A woman has revealed that she found herself asking for a divorce just one day after she and her husband tied the knot.
In a post submitted to Slate’s Dear Prudence advice column last year on 13 January, the bride confessed she couldn’t stay married to her groom because he’d broken her one non-negotiable at their wedding - that he not rub their wedding cake in her face during the reception.
“I got married just before Christmas and am hoping to be divorced or annulled by the end of January,” the woman explained.
In the post, she then admitted that she was not interested in getting married initially, but that she’d said yes when her then-boyfriend proposed to her in 2020. According to the bride, while the two split wedding duties in preparation for the big day, she had made it clear that one matter wasn’t up for debate.
“My only hard-and-fast rule was that he would not rub cake in my face at the reception,” she said.
“Being a reasonable man who knows me well, he didn’t,” she continued. “Instead, he grabbed me by the back of the head and shoved my head down into it.”
In the column, she added that she assumed her groom had strategically thought of smashing her face in the cake ahead of time, because after the cake was ruined, he was prepared with back-up cupcakes.
“I left. Next day I told him we were done. I am standing by that,” the bride admitted. However, she said that not everyone agreed with her decision, and that her friends and family have encouraged her to give him a “second chance”. She said she’s also been told she’s “overreacting” due to her issues with being claustrophobic.
“I am VERY claustrophobic after a car accident years ago, and I absolutely panicked at being shoved into a cake and held there,” she explained. “Everyone is so united and confident in their assurance I am making a terrible mistake that I wonder if they are right.”
She finished her post by asking Prudence whether she should give her husband until February. However, contrary to what the bride’s close ones were telling her, Prudence didn’t think so, because the groom’s stunt was a “red flag”.
The woman was instead encouraged to listen to her own feelings, because she is the one in the relationship.
Prudence wrote: “Everyone’s sure you’re making a mistake, but they’re not the ones who have to wake up every day with a man whose behaviour massively turns them off. You are. So you only have to listen to yourself.”
“I think what he did was a red flag about not respecting you and your wishes - to say nothing of the physical aggression - but even if it wasn’t, the fact that you really didn’t like it is enough.”
When the bride’s post was re-shared on the Wedding Shamers Reddit subreddit, anonymous users agreed that divorcing her husband was the right thing to do, with many describing the situation as both disheartening and infuriating.
“Okay, that got me riled up,” one user commented, while another said: “I would walk away too.”
“One of the worst parts about this was he could have seriously injured her,” another person pointed out.
Another user added: “Wow. That’s indicative of a mean heart. Why would anyone want to be married to anyone who would violate your trust? (right out of the gate),” while someone else wrote: “If he loved her, he would’ve respected her wishes.”
