No Exes at Weddings? Really?
Q:
My future wife and I are getting into wedding planning and have arrived at a crossroads: I want to invite my ex, she does not want my ex invited.
Context: my ex is friends with alllll of my friends. Also, we are still friends. I started dating my future wife about a week after my ex and I broke up. She did not take it well at the time, could not let go, it was hard for all of us.
But. That was five years ago. We are friends now. We text about normal things. She and my future wife are cordial. Again, she is friends with my entire group of college friends who will all be invited, and are excited to reunion. I know my wedding is about me and not my friends seeing each other, but I am me, and me wants my wedding to be a place for my friends to see each other. That’s the kind of love I want!
My future wife says people do not invite exes to their weddings. I disagree! Back me up?
A:
Summer: What an impasse. For what it’s worth, I’m best friends with one of my exes and I’ve always made that clear to new partners. When my current girlfriend and I discussed marriage, we both had an understanding that if we were to marry, that ex of mine would be among the invitees. What probably makes my case easier to bear is that she and I are long distance. 8 timezones of distance.
I’m all about being friends with exes, but I think there’s less emotional distance between your fiance and your friend here. The fact that there was something stormy at the end of the previous relationship/start of this relationship makes me think that your fiance still has strong opinions about an invitation to something as momentous as the shared wedding. Even if you and that ex are on great terms, your fiance may not share every single one of those views. And… this is her wedding too, so I think she gets a vote.
I do however think that just saying that people don’t invite exes to weddings is inadequate. At worst, it’s just a cop-out. People can and have invited exes to weddings. It doesn’t happen often and is not part of standard wedding practice (few things are, anyway). But it does happen. In your position, I’d rather know exactly why she doesn’t want your ex there without calling on a wishy-washy social etiquette reason. That will be a real exercise in your relationship’s ability to handle uncomfortable honesty.
Valerie: Obviously this is a decision you and your future wife have to come to together, but she IS wrong about saying people don’t invite their exes to their wedding. My friend recently went to her ex-girlfriend’s wedding, and she told me at one point they looked around the table and realized that almost everyone at the table was actually an ex-girlfriend. So not only do people sometimes invite their exes to their weddings, sometimes they invite enough to practically have a whole table of them! So that can’t be her only excuse; she has to explain to you very specifically why she doesn’t want this particular ex at your wedding, especially knowing that it could make future social gatherings more awkward than it needs to be. It’s not like either one of you is really going to have time to hang out with individual guests at your wedding for very long; it seems like more trouble than it’s worth to not invite one member of the friend group just because they’re an ex. Your wife won, she’s the one marrying you! If she’s been comfortable enough with you guys being friends the past few years, what is really bothering her? Unless it’s a matter of head count and inviting her cousin over your ex, she’s going to need to talk more about her real feelings on this one.
Riese: I disagree too. Invite your ex. Sometimes exes can be friends we used to date. I couldn’t go for financial reasons, but I was invited to an ex-girlfriend’s wedding some years back and if I had gone, it would’ve been fun! I was really sad that I couldn’t afford to go. I’ve also been to multiple weddings of people I had various more-than-friends situations with, and been dates of people who had similarly non-platonic relationships with the bride. It feels like a cannon experience, honestly. My wife took me to her ex’s wedding. It’s normal! Plus it feels really shitty to be the only member of the friend group not invited to the wedding.
Ashni: Mmm people definitely invite their exes to weddings. At least two of my exes will be at my wedding someday, because they’re both very good friends of mine. Even if this person wasn’t your ex, it’d be weird to invite most of the friend group and leave out one person. Also, it sounds like you and your ex are in a really healthy spot with your friendship. It’s not like there’s lingering ill will, or any unresolved feelings, so I don’t see a reason to not invite her. Maybe your soon-to-be-wife has a really good reason, but if it’s just that wedding etiquette dictates exes cannot come, that’s not a great reason. I think y’all should (jointly decide to) invite your ex so that your college friend group can be there together. It sounds like that’s what you want out of your wedding, and I hope you get to have that!
Mal: I too say invite her! As a person who is besties with their ex of 7 years!! I was at her bachelorette party and if she didn’t elope I just know I would’ve been at her wedding, so excited to celebrate her marriage. People absolutely invite their exes to their weddings.
Nico: I think there’s more potential damage in leaving someone out of a wedding who would be there if they weren’t technically your ex. That person will feel left out, everyone else will feel weird, and YOU will feel guilty. I honestly think that between the two feelings — having to be slightly irritated with someone in the room at your wedding (quite common as far as these things go) is the lesser of two evils compared to having to shoulder the guilt of not inviting a friend. Like Valerie said, your future wife is the one marrying you!! She has nothing to worry about, and if she does — then this question is really burying the lede.
How Do I Tell My Date She Has Bad Breath?
Q
I am so into this new girl I’m seeing but she has bad breath! I don’t know why and I fabricated a dentist visit to talk about oral hygiene, saying the dentist told me how good I am at flossing and AHA she was like, “oh I never floss.” So that’s probably the culprit, right? How do I tell her about her bad breath? It’s only been a month of dates so far but we haven’t had sex yet because of this.
A
Valerie: I feel like plenty of people don’t floss and don’t have consistently bad breath, so it might be deeper than that. Either a general lack of oral hygiene including not brushing enough, a cavity she doesn’t know about, or a weird garlic breakfast ritual. I think you just have to say something. Even if it’s just “do you think we could brush our teeth before we keep kissing” or offering her mints or gum. If she asks if it’s because her breath smells, be gentle but truthful. If she takes it too personally and is offended by it enough to end things, you likely weren’t going to be compatible in the first place.
Summer: Ooookay. Sensitive topic.
Bad breath or halitosis has a range of potential origins. It can be a symptom of infection, congenital (due to a person’s natural mouth flora), dietary, lack of dental hygiene, or a side effect of medications. To name a few. It’s a common symptoms of almost anything, so it’s not necessarily her lack of flossing that is the definitive culprit. Most people don’t floss enough and they don’t have really bad breath.
It’s still a touchy thing to approach though. It’d be easier if you were already close, but I get that it’s a literal turn-off this early into the relationship. In your position, I’d do the Set & Setting approach. Take some time when she’s not stressed and sit down with her in a comfortable place (mindset and setting). Then express to her that you just wanna chat about something on your mind. Affirm that you care about her and are interested in her. Then… talk about your experience directly. What you’ve picked up on, when you’ve picked up on it. Leave space for her to fill the space with her information or her side of the story. And whatever you do, bracket the topic around affirmation for her. Have the convo from a place of care and concern and try to make it non-judgemental if you can. And then hope for the best. If you make your approach gentle and earnest, and given her space to reply, you’ve done nothing wrong.
Nico: I personally couldn’t do it. I might ghost, honestly because how do you even emotionally handle this kind of things? I truly believe that as an adult, you should be in charge of your oral hygiene and like…not showing up to dates smelly. But, if you really like her then you have two options a) never bring this up and be uncomfortable forever, ultimately probably ruining the relationship because you can’t get past things or b) risking the fallout from being honest and bringing this up. If you still want to try, you could, instead of fabricating a conversation about the dentist, and instead of cornering her and being like, “you have bad breath,” instead approach it as a two-way conversation. I’d lay out how vulnerable you’re feeling bringing up the topic, tell her you feel really bad but need to say something before things progress, tell her that you find her breath too bad to want to be close to her physically and that this is a consistent issue and not a one-off, then say that you’re sorry that this is so awkward and you really didn’t want to hurt her feelings, and then invite her to share or tell you anything that she needs to get off her chest. You might hear some things you don’t like, or she might say something in hurt or anger, but just be ready for that to happen and then see if you can repair things and move on. Hopefully she just needs to brush her teeth more. Some people just don’t brush enough or brush their tongue and I Do Not Get It.
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I agree that there’s definitely not a blanket ‘no exes at weddings’ rule that is standard.
It seems like maybe the fiance is polite to this ex for pragmatic reasons, but feels some hurt/anger/distrust/etc stemming from whatever shenanigans occurred when they first got together. Like, I can see having an internal thought process of “whoever my gf/fiance is friends with is her business and not mine, I don’t have to like them because it doesn’t involve me.”
But now there is a wedding, something that (maybe) the fiance reasonably feels does indeed involve herself, and she doesn’t want the person who she tolerates but resents, or whatever, at her big day.
All of that would not be insurmountable and definitely can be discussed, but the first step has to be her discussing it, and being open about her feelings.
There are so many things that can cause bad breath but one of the most pervasive issues can be tonsil stones! I didn’t even know I had them until my girlfriend talked to me about my breath issue – it would still be bad even almost immediately after brushing, flossing, and using mouthwash so I did some further digging online and solved the mystery. I kicked it by checking my tonsils regularly for signs of stones, learning to remove them, and switching to an alcohol based mouthwash. Now whenever I start to get one my girlfriend gives me a heads up because she can smell them even when they’re super tiny.
What worked for us is her just telling me that my breath is bad in a particular moment rather than sitting me down to have a conversation about a chronic problem – once you’ve broken the ice around telling her in the moment, it’s easier to bring it up in future instances so she’ll start to catch on that it’s a chronic problem after a couple times.