As a bride-to-be works on her wedding guest list, she is getting a lot of flak from her family. Much to her family’s dismay, the 26-year-old doesn’t really want to invite her cousin Tom to her wedding. Tom is almost 30 and has a developmental disability. According to the bride-to-be, he “has the intellectual capacity of about a 7-year-old.”
When interacting with her cousin, she tries to be “patient and understanding.” Her cousin, however, “has consistently crossed physical boundaries” and made her “really uncomfortable.”
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The bride described Tom's behavior.
Describing the situation in a forum on Reddit, the bride explained that Tom likes to tell people that she is his girlfriend. Because he believes that he is the bride’s boyfriend, he doesn’t like her actual fiancĂ©, Liam.
Tom also talks about how he will marry me,” the bride wrote in her post. “It kind of feels like when a little kid tells their parent they’re going to marry them but it’s still very uncomfortable.”
Additionally, she said Tom has tried to hug and kiss her and “has touched my chest and butt quite a few times.”
Her family has defended Tom's behavior because she is a pretty young woman.
To the bride’s family, Tom’s behavior is excusable because of her appearance and his disability. According to them, Tom “doesnât understand” and is “showing affection,” she explained. “The excuse used most often is ‘He’s a little boy in a man’s body and you’re a conventionally attractive woman,'” she added.
The bride-to-be also talked to her mom about some of Tom’s behaviors that make her uncomfortable. In response, her mom told her that “he’s harmless” and she just needs to be “firm” with him.
However, she thinks she has already tried this with very limited success, and each time she tries to set a boundary, her family says she’s “being mean to him.”
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While working on her guest list, the bride-to-be told her family that she was thinking about excluding Tom.
Her reasoning? “I want the day to be relaxed and special without constantly worrying about Tom overstepping boundaries,” she shared.
When she told her family about this, they were “outraged” and accused her of being “cruel” and “unfair.” “My mom even said it would ‘ruin his day’ and make it obvious that heâs different, which she thinks is heartless,” the bride explained.
Ultimately, she believes she should be able to choose who she invites.
“Itâs my wedding, and I donât want to be on edge the whole time,” the bride wrote.
She often feels like her family expects her to simply “brush off” and “manage” her discomfort when dealing with Tom. Even though her family believes Tom simply “doesnât know any better,” it makes the bride feel like her loved ones are completely overlooking her feelings.
Her fiancĂ© has been supportive, “especially because of how he treats both of us like our relationship isn’t real,” she wrote.
She wants to know if she's being too harsh.
“I wonder if Iâm being too harsh or unkind since Tom isnât fully aware of boundaries and doesn’t really know what he’s doing is bad or harmful, especially because his parents and other family members encourage it,” the future bride wrote, asking Redditors to weigh in.
Many Redditors sided with the woman, with some pointing out that it’s her wedding and she gets to decide who she invites.
Others suggested that the bride’s family has seemingly been enabling Tom. “He may not understand what he’s doing is wrong but that more so sounds like it’s because no one has taken the time to teach him differently,” one commenter wrote.
Others worried that her cousin “could cause a bigger scene” at the wedding. “If he is already telling people that youâre his girlfriend, wants to marry you and openly dislikes your fiancĂ©, I canât imagine he would have a good reaction to watching you get married,” someone else pointed out.
These stories are based on posts found on Reddit. Reddit is a user-generated social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website where registered members submit content to the site and can up- or down-vote the content. The accuracy and authenticity of each story cannot be confirmed by our staff.
