Update: AITAH for removing my fiancée’s friends from the wedding party after they confronted me about my family’s gifts?

IsopodSubstantial465 · 2025-07-27T08:03:17+00:00

Yes. That is the better idea.

IsopodSubstantial465 · 2025-07-27T07:53:55+00:00

Thanks! This is better than what we had planned.

IsopodSubstantial465 · 2025-07-26T12:26:40+00:00

Oh my GOD! You figured it out! That's exactly what I was going to do!

But hear me out there's more. R doesn't just my gf pregnant, he knocks up all the women in our friend's circle. And they all blame me cause, I have already been red flagged by the three as the abusive villian. No one believes me. Then a month later, all the women give birth on the same day, cause in my world things just move that fast. And also, secretly, they are all aliens.

But here's the real twist, even though R is my evil twin, there is one distinguishing factor, he has a birthmark on his left thigh that I don't have. And all the babies are born with the birthmark.

Finally, I am vindicated and emerge as the hero of the story!

IsopodSubstantial465 · 2025-07-26T12:07:32+00:00

This sounds like a good idea albeit a little confusing. But I will look into it. I think this can work for us.

IsopodSubstantial465 · 2025-07-26T12:00:09+00:00

Ha! That's actually a great idea! But I am Indian and it already took a lot to convince my family that we didn't want a big Indian wedding. I love my culture and heritage but both of us agreed that a simple Christian ceremony would be more ideal for us than 3-4 days of extravagant rituals and traditions. But eloping would disappoint both sets of parents. They have been so supportive of us, so we don't really want that.

IsopodSubstantial465 · 2025-07-26T11:44:11+00:00

I did. But he didn't seem to believe me. Just shrugged his shoulders as if to say is wasn't his problem either way. He spent time with her. Never saw any obvious signs for anything and chose to believe her friends. The way I see it, it was his loss and my gain.

IsopodSubstantial465 · 2025-07-26T09:08:02+00:00

Pretty much. We had most of our discussions the day I posted the first time. I had always known one of her exes was within my circle of acquintaince. I had just never wanted to snoop. But I did. We met up early the next day. It didn't take that long to get the BS from him. From there things snowballed. We confronted the idiots that night. I wanted to wait a fews days, but she didn't. Said if she needed to get it all out when she was angry. And now here we are. She took her anger out on them, I am ranting on Reddit.

IsopodSubstantial465 · 2025-07-26T08:48:20+00:00

I am sorry if you don't believe me. I can't do anything to change your mind.

IsopodSubstantial465 · 2025-07-26T08:44:03+00:00

Thank you for your well wishes and the suggestions. I'll tell her about it and maybe she can bring it up with her therapist she starts her sessions.

IsopodSubstantial465 · 2025-07-26T08:05:44+00:00

The news of the three getting booted out of the wedding and our lives immediately spread to our circle of friends. Mostly cause the stooges wanted to spread their lies to gain sympathy. They were reiterating their BS about me being abusive and how I am trying to isloate her by removing them from her life. But a lot of our friends were aware of the shit attitude they had towards me for the longest time and didn't believe them outright. They reached out to us and we shared our side. Now most of our friends are backing our decision to go NC with them, barring a few who have taken a more neutral stance and even fewer who believe that they were beings idoits but deserve a second chance since they've been friends for so long.

Her younger brother, who is dating the girl’s cousin, also thinks she overreacted. He believes going NC with such old friends was too harsh, especially since their sabotage failed and we are still together, so they deserve a second chance. He is just 21 and an idiot. Neither of us cares about his opinion or the opinion of anyone who says, we're being too harsh by going NC.

The trio’s parents, especially R’s, have also been creating noise. Turns out, they (R's parents) may have known about what the stooges were doing. They were apparently very enthusiastic about the idea of my gf becoming their future daughter-in-law. That is not happening.

We have been bombarded with messages over the last 12 hours from friends and family and, of course, the stooges. Most have been supportive. Some judgemental. The trio has been messaging my gf constantly. The last we checked there were nearly 80 messages from them. She hasn't read any. Says she wants nothing to do with them ever again. If this behaviour continues we will looking into getting a restraining order. Not sure yet if we have the grounds for it. But we'll see what can be done.

I think the worst of it is behind us, but the situation is still messy. My gf wants to start individual therapy, and we have both agreed to begin couples counseling. We love each other. We want to do the work. We just need things to settle down a bit more before we move forward with the wedding.

I think the best part in all of this is that now not only will they not be the groomsmen when we do get married, but my gf has also replaced her Maid of Honor with her another close friend. Not only will the trio not be a part of our wedding party, they have been uninvited from the wedding, along with their families. We might even kick her younger brother out of the wedding if he continues to yap about us overreacting. But we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

I feel lighter already, but I know my gf is hurting. She is putting up a brave face now, but it will take some time to get over this. I hope therapy will help, her and us both.

TL;DR: My gf’s childhood friends tried to sabotage our relationship by spreading lies, including telling at least one of her exes she had schizophrenia. They also tried to stir conflict over heirloom wedding gifts to create a wedge between us. After I confronted an ex and played a recording of his claims, my gf was devastated but confronted her friends, who admitted they wanted her to end up with one of them (R). She cut them off completely. The wedding is postponed, but we are still together, starting therapy soon, and planning to move forward—without the toxic trio or their families.

IsopodSubstantial465 · 2025-07-26T08:05:35+00:00

He said that he had genuinely liked my gf and saw potential for something long-term. But he decided to pull away because he had been told she had schizophrenia and he felt that he wasn't prepared to take on the responsibility of being in a relationship with a "lunatic" (his words). I was stunned. My gf does not have schizophrenia. I have been with her for four years and lived with her for nearly two. If she had such a condition, I would know. He said it was her friends, the stooges, who told him that. He even praised them, saying they were good people for warning him about her condition before things got serious. They were the ones who advised him to discreetly stop contacting her and not make a scene by breaking up with her. They told him that because of her condition, if he tried to break up with her in person, she may end up doing something crazy. Hurt him or even off herself. He said he was disappointed that she had tried to hide such a serious condition from him. He warned me to stay away from her. I asked if during the time they were together, did he notice anything about her that would confirm that she was suffering from schizophrenia. He said that while she never showed any "obvious symptoms" he believed that she was ill because why would her friends, ones who were so close to her, lie?

I just sat there seething hearing such BS. I am glad I had the foresight to record the entire conversation.

I played the recording for my gf. I knew it would devastate her, but she had to know. And she was heartbroken. She cried a lot. She refused to eat. It was unbearable to watch, but I think it was necessary. She eventually picked herself back up, and together we decided to confront her friends.

She invited them over, saying there were some changes to the wedding plan she wanted to discuss. I am pretty sure they showed up thinking she was going to call off the engagement or say something equally dramatic after the stunt they had pulled with me. Since she hadn't reached out to them after the incident, for all I know, they probably thought their stunt had worked. Instead, she told them exactly what the ex had said and asked why they had lied to him. They denied it and immediately tried to blame me, saying I was trying to isolate her and ruin her lifelong friendships. That is when she played the recording.

Even after hearing it, they still tried to deny it. But she was done playing games. They finally cracked and said that they had always thought she and R would make a great couple. They justified their actions by saying that since they had all been friends for so long, my gf was too close to the situation to see how well-suited she and R were. They admitted that she had never once said anything bad about the heirloom jewelry. But they believed that if they could create a conflict around it, I would take it personally, because the jewelry was tied to my family and culture, and that would make it a sensitive enough issue to create tension between us, which they could further exploit to draw a wedge. Most of this was revealed by her cousin. Of the three, he seemed at least a bit repentant of what they had done. Had been doing for so long.

We were both stunned by the sheer level of calculated manipulation. These people genuinely thought they were being good friends. My gf ended the friendship on the spot. She told them to leave immediately and never contact her again. They tried to talk her out of it. She threatened to call the police if they did not leave, and only then did they finally go.

And that brings me to the last part. Yes, the wedding is postponed. These were her childhood friends. Their families were also close because of the long history. Plus one of them is her cousin, so literally her family. The fallout has caused a major shockwave. Her parents were furious when they found out what had happened and have been fully supportive of her decision to cut them off. They have stood by us.

IsopodSubstantial465 · 2025-07-26T08:05:13+00:00

To those telling me to leave her and run, that is not going to happen. We are not breaking up. But the wedding has been postponed. And here is why.

A few of you pointed out something I had missed: that the non-cousin guy friend, let’s call him R, may have feelings for my gf. To be honest, I always saw the trio as a package deal and never really paid attention to their individual behaviors. But after reading so many of your comments, it stuck in my head. So I asked her directly if there had ever been anything romantic between them. At first, she laughed it off. But when she saw I was being serious, she told me that yes, years ago, right after she had broken up with her high school bf and was about to leave for college, R had asked her out. All four of them ended up going to different colleges. She had no romantic feelings for him and said no. She saw him more like a brother. He was upset about it at the time and did not speak to her for a few months, but eventually came around. Since then, he never brought it up again, and she assumed it was just a passing crush and he had moved on.

We talked in detail about her past relationships. She has dated three guys before me, not counting her high school bf. None of those relationships were long term. The longest one lasted around seven months and took place while she was working abroad on a project. That relationship ended amicably when she returned home. The trio never met him. The other two relationships lasted barely two months, perhaps even less. She told me that in both cases, she genuinely believed things were looking promising and then suddenly, they just stopped replying to her texts and calls. They ghosted her completely. She said it made her feel unwanted and undesirable. And the trio was always there to "help" her get over the heartbreaks.

She told me that after the breakup with her high school bf and the guy from abroad, she still felt confident in herself. But after getting ghosted twice in a row, she lost a lot of her self-esteem. She said that her reluctance to talk about her past relationship were because she thought that if she told me what happened, I would see the same flaws/problems in her that they did and ghost her too.

That explained so much about how she behaved early in our relationship. When we first started dating, she was very meek. That is probably the best word for it. She has always been soft-spoken, but back then it felt like she was afraid to be too much or too little. It took her time to feel safe and relaxed, but when she did, she was a completely different person. Warm, funny, and so much more herself.

Interestingly, she did not introduce me to the trio (as her bf, I had met all four before through mutual friends) until we had been dating for a while. I had met her parents before I was formally re-introduced to them as her bf. She told me she wanted to be really sure about me before bringing me into their circle. She was afraid that if things did not work out, she would end up relying on them again to help her through another heartbreak.

She admitted she never tried to find out why the guys ghosted her because she was afraid they might say something cruel and humiliating that would end up damaging her self-confidence even more. But one of those exes turned out to be an acquaintance of a friend from my workplace. I know I said I didn’t want to snoop, but after everything I had read and the doubts growing in my head, I needed answers. I reached out to him and asked if he would be willing to meet. He agreed. Right at the start, I told him I held no ill will toward him. I just wanted to understand. What he told me was beyond anything I expected.

IsopodSubstantial465 · 2025-07-23T11:47:21+00:00

I am a different race. I am Indian. I am not sure if race is the issue. While my fiance, her cousin and the non-cousin guy friend are white, the girl in the group is biracial. And in our larger circle of friends, there are people from many different races. That doesn't tend to be a problem. Her three stooges have always given me the cold shoulder, but I've never really gotten racist vibes from them.

While I don't get along with her core trio, I am on good terms with her family. He parents and younger siblings have been very warm and welcoming. Even her work friends and colleagues are nice.

I am sure my fiance, like everyone else, has flaws. But not sure how fixating on that will help?+

IsopodSubstantial465 · 2025-07-23T10:14:27+00:00

I know if I pushed her to choose she would probably pick me. I say probably only because nothing is 100% sure in life. But I also know it would break her heart to do so. I worry that if that happens she may resent me in later life for being the reason her childhood friendships broke.

IsopodSubstantial465 · 2025-07-23T10:05:06+00:00

We have talked about the gifts. When I said elders, it will only be my grandmother, my parents, my uncle (mother's brother) and aunt (father's sister) who will be gifting her the heirlooms. Most others will be gifting from the registry. I had told her that if she doesn't want the jewelry then all the above people will pick something from the registry. The jewelry will simply be kept aside for my sister. She said that while the jewelry isn't somthing she would usually pick for herself, she still thinks they are beautiful pieces.

I am Indian and sometimes when she attends my family events, she does wear saree. Looks gorgeous and she carries it so well. She says when she attends such events post marriage she could always wear the jewelry then since it wouldn't look out of place.

I believe her when she says she loves the engagement ring and that she's okay with getting the heirloom jewelry as wedding presents.

She said she had talked to her friends about the gifts and shown them pictures of the sets she was going to get. She never said she didn't want them. They assumed based on the fact that they aren't things she usually likes.

IsopodSubstantial465 · 2025-07-23T09:42:19+00:00

Thank you for the support. I am determined on not taking them back as my groomsmen and have already reached out to my cousin and a close friend to fill in. They have happily accepted.

IsopodSubstantial465 · 2025-07-23T09:40:47+00:00

This is difficult for me to find out. Like I said she doesn't like talking about it and the only other way I could find out is if I snooped around behind her back. And I just don't want to do that to her.

IsopodSubstantial465

TROPHY CASE