The Plunge Blog

A reader writes:

"Am I wrong for being upset? 

"I can honestly say that if the tables were turned, a) I would find a way to get to the wedding; (he's made no attempt what so ever, just simply said "oh well") and b) would throw him a bachelor party regardless of my attendance.

"Any thoughts on any of this? I don't want to " replace" the best man, since we are getting married 1500 miles away; but I'm just looking for some insight as to how someone else would feel/handle this?

Thanks."

A reader writes:

"Okay I want a bachelor party......and my girl doesn't care if I have one. I was thinking of going to the strip club with the fellas having a couple of drinks, going home and playing cards/X-box 360/ Bones (dominoes).....the works ya know?

"But my girl has a problem with the strip club.....and strippers period. I see it as since this is basically my last moment of freedom and we both know I aint going to do something I shouldn't......like "sleep" with the stripper, I don't see the problem. Can I get some honest opinions on this please?"

Let's take a step back.  Let's break down your perspective, and then her perspective.

A female reader writes:

"i found this site and i think its WONDERFUL. i love reading things from the man's point of view, but now i need a LOT of help.

"My fiance and i started dating almost 2 years ago and we would have sex a few times a week-perfect for me. then after 2 months of dating he left for a deployment (he's in the navy) and after that, it was like once a month-IF that..im only 21, and at that time when the sex was slowing i was only 19. he's a few years older than me but he told me that he's never really been into sex-even in his high school years.

"But then at times it feels like its a chore for him. iv tried all sorts of things and no success really, he just tells me that he has a tummy ache, head ache or some other form of ailment.

A reader writes:

"First of all, love your website. Yep, I'm a chick, I hate wedding porn. I find it obnoxious. I love how honest this website is.

"I have a question. It's about my fiancé...I'm torn. Maybe it's just a dream of mine but I'd like to think he can have as much fun at the wedding as I can. Maybe not in the planning process, but at least AT the wedding. I'm trying my damnedest to keep his spirit involved even if he is not necessarily planning things.

A reader writes:

"One of my groomsmen called me to let me know his wife's mother is seriously ill.

"Because they are taking on her bills--and taking her into their home--he will be unable to come to our wedding which is next summer.

"I have a friend who was in the running to be a groomsman but I ended up not asking him. Is it rude to ask him to be a groomsman now if I explain the situation to him?  The wedding is in Massachusetts and he lives in Michigan."

A reader writes:

I am having problems finding someone to identify as a Best Man. I have a couple of close friends who I can use as Groomsmen, but I can't really see anyone as able to fill the role of Best Man.

"My former best friend and I don't talk anymore and I don't have anyone that can handle the responsibilities. The numbers will be the same, just no one person identified as a Best Man. Is it possible to have a ceremony with just Groomsmen?"

In the Plunge Forums, a reader writes:

"I'm the guy that was never popular in high school, doesn't have many friends, and was never given the time of day until college started.  I'm 21 years old now, as is my fiancée. 

"She was the girl that everybody wanted all through high school etc...She brings up her past sexual experiences multiple times a week. Each time I ask her not to, as I would just rather not know what she did in her past as it makes me a bit jealous. 

Plunge reader Ryanh007 posts in the forums:

"You meet girl.  You fall in love with girl.  You want to marry girl.  What do you do if your family doesn't like her?  This isn't the irrational "Nobody is good enough for my boy" dislike, its the irrational "Her family isn't as good as ours, she works at walmart, she isn't the best looking girl in town" dislike, plus other arguments that wouldn't hold their weight.

What do you do when your family is too stuck up to see your bride to be the way you see her?  They have valid points, but you aren't as stuck up as them."

_______

In most areas of life, my talents are modest. I'm not a particularly great athlete, chess player, or flutist. I can't whistle.

One thing that at The Plunge that we're quite excellent at, however, is pissing people off.

Latest example? In our piece The 10 Dumbest Reasons to Get Married, we wrote the following:

"Dumb Reason #5. She's hot. This doesn't mean you need to marry ugly. It means that physical attraction is a necessary, but not sufficient, criteria for marriage. You need to really, really, really need to know this girl before you pledge the rest of your life. Sex appeal isn't forever. With apologies to Helen Mirren, no one's hot at 60."

A reader writes:

"My fiancee's mother is very involved with our planning, which at times is not a problem at all.  However, we are almost 50 people over what we had wanted to invite for our wedding. 

"Her mom keeps insisting that we invite her cousins' son (who my bride-to-be has never met), and refuses to back down.  I want to tell her that its OUR wedding and we don't want to invite them, but she is helping us pay for it and keeps throwing that in our face.  How do we handle this?"

A reader writes:

"I am engaged to a very wonderful woman. An issue came up though involving her childhood friend/first boyfriend.

"The two of them grew up together. They were best friends for many years and they dated each other for a short amount of time (3 months I believe). She met me when she moved out here for college and has talked to the guy 3 times total in the last 2 years or so.

"When we got engaged she began spouting ideas for the wedding. Most of them were wonderful and reasonable, but she wanted this ex-boyfriend to be the organist at our wedding. That made me very uncomfortable and I expressed this to her.

A reader writes:

"I'm trying to decide on my best man. 

"My actual best friend is my younger brother who is 17 (I'm 25).  My other groomsmen are my friends, but nowhere neat as close as my brother and I are. 

"Is 17 too young to be a best man? 

A reader writes in the comments:

"In regards to the Rehearsal dinner, I am in a unique situation.  Every one of my guests is from out of town. 

"None of my bride's guests are from out of town. 

"I know it is traditional to invite all out of town guests to the Rehearsal dinner, but what is the SOP for this situation??  How will it look to her family if every single one of my guests are invited to the rehearsal dinner but none of hers?"   

Okay, so the title's a touch misleading. (Yes, he did sleep with the best friend, but no, at the time, he wasn't dating his fiancée.)

A reader writes:

"I met my fiancée in college. We were great friends but she was in a relationship for the first 2 years I knew her. She knew I was interested but she loved the guy at the time. Anyway (this was almost 4 years ago now) she set me up with her best friend just for a night of fun. We got drunk and had sex.

"Well, long story short, she (my fiancée) broke up with her boyfriend and we ended up together. Now, since we've been together that night 4 years ago with her best friend has always caused tension with her even though we frequently hang out with the friend and her current boyfriend.

A reader writes:

"My fiancée told me she didn't care about strippers but didn't want them touching me. I took it to mean she'd just be annoyed because that's how I'd feel if she had male strippers rubbing up on her. I'd be annoyed. So I thought I was doing good when I was honest and told her i'd gotten a lap dance from the stripper my best man hired. Now she's not annoyed. She's devastated. She feels betrayed, thinks I'm somehow "unclean" and is just so hurt that I'd do such a thing.

I'm blown away. I thought it was par for the course. Accepted tradition. An annoyance for the bride at best. I've learned the hard way that this assumption was a huge mistake. AND now my good friends and best man (who is really a great guy) have lost all of her respect. She doesn't want them at the wedding! WTF!

I've gone from anger for her not communicating this possible outcome with me to a slobbery crying apologetic fool. It's really hard for me to relate to her. The stripper thing is so meaningless to me. But my fiancée can't relate to that. So how do I convince her that she can trust me? We're getting married in a week. I'm freaking out..."

_________

Clearly there's only one solution: you need to hire a male stripper, get her good and drunk, and have her girlfriends cajole her into getting a lap dance.  Even Steven, done and done.

Sadly, however, we're not in a lousy Ashton Kutcher comedy. So we'll deal with reality. Nothing can really be gained by finger-pointing, so let's start by pointing some fingers.

Where you're in the wrong: Sorry dude. When she says, "I don't want them touching you," there's almost no credible way you can interpret that as, "I don't love the idea of them touching you, and if it happens, I'll be annoyed, but no biggie!!!" She carved out the rules of engagement, and those rules were clearly NO TOUCHING. If you didn't like those rules (and who would?) the time to negotiate was before the bachelor party, not after. She laid down the law. You broke it.

Where she's in the wrong: Let's get some perspective. You didn't have sex with this stripper. You didn't kiss this stripper. Hell, you didn't even want a lap dance from this stripper, you merely went with the flow when your best man forked over some twenties. And, frankly, that's what happens in strip clubs at bachelor parties. Your sin is one of misunderstanding, not malice. From the tone of your email, it sounds like you really, really, really thought that basic run-o'-the-mill lap dances were on the table.  To use some Supreme Court Justice nomination jargon, your presumption is not "out of the mainstream."  Is she in the right?  From a technical sense, maybe a little. But she relinquished her moral high ground by overreacting.

So if you want to get all 4rd grade and bicker about who's right, who's wrong, that's where you start the arguments. But in the words of Mark McGuire, "We're not here to talk about the past, we're here to talk about the future."

You're getting married in a week. So focus on one thing: Damage Control.

Here's your 5-Step plan: