A coworker who struggled with self-esteem finally got engaged to a guy whose vanity and ego more than made up for her lack of pride. We met him and thought he was a real tool, but all she saw was finally being married. So we went to the wedding.
The guy was some sort of business consultant, and his self-written vows were full of business jargon. But what came through was that he fully intended to pursue his own plans and life, and to “fulfill his goals” while she could come along…almost an afterthought.
And my poor coworker had mimicked his vows, except that hers talked about how she was going to help HIM fulfill his goals. I guess hers weren’t important enough to mention. My spouse and I looked at each other as this was going on, and both of us kind of teared up from anger and foreboding on her behalf.
We later learned that she was being used as a live-in babysitter for his bratty daughter whenever he didn’t want to deal with her on his visitation weekends, and that he decided…without any input from her…to move onto a boat and sail the seas because he couldn’t cope with life. I lost track of her, but I do hope she poked a hole in that boat and left him.
Here’s what people had to say to OP:
boneyjoaniemacaroni said:
Dying to read the unhinged LinkedIn post I just know he made about it afterwards.
CatAngle2 said:
I went to a wedding that the groom, who is a scientist and a biologist, Said in his vows that “their relationship is like a science project” and that he “chose her as his mate for life.”
Complete_Goose667 said:
I went to a wedding where the groom almost didn’t say the vows. He shouldn’t have as it turned out. The marriage didn’t last past the 6 week European honeymoon, where my friend got pregnant.
tsukiyomi01 said:
Yeeeesh. That guy’s a tool and a half. I hope your ex-colleague did manage to move on to something better.
rheganann said:
For the first half I thought you were talking about my ex boyfriend.
TheConsentAcademy said:
This is so cringe. I can’t stand business bro jargon even in business contexts since it just usually meaningless and/or like business virtue signaling lmao. But this also reminds me of a wedding I went to years ago with the cringiest vows.
The bride was my frenemy -that’s a long story, we worked together at a non-profit, she liked me because she thought we were really similar until she realized I actually lived my ethics and didn’t just wear them for show/fun, so lots of conflict over her need to feel good/comfort and the orgs need to not hurt people.
Anyway, in her vows she said she wanted to marry her now husband because he was a feminist, feels safe, is gentle with her. Then I kid you not his reason for wanting to marry her in his vows were that she is a good cook, dresses nice, is beautiful, supports his career and his nerdy hobbies.
That’s it. It was all about what she does for him, nothing about who she is. Then her pastor dad did the officiating and he read passages from the bible that were basically about a man owning his wife….plus the love is patient, love is kind bit. Anyway, all in all I feel bad for her and I feel bad for your coworker OP.
