This Guy Doesn't Want His Brother to Bring His Boyfriend to His Wedding

Reddit's "Am I the A-hole?" is full of all kinds of people who find themselves in situations that make them uncomfortable. Whether they are justified in their feelings is the question that the internet is tasked with answering. In this case, it's necessary to read past the first impression you may get from the post's title and listen to the whole story. 

This post is titled, "AITA for asking my brother not to bring his boyfriend to my wedding?" I have to admit, when I first read that, I said, "Oh boy," under my breath and thought I was in for some homophobic awfulness. But it turns out this story is a bit more nuanced and complicated than that.

"OK, this is the worst. I'm losing sleep over this," macacaralho writes in his post. Then he goes on to explain that he is about to get married to the woman of his dreams in one week's time. His brother is gay, but most of his family doesn't know. His brother has only come out to him and his parents. 

"I come from a very old school traditional family, so the old part of the family, grandparents and some aunts / uncles still have last century's mind, and the younger portion, cousins / siblings are open minded, and are living in the present." His brother has been dating his boyfriend for about six months, and he really likes the dude! "I'm so happy my brother found a great guy," he wrote. 

But because his brother's not out to most of the family, his relationship with this guy is kind of a secret outside of the nuclear family. Even though he has been encouraging his brother to come out, it's understandably been a stressful situation, and he's resisted because "he knows a part of the family won't accept it and it will be a lot of drama."

In our poster's mind, he wants his brother to come out because "the sooner you know who the idiots are, the sooner we can cut them out of our lives." But he knows it's his brother's decision to make, not his, and until a few weeks ago, his brother had not been ready to come out to the rest of their family. 

But then, out of the blue, his brother told him he wants to bring his boyfriend to his wedding. "If it was any other occasion," the poster wrote, "I would be supportive obviously, but I don't think my wedding is the day to do that." He knows that it will cause drama with his family, and he doesn't want to have to worry about that on the day that should be about him and his fiancée. 

As someone who is currently planning a wedding, I didn't think I would say this, but I get it. You work so hard to make this the best day for you, and it really seems like if his brother chooses his wedding day as his big coming out, that's going to shift all the focus to him. Literally any other day would be OK!

When asked why he wanted to do this on his wedding day, his brother said, "because he wants to celebrate love with the two people he loves the most": his brother and his boyfriend. While that seems really sweet, his brother seems not to realize that if he does this, he'll be essentially hijacking his brother's wedding. 

"With a heavy heart," he wrote, "I asked him to please come alone to the wedding, and that I hope he understands me. He started crying and left my house without saying anything." Eventually, he texted to tell him that he would be going to the wedding alone. They talked on the phone, but he still thinks things are weird between them.

Nearly everyone in the comments agreed that his wedding was not an appropriate time for his brother to decide to come out to his family. "I'm queer and I gotta say, a sib's wedding would NOT be the place to trot out that bit of my life," one commenter wrote. "I suspect the gay brother figures that coming out at the wedding would 1) let him come out to the whole family all at once and 2) be so overshadowed by the wedding that people would hardly notice. Number 1 would happen, but not number 2. Instead, his coming out would become the centerpiece of the day," another person wrote. 

I have to agree here. I see what the brother probably thinks he's doing, but if he's so worried about how his family will react, he knows that they'll make a huge deal out of it. Does he really want that to be the focus of his brother's wedding instead of... his brother's wedding? Weddings are already high-pressure situations. This would only stoke a fire that shouldn't be stoked that day.