A very good friend of mine began dating a lady about two years ago (it may actually even be three years; it was springtime when he met her, and my mind is going). Last summer, he asked her to marry him. It was a surprise to me, because my conversations with him had led me to believe that he was actually fed up with the way she treated him, and that he was actually fairly close to breaking up with her.
So he asked me to be his best man, and I accepted. At the time, I had reservations about his relationship with her, but I figured that he's a big kid, and I'm not his mom. So I agreed to stand with him.
As the wedding has gotten closer, the way she treats him has gotten worse. The other evening they were over talking about their wedding, and every time he tried to say anything, she shot him a look, and he basically curled into himself and shut up. I've talked to him a few times about the way she treats him, and it's obvious that he doesn't like it the way she does. I asked him point blank, about a week ago, why he wanted to be with her, and he said, "Because I have fun when she's around." And I said, "Do you?", and he thought about it for a while, and then said, "Well, I guess it's a different kind of fun." He looked miserable as he said it.
During the preparations for the wedding, I've gotten to know his parents pretty well. I'd met them before, but never really gotten much of a chance to see how they interacted, because it was always one of them or the other that was around.
I've discovered that the father, Jim, who is an astoundingly cool guy, completely closes in on himself when his wife, Sarah, is around. To the point of pretending to fall asleep when we were with them at an expensive restaurant, rather than having to deal with the overbearing way she treats him. And I realized that the reason Sarah likes my friend's fiancee so much is because they're exactly the same; my friend is marrying his overbearing pushy control-freak mother, and he's going to end up exactly like his really cool but completely cowed and spirit-less father.
As an added bonus, Sarah has decided that her baby is going to have the nicest wedding money and a coercive attitude can buy, and the thing has spiraled into a nearly six-figure affair, all paid for by Jim and Sarah. And he who pays the piper gets to call the tune, so Sarah is walking all over my friend and imposing her plans on the couple for the wedding day.
Part of what has been pushed through is that I have been demoted from Best Man, because Sarah felt that it wouldn't be proper for my friend's brother not to be best man. So we're both sort of...co..best-men. Or something. Which is no skin off my nose, except for the fact that I feel like it's not what my friend wants, but rather something he's been bullied into.
Anyway, my ethical quandary is this: As co-best-man, it's my job to stand with them as they get married, and then give a speech and a blessing to the couple at the reception afterward. But I feel like standing with them is an affirmation that I support what's going on, and I don't. I can't support it, because it's fairly obvious to me that he's not happy about the marriage any more, but he just can't bring himself to break it off, especially now that his mom has spent so much on everything.
Further, to make a speech blessing a union that I cannot support feels like I'm perjuring myself. I've been trying for a month now, and I can come up with a heck of a lot of nice things to say about him, and one or two charitable things to say about her, but can't come up with even a single thing positive about the two of them.
His spirit and sense of humor are dead when she's around, because she considers everything he used to do "immature", so he's not "allowed" to make jokes like that any more (and it's not like they were inappropriate or crass; they were puns, a type of humor that she doesn't like, and so he's not allowed to use it any more).
She does things that intentionally make him uncomfortable, and she belittles him in front of anyone and everyone who happens to be around.
Every her vows to him are a mockery (they wrote their own). His are all about how he's going to support her and cherish her and be there for her, and hers are all about how she's going to pretend he's funny when there are other people around.
I don't know what to do. The wedding is fast approaching, and I don't feel like I can stand with him in good conscience. I'm not trying to tell him not to marry her, even though every part of me wants to scream "Run!" to him; he's a big kid, as I said. He can make his own decisions. But I'd feel like I was lying if I stood with them and blessed their union.
I'd appreciate any thoughts that anyone might have to share.
Thanks,
-BP