AITA for not telling my best friend that I’ve been married for years?

woman eloped with her partner four years ago and kept the marriage private, considering it a personal decision. Recently, during a conversation with her best friend Meredith, she casually mentioned her marriage, which shocked and offended Meredith, making her feel betrayed.

The woman tries to explain that the marriage was a private matter, but Meredith is hurt for not being told over the years. read the original story below…

‘ AITA for not telling my best friend that I’ve been married for years?’

4 years ago I eloped with my partner and got married with no one in attendance. We are very private and didn’t tell anyone. We’d been together for 5 years prior and this marriage was more of a formality for us rather than a celebration.

Recently, my best friend (Meredith) and I was having a conversation about marriage where i causally mentioned that I was married and had been for years. This completely caught Meredith of guard and it totally offended her that I’d kept this information from her. She felt betrayed and questioned our friendship.

I tried to explain that the marriage decision was between myself and my partner and we hadn’t excluded her on purpose we just wanted the day to be about only us. No one was invited. I also tried to explain that i hadn’t told her about it in all these years because it was never a big deal to me or something I felt needed to be announced.

Meredith has known myself and my partner prior to us getting married and after. We’ve always been close friends. I believe she is hurt that I never told her I was married in all the years we’ve been friends. AITA?

Here’s the feedback from the Reddit community:

scrapples000 −  YTA. It’s perfectly fine to elope and invite nobody. Your choice. It’s perfectly fine for you to want to keep that information to yourself and not share with anyone. Your choice. By making that choice, however, you accept that you’ve excluded all of your loved ones from an aspect of your life.

You’re trying to blend “privacy” with “not a big deal to me”. That is a lie. You wouldn’t have kept it secret all these years if privacy wasn’t a big deal. Then to casually mention it in conversation with no tact and no prep and no consideration of how someone who cares about you would feel? OF COURSE SHE FEELS HURT AND EXCLUDED!

COLGkenny −  YTA.. What did I just read? I tried to explain that the marriage decision was between myself and my partner and we hadn’t excluded her on purpose we just wanted the day to be about only us. No one was invited.

I also tried to explain that i hadn’t told her about it in all these years because it was never a big deal to me or something I felt needed to be announced.. This whole paragraph is a lie.

1. You did exclude her and literally everyone else you knew on purpose. That’s the whole reason to elope, so that nobody is there.
2. If it wasn’t a big deal then why have you told literally nobody about it?. This whole story seems super sus.

MyTh0ughtsExactly −  YTA You don’t owe your friend any information. But you can’t pretend that announcing a marriage is surprising or unusual to you. Hiding a marriage is in fact the surprising move. If there was no reason to hide the marriage why did it take years for it to come up in conversation with your best friend?

It’s a pretty big secret to keep from those closest to you. And you don’t get to determine how others feel when they realized you didn’t trust them and withheld that information.

Yumehayla −  YTA, but for your expectations rather than your actions. It’s perfectly ok to not make a big deal out of a wedding, but pretending it’s not a big deal to a lot of people is wilfully stupid.

Not telling your supposed best friend about a change in your relationship status announces to her that she’s not important enough to you to have this information about your life. So like… what did you expect would’ve happen??? There was no way for your friendship to not be affected by this.. Edit: fixed a few typos xD

LouisV25 −  No judgement. You had every right to privacy BUT close relationships require intimacy. If you don’t share, they will not either. I would be upset if my bestie didn’t share something like that.

South_Butterscotch37 −  Info: so what changed between then and today that your super secret marriage is now on the table for discussion? Have y’all really never had marriage come up as a topic in the past four years? Is this how long it took for your guard to come down and trust her?

I can see how “oh yeah we just did it on paper and didn’t make a big fuss” happens but for four years to pass without it coming up and then coming out of the blue would definitely sting from a best friend. It speaks to the weight and priority of the friendship you have in her mind and not favorably.

Longjumping-Tie-6638 −  YTA you don’t owe anyone anything but if Meredith never speaks to you again because she can’t trust you or the friendship i’d get it.

[Reddit User] −  YTA – The things you don’t tell people show what confidence you have in them. If you can’t even tell your supposed best friend that you are getting married, or have indeed been married for 4 years, then you are saying to her you have no confidence or faith in her at all.

Friendship is based on mutual trust and sharing, this is a big thing for someone who is meant to be a friend to be in the dark about.

Give_it_a_Bash −  Yeah you’ve tipped over into YTA. As a best-friend I’d be like ‘who are you?’ it would be massive sudden awkward change to the feelings I’d have because WHY?!? then I’d think about all the lies you would’ve told to hide it. Like this is not the first time in all those years it’s come up.

Even the weekend of ‘hey what are you doing on the weekend?’… ‘oh I’m just… insert lie’, hey how was your weekend ‘oh it was insert lie, shame about the weather’. A best-friend gets let in. You’ve basically just told her you don’t trust her… and now she sure as s**t doesn’t trust you.

andromache97 −  YTA Look, everyone is e**itled to their privacy, but in real life withholding marital status is an insanely weird thing to be secret about with your best friend unless you live in a forbidden lovers’ romance novel.

AND if something “isn’t a big deal” how does it not even just happen to come up in casual conversation over four years????? lmao

What do you think? Share your thoughts below!