How do you deal with weddings when healing from Betrayal Trauma: To attend or not to attend?

Summer tends to be a season of weddings which can be potential triggers for those healing from Betrayal Trauma. I love weddings; they are joyous occasions where friends, families, neighbors, and co-workers come together because two people desire to express their love for one another by participating in a marriage ceremony. This union is also legally recognized. As a wedding guest, one gets to figure out what they will wear and anticipate who they might socialize or reconnect with at the ceremony and afterward. In addition, wedding celebrations create an atmosphere where there usually is an abundance of excellent food, music, beverages, laughter, smiles, and goodwill for the couple. Of course, I am making some assumptions, but as I said, I enjoy attending weddings; they are good times for me!

However, there was a time in my healing process when I was not too fond of weddings; they represented a massive deception to me. I received two wedding invitations at different times for our close friend’s children who were getting married. We knew their children from very young ages, one from infancy. However, I declined both invitations because I felt they would be too triggering for me to attend. If I couldn’t attend a wedding, genuinely wishing the couple the best versus fighting the urge to yell, “Better make sure neither one of you are sex addicts first if you want a good marriage,” I didn’t want to attend. I wanted to be fully present at weddings without thinking of my marriage disappointment, and I wasn’t at a place where that was possible at the time. Attending weddings with a fake smile while screaming on the inside was torture I couldn’t endure.

Furthermore, deciding whether to attend weddings was a struggle because I questioned if I was being selfish. Shouldn’t I attend the weddings and put my issues aside for a few hours? After all, the nuptials weren’t about me; they were about two other people. I prayed, checked in with my emotions, and discussed them with my therapist before declining the wedding invitations. Although I had previously agreed to many things in the past so as not to offend others regardless of what it cost me, I couldn’t do that anymore, not when my healing was so important to me.

I tried to explain this to my friend who invited us to her children’s weddings, but I don’t think she or her husband ever truly understood why I declined the invitations. Honoring where I was at the time in my healing journey had to be a priority, but I hated that I wasn’t at a place mentally or emotionally to attend the weddings of adults I knew as infants. It didn’t matter who was getting married and their relationship to me; attending weddings was too much. I couldn’t even watch weddings on television or romantic movies.

I remember early in my healing process, I was in church, and a couple renewed their vows right before the end of service, which I didn’t know would take place until the announcement right before the ceremony. Church hadn’t ended yet, and the size of the church made the potential of an exit even more awkward. The couple looked so happy, and they were indeed a beautiful sight. However, I wanted to flee; if I could have taken a pill to become invisible and leave without being noticed, I would have taken it.

I felt like someone was holding me hostage, which I couldn’t escape, so I witnessed the renewing of vows I didn’t want to hear. The minister talked about the beauty of love and the importance of faithfulness and endurance, leaving me teary-eyed and with a great sense of loss, forcing me not to cry. As the bride entered, I looked at my husband standing at the door as an usher. The expression on his face conveyed everything I was feeling — grief, sadness, and regret. We were in the thick of things back then good days, bad days, civil hours, and miserable hours. I remember wondering if my husband and I would ever be that couple, they were celebrating 50 years of marriage, I wasn’t sure my husband and I would make it another month.

Another time we were on a family cruise, a young man proposed during the cruise dinner; the family made quite a bit of noise when the young woman accepted the proposal, so much so that people on the cruise started clapping. I looked over at my husband to see the same look I saw when the couple renewed their vows at the church we attended. We talked about it later, both acknowledging the sense of grief the sight of the happy couple created in both of us. Seeing that couple and their families filled with joy and hope for their future reminded me of the joy and hope we all felt when my husband proposed to me with my family present.

Frankly, I found it intriguing that people still got married, given statistics that reflected a significant decrease in marriages. According to a 2021 article in The Hill, the percentage of married households dropped from 80% (71 years ago) to 49% in 2020. However, despite the significant decline and the increasing divorce rates, couples still chose to take the gamble and get married, and many still had traditional elements to the ceremony. I knew couples were waiting longer to get married compared to 26 years ago when I got married. However, it still was fascinating to hear about adults investing several hours and dollars into planning weddings with traditional aspects such as bridesmaids, flower girls, ring bearers, rehearsal dinners, etc. When traditions were not part of the modern era, technology was trying to make everything better, faster, and more accessible. Therefore, I figured some traditions were still acceptable regarding marriage ceremonies, just modernized.

Recently, I went to a wedding and truly enjoyed it. The celebration required my family to travel out of state and make hotel reservations which we did with anticipation. We saw family we hadn’t seen in years, some of which came from overseas to wish the couple best wishes on their special day. I didn’t even hesitate to ponder if I should go when I received the invitation. I enjoyed finding an outfit to wear and looked forward to the celebration.

I sat at the wedding surrounded by family in good spirits until the couple began stating their vows. The familiar feeling of grief crept inside me as the couple said their vows. The minister reminded us that the marriage ceremony was serious; therefore, it was important not to take it lightly, making me think, ain’t that the truth! Hearing the vows reminded me of how my husband broke them — not just because he cheated on me but because he was dishonest and didn’t cherish me. However, I acknowledged what was happening, observed it, and even felt it without tears or observable emotion. It’s like reading a graphically disturbing chapter of a book but being able to acknowledge what you read while turning the page, not because you should, not because others expect it from you, or you feel pressured. You turn the other page because you finally can. I wasn’t sitting there trying not to remember the past; I could recognize the past for a moment and turn the page to the current moment of the wedding.

I sat at the wedding thinking; This is the first in-person wedding I am attending since receiving the disclosure years ago. This awareness made me kind of nod my head with a smile because my ability to participate in the wedding, deal with the challenge of the past, and continue to be present was a massive step in my healing process. I was doing something I honestly couldn’t do years before. The best part was I truly enjoyed myself that night; I was happy, laughed, hugged many people, and danced- it was a good time! The best part was that I still loved weddings and their representation.

The intrigue of people, especially young adults, still wanting to have a wedding with traditional elements embellished with modern flair made sense to me. Wedding ceremonies are among the few traditions people of all ages keep alive even in this modern era. Regardless of age, most of us want to be loved unconditionally by someone else; we want to acknowledge and celebrate this relationship with the people in our lives. There is something nostalgic about weddings, and most people would like to experience a piece of that; some have even dreamed of it since childhood. We want the vows to reign true in our relationship regardless of the declining marriage and increasing divorce figures. We go into marriage with the hope that our partner will love us unconditionally and be by our side through the challenges that might lay ahead until we die, and we expect them to do this while being faithful.

I hope you honor yourself and choose whether to accept wedding invitations based on where you are on your healing journey, which takes honest introspection on your part. If you do attend a wedding that brings up challenges, I hope you will breathe, pray, or do what you must do to get through it (step outside the wedding for a while, take a break in the restroom, text someone who understands, create a plan for how to deal with moments that may be challenging at the wedding, etc.) On the other hand, if you must decline an invitation for your emotional well-being, your decision might not be understood by many. Furthermore, you might not have the luxury of explaining if the person who invited you doesn’t know what you are going through or have gone through, making things even more difficult. Either way, I hope you will honor yourself and your healing process.

If you are pondering whether to participate in a wedding you’ve been invited to or has been an issue for you; I want you to know that I get it. You’re not over-sensitive; you’re not being mean or emotional- attending weddings can be emotionally challenging. They can be a painful reminder of what you hoped for versus your reality. I want to say your state of emotional health is where you are now. There was a time my emotional health wasn’t at a place where I could attend weddings, but that is not the state of my emotional health today. It took significant time and healing to get to a place where I could attend weddings again. Others didn’t always understand it, but that was a small price to pay for honoring myself and where I was on my healing journey when the challenge of attending weddings presented itself.

#betrayednotbroken