ability to find out other information from friend.  They've put friend on the defense regarding their relationship.  The only way to change it is to provide the friend some empathy and by asking non-judgmental questions about their BF and their relationship. 

If LW is truly uncomfortable with this person officiating their wedding, they need to fire them now.  They also need to realize that this may end the friendship.  

banana468

Those are good points @mrsconn23.  Is the LW acting sanctimonious or is she seeing that her friend is the other woman in a relationship and there's a possibility that the dude is in two relationships that will be ending horribly. 

And as someone cheated on this is where it gets into, "Is his wife assuming all is fine and now she's possibly exposed to whatever you were exposed to? "  This now affects STDs and covid too.  Can you imagine thinking that you only saw your H and find out that he's cheating on you so now not only is your sexual trust betrayed but you may have been exposed to Covid and could have exposed others? 

MyNameIsNot

I guess you get to decide who you want to be friends with based on how they act in their other relationships, but I see a whole lot of this as none of LW's business. 

While I think more info is needed to really gauge how wrong the friend is, I don't see how LW needs to make an assessment. I have no idea whether my officiant cheated on a spouse, shoplifted his ceremony clothes, or lied on a resume. Some things just aren't your business, LW. 

short+sassy

mrsconn23 said:

Dear Prudence,

When I got engaged recently, we asked a mutual friend of many years to be our officiant. We were really excited … until she told us that she was in a relationship with a married man. She’s convinced that he’s “the one” and plans to continue this relationship while he divorces his wife. She even asked if he could be her date to the wedding. I’ve told her this makes me uncomfortable, since he’s still married and we’ve had to scale back our guest list because of COVID. She has continued to ask about it and sees any disapproval of her relationship as a personal attack on her happiness. I haven’t told her that my fiancé and I are both becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the idea of her officiating our wedding, since she clearly doesn’t respect her boyfriend’s marriage and I’m not sure she will respect ours enough to perform the ceremony how we want it. How do I approach this with her and let her know that we want to find a new officiant? Am I being unreasonable? Should we still have her officiate our wedding?

—Officiant Sleeping With Married Men

I was with the LW until the bolded line.  Assuming this is a bold-faced affair where the wife has no idea her H is cheating and they are "supposedly" divorcing, then I can understand and agree with not allowing the b/f as the officiant friend's guest or having the friend perform the ceremony because they are so uncomfortable with the situation.  Unfortunately there is a good chance it could end their friendship.  And, tbh, I could understand that stance also.  They would essentially be "firing" their friend over their opinion of her morality and views when it comes to the sanctity of marriage.

But call a spade, a spade.  The friend's situation has nothing to do with her ability to officiate the ceremony however they would like it..

kvruns

I was just about to bold the same thing @short+sassy  it's fine if they don't want her to officiate for whatever reason but I don't see how the affair affects the ceremony as they want it.