“My (28F) husband (29M) left me on our wedding night.”
We’ve been married for three months now, yet I’m still trying to process something that happened on our wedding night. After the celebration, we had planned to spend our first night together in a room we had booked. Instead, my husband chose to leave and spend the evening with his friends. I went in the hotel alone.
It was supposed to be the happiest day of my life, but that night felt like one of the loneliest moments I’ve ever experienced. I was deeply hurt and devastated. We talked about it afterward. I love him very much, and because of that love, I chose to give him another chance. I want our marriage to work. I want to move forward.
But when I think back to that night, there’s still a quiet ache in my heart. I find myself reliving it, and each time, I feel a small but sharp pain. I’m trying to forgive him, truly. Yet sometimes I feel emotionally numb and unsure whether I’m still hurting, whether I’ve suppressed it, or whether I simply haven’t allowed myself to grieve properly.
What makes it harder is that his family and friends didn’t see anything wrong with what happened. To them, it wasn’t a big deal. But to me, it was deeply personal. I love my husband. I don’t want resentment to grow in my heart. But I’m afraid I don’t know how to fully move past this. How do you heal from something like this?
EDIT: The after-party wasn’t planned beforehand. They only decided to have it right after our wedding reception.
Our wedding venue closed at 10 PM, so I was expecting to rest with him after that.
But they decided to have an after-party because his friends felt the wedding party ended too soon. That’s when they found another venue to continue drinking, planning to stay until around 5 AM. I got to the hotel around 11 PM, and that’s when it really hit me that I was alone. Everything sank in at that moment.
Here’s what people had to say to OP:
Truebeliever-14 wrote:
What did your husband have to say about it?
OP responded:
He said he’s really sorry and that he only realized how wrong and stupid he was when I didn’t reply to his messages while they were at the after-party. He said he’ll never forgive himself and can’t turn back time, but he promised he will always try to make it up to me.
I gave him this chance because I know he truly regrets what happened. I know him, and I can see that he’s sincere. But sometimes, memories of that night just pop up, and even when I want to cry, I just can’t.
Glittering_swan4911 wrote:
Why did he say he did it? And how does he feel about how much he hurt you? I get that some people get caught up in the celebrations of a wedding day and seeing people they haven’t seen in years but did he not come to your room all night? Is this behaviour a one off or he has patterns? You need marriage counselling.
OP responded:
This was the first time he literally did something like that. During our relationship, there were times when he got really excited and happy hanging out with his friends, and I thought it was just because he loved and valued them—which was okay with me. But now I realize it wasn’t really okay with me. Maybe he thinks our marriage is just a formality or an event, since we’ve already been living together for years.
Goodreindeer2719 wrote:
That happened to me as well. After our wedding reception I was so excited to go up to the hotel room and hang out but my wife left me in there alone for 3 hours while she hung out at the bar with her family drinking.
OP responded:
I’m sorry that this also happened to you. How did you cope? I am praying for our healing.
frankie_pucks wrote:
Okay, with my wife of 12 years. Here’s my advice. Don’t listen to all these people screaming red flag red flag. You have every right to feel every feeling that you are feeling. I truly feel bad you have to sit with this one. If you can tell that your husband is in love with you then I recommend you take the necessary steps to get past this.
Something tells me he made a one-time very bad decision…and if it was talked about before hand, it might not have gone that way or you would’ve figured out a compromise. Like for my wedding, we went to the after party, hung out for an hour and then went back to the room with each other.
Find a therapist for the both of you. Use this time to make him truly feel your pain and what you’re feeling, so that he doesn’t minimize situations like this in the future…and also doesn’t allow his family to justify either. I learned a lot in marriage counseling. If he loves you, he’ll do this for you.
New-Account_0001 wrote:
Hey OP, I was almost TA that made my new husband feel lonely on our wedding night. We had an afterparty at our hotel after our reception and I was having a good time relaxing after having to be “on” all day. My husband had been drinking all day so he was starting to get tired, but I was feeling relieved that the day was over so I was on a different wavelength from him.
My husband did us both a favor by very clearly telling me that he was getting annoyed that I didn’t want to leave with him. It hurt me to think I had made him feel bad on our wedding day, so we immediately left together and enjoyed the rest of the night together.
But had he not said anything, it definitely would have set a bad tone. This is why we say communication is key. It’s super important to address things right away otherwise it becomes really easy to build resentment about unmet expectations the other person didn’t even know you had.
nukedit wrote:
My ex-husband spent our wedding night getting shitfaced and puking with his friends. He continued to choose his friends over me during our whole marriage. You should have been his only thought that night but instead, your husband was worried about partying, it seems.
