AITAH for Not Telling My Family I Got Married Until Almost a Year Later? You Bet! Here’s Why.
Picture this: Cinderella and Prince Charming run off to the nearest courthouse, get hitched, have a blast, and skip all the hoopla. Fast forward almost a year later, Cinderella’s family is still in the dark about it! Sounds like a modern fairytale, right? Well, somewhat. This is exactly what happened to one Redditor, and today we’re diving into her story, which is juicier than a soap opera plot twist.Our protagonist, a 30-year-old woman (let’s call her Cindy), and her boyfriend of three years (Prince Charming) decided to tie the knot quietly. No grand proposal, no fussy Pinterest boards, just a courthouse, a mutual friend as a witness, and some Amazon rings. You know, budget-friendly meets spontaneous romance. Their families knew they were planning to marry eventually, so what’s the harm in skipping the minor details like ‘the date’?
It’s Just a Little Wedding Fling
Cindy and her Prince were all about low-key love and decided on an intimate courthouse wedding, sans family since their life was too
Original story
Throw away account, all other info is accurate. To get right to the point, I (30 F) married my boyfriend (30 M) of 3 years in a courthouse wedding with one mutual friend as our witness.
We had talked with our families about intentions to get married but there was no formal engagement, they took it okay i guess, and just asked me if I was sure and if I saw him as a good life long partner, to which I said yes with no doubt in my mind. We had our share of reasons to do a civil ceremony; money, neither of us like to be the center of attention, life was just too busy to plan a wedding and we didn’t want to wait an undetermined amount of time to be married.
So we got all dressed up together, went out to a beautiful dinner together, met our friend at the courthouse, and left married with rings we got off of Amazon. We loved it.
After we were married, we told a few friends but kept it very private. We do fully intend on having a ceremony when the time is right, complete with a proposal, new rings, and lots of family touches that have already been planned in an extensive notes app list.
Like I said, we had been together for 3 years and both knew before the year mark that we wanted to be married. My family liked him enough, they weren’t dying for him to propose or anything, but I was happy and healthy and they knew that.
I have a few bad choices in my history, but then again most people do. So it took my family a minute to warm up just because they were very wary and want the best for me.
Here’s the asshole part; we didn’t tell my family for almost a year about the wedding. We are a small family and love to spend time together, but don’t communicate all that well.
I don’t ever remember gossiping with my family or even asking uncomfortable questions like how do I shave my legs, I used books and the internet for it. Frankly, I’ve usually been the source of family drama, so I wasn’t looking forward to adding more episodes to my soap opera.
I kept putting off telling them out of fear, and they tend to be judgemental without even realizing it (which is the worst part). So I just kept procrastinating and then I grew to like having my little secret and being privately married.
We didn’t change how we acted with my family, still stopped by for cookouts, talked normally, etc. and just didn’t wear rings around them.
Once I finally sat them down and told them we had news, we told them we got married and they were all smiles and hugs and congrats. I was shocked it went so well and even told them that, sharing that I was so anxious.
I thought we were good and I could now be happily married, publically. Turns out I was wrong.
A couple of days after telling them, I got weird vibes and phone calls were short and awkward, so I just asked if anything was wrong. Turns out my family was incredibly hurt by me not telling them for so long and they all kinda blew up at me and now everything feels off.
I thought I could close the chapter on being the family drama and be seen as an adult with my own family now. But I just feel like a kid again who got caught with their hand in the cookie jar.
Looking at it from a parents point of view I can see the hurt, and I do understand them being hurt, I’m not trying to say they’re assholes for being hurt, but I just wish they could see that their judgement and treatment of me was part of why I didn’t tell them. They are also the first to criticize other parents for making things about them that should be about the kids, but then pull this?
If it were me, I would be hurt but question inwardly and handle my hurt on my own instead of putting it on my daughter and souring something she’s so happy about.
So, am I the asshole for not telling my family sooner? And I’d welcome any advice to help move forward with my family.
I sat down with my parents and told them some of my reasoning, but it got heated and unproductive. Happy to answer any context questions to clarify.
We live in the US, in a pretty progressive area of a southern state, and don’t really hold religious views about marriage.
EDIT: I think AITAH may not have been the best question for this, because I am aware that I hurt them (intentional or not). I’m more after any insight or advice on what I can do to help rebuild from this, obviously knowing that I can’t go back and change it.
I did an in-person apology but am open to ideas further.
UPDATE: I wasn’t expecting to be able to give an update so soon, but I have no complaints, this all went down really a week ago. To sum it up, I decided to take a leap and stop by my parents today, and called my siblings to just apologize and ask if we could talk about it more all together.
I didn’t try to defend anything, I acknowledged they were hurt, and apologized for causing that hurt with my actions. We agreed to get together at my parents house because we all live withing 20 minutes driving distance.
We just got back from this. I told everyone what my reasons were for having it go down the way it did.
After that, I offered to just listen to whatever they had to say and keep going without getting defensive, which we did. In the end, we had a great talk about where everyone had fault in a decision that really wasn’t good for anyone.
I hurt them undeniably, and I was hurt from the months of anxiety and the aftermath as well. Nobody really cared about not being at the courthouse or involved in the day at all, especially knowing that I still want a celebration, it really was the time that I let lapse.
That’s when we discussed that we really don’t know how to all effectively communicate as adult kids and even our parents recognized the tension communication has caused in their marriage. So yeah, I was an asshole for taking 7.
5 months to tell them, terrible call. But the call had some reason behind it, maybe not good but still valid.
We all agreed that we’d try to learn to communicate better in our own ways, and that with time the hurt would be gone and in the meantime, we can move on. They are happy for us and our marriage and we ended with hugs.
Felt like a very ‘full house the audience track goes aww’ ending that I’m not mad about.
Also, if anyone was wondering where my husband was in all this, he was on the right side. On board with doing things privately at first but encouraging me to tell them much sooner than I did.
However, I kept pushing back and he wasn’t going to do this behind my back especially to my side of the family, which I appreciate. And he did tell my dad beforehand, respectfully, that he intended to marry me.
Some might think he should have done it anyway or pushed me harder, but I’m glad he didn’t because I don’t think we would have made progress as a whole family if thing played out differently.