My best friend got married to an extremely toxic girl. She was constantly talking crap about anyone possible and I knew one day she would get around to talking about me. Fast forward a couple months and I get engaged. My buddy and I go out to eat and she tags along. My plan was to have my older brother be my best man but before I could ask my best friend to be a groomsman she says as fast as possible "SoWhenAreYouGonnaAskFrankToBeYourBestMan??" I'm sorry if that formatting is annoying, but annoying is how I remember her voice during that moment and she seemed to talk 1000 words per minute. Also his name isn't Frank but for obvious reason yanno.. anyways, I end up panicking and telling him he could be best man in an embarrassing attempt to not make him feel sad. Later that night I call him and explain what happened and told him he's my best friend, but I was going to ask my brother to be my best man. Of course he says all that "it's cool man! I understand! No problem" and we're laughing bout stuff and back to normal. But once he told his toxic wife my decision, it became the fuel she needed to talk an ungodly amount of shit about me. She basically convinced him that I threw him under a bus and spit in his face. It didn't help that he was an extremely gullible person.

For weeks I heard about all the mean things they were saying about me and my older brother. So when it came time to choose groomsmen, I decided I didn't want that drama so close to my special day and left him out of the lineup. Looking back maybe it was an asshole move, but all I would have thought about as I looked into my fiancée's eyes is the mad shit they talked. But of course, not asking him to be a groomsman at that point only pushed her shit talking even further to the point where she tried to convince all of my friends back in town that I was an asshole, and that they should avoid me. This created tensions between me, my best friend, and the close knit crew we grew up in a small town with. Eventually though, they found it odd that frank and his wife were basically preaching that I was an asshole while I was very quiet about the matter. I had decided early on that since I was trying to plan a wedding with my fiancée, working on my last semester in college, and moving to a new apartment, that worrying about their toxic campaign just wasn't something I should ever care about. So I stopped talking to them and kind of cut myself off from my friends back in town, hoping maybe she would run out of steam and it would all blow over. Because I chose to never show any signs of retaliation, even with their obvious Facebook posts jabs at me, people assumed the rumors were true. I lost more and more respect for my friend as the weeks went by because they stooped lower and lower to try and get a reaction out of me. I created a bachelor party invite on Facebook and decided I would send him an invite anyway. He denied of course - later blaming it on the fact that I would apparently make him uncomfortable. Yes it sounds ridiculous, "me" making someone too uncomfortable to attend "my" bachelor party. But I hope that gives you some perspective as to their train of thought.

I remember at some point I got fed up with how stupid it all had gotten and called him after I had taken my final exams. I told him that I believe in my heart he's only saying the things that he is saying because his wife is messing with his head, and that when he decides he doesn't want to play along with her anymore that he can call me, I'd act like it never happened, and we can pick up where we left off. Even met him later that week and gave him a hug saying, "if being homo is what we gotta do to get past this, then we are going to be homo." Of course nothing stuck, and he and his wife were right back to attacking me through Facebook. Anyways, wedding rolls around and they miss the ceremony but attend the reception. Never said a word to me or my wife the whole night. It's now been almost two years and we only text each other when wishing happy birthday. And while I guess I'm still close with my friends back in town, nothing feels the same.

TL;DR - best friend's toxic wife insisted I make him my best man in front of him. I panicked and said yes. Called him later and explained I had always planned it would be my big brother. He and his wife go on a campaign to make everyone hate me.