A bride-to-be has been left seething after discovering her future husband deliberately left her own children off their wedding guest list, without first asking her permission.
The 38-year-old woman was originally supposed to get married in three weeks' time, but now feels that she can no longer go ahead with the ceremony after discovering her fiancé hasn't been straight with her.
A little over a week ago, the anonymous woman read through her guest list for the very first time and was surprised to see that it was missing three very important names: the names of her children, Madison, 18, Ethan, 15, and Isabella, 10.
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She confronted her husband-to-be, whose name is Carlos, and he simply told her that this was "an adults-only wedding". This wasn't something she'd agreed to, or even talked about.
Taking to Reddit, the confused would-be-bride wrote: "As you can imagine I was annoyed and asked him what in the world he was talking about. I had been under the impression that my kids were allowed to come, and that my ex-husband would be dropping them off. He and I are close still, but understandably he isn’t coming to our wedding as we all agreed it would be awkward".
It soon emerged that "everyone was aware" of the guest list, including her parents and bridesmaids. who'd just assumed that she was the one to decide the no kids rule.
Suddenly, she realised why so many of her loved ones had "been acting rather distant", with her sister being "salty that she couldn’t bring her kids".
The poster - who goes by the username u/orange_you_glad123 - refuses to accept Carlos' excuse that he thought she already knew and says she had no clue at all.
She said: "I asked him why he wanted no kids, and he explained to me that kids are apparently annoying, and he didn’t think they would be comfortable at the after-party, where there would be a lot of drinking, even though I don’t even drink".
This made no sense to her, given that her eldest was an adult, who can legally drink. Furthermore, her youngest two were only meant to come to the lunch, not the dinner, so it wouldn't have been an issue.
However, Carlos still wasn't happy with this arrangement, complaining that her kids "were immature still and that he wanted to feel comfortable with me without 'judgement from my kids'".
Her three children were understandably "very upset" to learn that they weren't invited to their mother's wedding, especially her eldest daughter Madison, who argued that "since she wasn’t even a child she should be allowed to come".
The poster tried explaining all this to Carlos, but still he stood firm, even going "as far as to say that if it were up to him there would be no kids in our relationship".
She continued: "I was so confused. I knew he didn’t exactly have a bond with the kids, but not even wanting them was a step over the line for me. We got into a large argument, and he said that marriage wasn’t about my kids, but our shared love for each other, and if I couldn’t see that then I wasn’t being reasonable, and should rethink my actions towards him".
Frustrated by his response, the protective mother informed him that her children were "more important to me than he would ever be", vowing that "if they weren’t there, I wouldn’t be either".
With that, the wedding was called off, and Carlos' family are now not happy with her at all given that they had to fly over from another country to attend the ceremony.
With this in mind, the poster asked her fellow Reddit users whether or not she'd made the right call, given that some believe her to be "selfish". The majority were completely on her side, and felt she'd had a lucky escape.
One person wrote: "Seriously, dude let slip 'If it were up to him there would be no kids in our relationship'. Yeah, you get your wish buddy. No more kids, because no more relationship. I'm baffled how things got this far before [she] discovered this, but now that she has, it's time to run, not walk, away".
Another agreed: "Honestly, it's for the best this happened, imagine if he'd managed to keep his disdain for the kids quiet until after they were married. Bullet dodged, and good riddance".
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