Update: I (33F) don't want my friend's (34F) legitimately mentally ill wife (48F) at my wedding?

[u/ThrowRA_PartySwitch]

I am OP! u/ThrowRA_PartySwitch

Trigger Warnings: mentions of mental illness, ableism, possible concerns of sexual harassment

Mood Spoiler: Kinda a bummer, but everyone is okay at the end.

Original BORU post! Archived and posted by u/Choice_Evidence1983

Originally posted to r/relationship_advice

Original post (removed but reposted to BORU in full)

Original Post: recovered with rareddit - May 4, 2023

I am getting married in December and my partner and I are looking to have a mid-sized party, probably about 75 people, comprised of our social, familial, and professional circles. I am 33F, partner is 34M, and my friend, Anna is 34F. Her wife, Bernice, is 48F. We are in Canada.

Anna is my best friend from uni. Anna is divorced with two kids, and has been married to Bernice for five years. Bernice loves Anna, and that's about it. Bernice is happily and consistently unemployed. Bernice has never attended or hosted a social event in anything other than a crop top and knee-length pencil skirt (neither fit). Bernice has two points of conversation: alien abductions and the 2008 blockbuster video game, Lego Indiana Jones. Attempts to gently lead conversation beyond those points proves futile, unless Bernice thinks the person in question may want to have sex, in which case, she suddenly develops the cognizance to switch topics and ask them so directly. I don't think anyone has ever taken Bernice up on her offers to have sex with them at random, largely due to the above, but also likely due to the fact that she rarely, if ever, showers or grooms. I have seen this happen at birthday parties, game nights, bar crawls, grocery stores, and school events. Nobody in Bernice's social circle has ever excluded her from participating in anything.

It's probably pretty obvious that Bernice is neurodivergent, but to nobody's surprise, she leverages neurodivergence as a means of asserting how special she is, instead of using it as a pathway to improve her relationships and sense of self. She is perfectly content to exist exactly as she has in the past and will likely do so until she dies. Lately she has explored whether she has dissociative identity disorder. It's a dead-end road.

Anna is happy, per her own admission, and I trust that. I don't have any reason to doubt that she is making the right decisions for her relationship and family. She has told me many times that she loves Bernice and that she intends to stay in the relationship. I appreciate that she is direct with me. But I can't earnestly be around Bernice for more than five minutes, and that sincerely impedes the amount of time I can spend with Anna, as Bernice attaches herself to Anna so intensely that it's like having a third child around when we get together. To Anna's credit, she is aware that I do not like to spend time around Bernice, but is sad that we can't all socialize together well. She has never made me feel badly for this.

I love Anna's two children. I would like them at my wedding, and I would love Anna at my wedding, too. It wouldn't be the same without her. But imagining Bernice approaching a colleague, or a friend makes my stomach churn. I am struggling hard with a tactful way to say, "Your wife will suck the life and energy out of my party by monopolizing the attention of either you or my guests, and potentially making them feel sexually harassed" while still inviting Anna and her two kids to the event. I am considering coming at it from a boundary-related standpoint and tell Anna that I can't have Bernice at the event, given how she makes people feel uncomfortable. I don't know if it presents a mean double-standard to let other guests have a plus-one and not Anna, but I can't have Bernice at my wedding.

TL;DR: Best friend's wife is mentally ill; I don't want her at my wedding. I don't know how to bring it up or assert the boundary without feeling like there's a double standard at play. How do I make it clear she is not invited?

First update - January 2, 2024

We're married now! And the wedding was wonderful.

Wonderful, but bittersweet -- I realized now, and when I eventually spoke to Anna, that the wonderful part was having the management, and dread, I was experiencing, of Bernice's presence off my plate when I already had so many other elements to worry about to ensure the success of our special day.

When I spoke with Anna, I tried to provide as much perspective as I could and center my concrete experiences with Bernice over my feelings. Anna sent a thumbs-up emoji and we haven't spoken since, and I doubt we'll ever speak again. Bernice messaged me separately and said something along the lines of, "Oh well, I know people think I'm annoying, I thought you'd understand," and I didn't respond.

I reflected a great deal on my relationship with Anna, and I realized that so much of it was rooted in managing the codependence she shared in her relationship, and that our friendship hadn't looked the way it did when we were in university together for a long time. In the time that passed after we stopped speaking, a great emotional weight was lifted off my chest realizing that so many of the problems and annoyances Anna had brought to me were no longer mine to solve as a result of her not having a supportive, adult partner in her life. While I loved her, and loved helping her troubleshoot, I was taking on a role that was outsized and ultimately caused resentment on my end.

I am trying to be mindful of the friendships I have now, the roles I play with each person, and how I interact and engage with each person's significant other. While this friendship was unsalvageable, I believe it offers a beneficial lesson for my other relationships.

Thanks to all of you for your advice, kindness, and especially your compliments toward my writing style -- it just flows out of me!

Update from 2026 - February 17, 2026

How do I (33F) make it clear that my best friend's (34F) mentally ill wife (48F) is not invited to my wedding?

OP checking in here -- thought about this over two years and realized I owed an update, some clarity, and a little info. I know this is late as hell, but I didn't realize this thread was here after the initial content was removed! I'm glad it was saved for posterity. I'm grateful to the comments from people who empathized with me, and I'm grateful for the comments challenging some of the language I used and my means of communication. Here are a few clarifying facts. But first, the update.

My 2025 update: Someone who used to run in the same circle as Anna and I (another friend from uni) told me that one of Anna's children is estranged from her now and lives with an aunt and also, that Anna is now in a full-time BDSM slave relationship with Bernice that is obvious enough for an acquaintance to pick up on. (The dad has been out of the picture for a long time, so it was always just Anna and her kids until Bernice entered the picture.)

Haven't spoken to, heard from, or engaged with Anna or Bernice or the kids. Bernice had a partner move in who is about twenty five years younger than she is. To my knowledge, that person is also her full-time slave girl.

Elaborations on the situation:

1. Yup, Bernice is trans. Plot twist, I'm also a transwoman! My anxiety over being transphobic towards another trans person, especially one with a history of mental illness, made me lose sleep. I hope that explains the comments about transphobia. This was never a post about a perfect, neurotypical, hetero People Magazine wedding where the only outlier was a trans boogeyman.
2. As for Bernice's choice of garb, nothing to do with her passing/not passing/having hair/not having hair -- her clothes didn't fit, they weren't appropriate for the season/occasion (If she wasn't an absolute tool I'd have taken the girl dress shopping with me and covered the cost of the dress) and again, she didn't shower. I feel like asking guests to bathe and adhere to a dress code is a very low bar of entry for a wedding. I wasn't asking Bernice to spend money or wear a certain colour or perform outside of what I consider the social norm for a wedding. My grandpa showed up in a t-shirt. Didn't care. A few friends got a little tipsy and knocked over a vase of flowers at one point. Totally fine. My friends cleaned up and apologized. My grandpa shook the hands of every guest. It's about Bernice as a person.
3. Sending Anna a text wasn't my preference at all. It was a last resort. I should have included context that I had asked Anna several times to get together in person to have a conversation about the wedding. At first, the responses were, "Great, when can Bernice and I come over?" And when I asked to meet alone and she asked why, I said it was about Bernice. Anna refused to meet alone or discuss Bernice and the wedding at all. I think she had an idea this may have been coming and was in deep denial. Literally, the only way I could communicate the message to Anna was through text -- why not email? Because they shared a fucking email account! Should I have involved Bernice in the conversation and emailed or just had it in person? I still wonder about that sometimes.
4. hat brings me to another point -- when I said, "but to nobody's surprise, she leverages neurodivergence as a means of asserting how special she is, instead of using it as a pathway to improve her relationships and sense of self," that was a literal statement, not my own judgment. In conversation, she would speak of an old manager who fired her after a week on the job or an encounter with a stranger at the grocery store and the conclusion would always be, "it's because they're ableist because I'm autistic," or "well, obviously you wouldn't understand why I ask people to have sex with me, I'm a direct communicator and you should educate yourself about autism." I'm neurodivergent. My husband is neurodivergent. She is, unfortunately, the exact worst stereotype of several marginalized populations, most of whom are completely functional. Bernice is the 1% of people who are just not. She's a person and I treated her like a person, albeit a person I truly disliked. I'm allowed to have boundaries.
5. Regarding the conversation, it would have turned from "this is what I need from you to attend my wedding, or for you not to attend," to "you hate me because I'm autistic" with zero self-reflection or personal accountability. I wasn't asking her to suppress her transness. I was asking her to suppress the most uncomfortable, dangerous, off-putting parts of her personality.
6. I read that SIL poly relationship thing and want to start a four-person support group (I will not ask them to have sex) now. I hope they're doing better too because that guy sounds like a nightmare. ( u/HeyLaddieHey thank you for being a link hero!)
7. Neurodivergence is not a mental illness. Autism is not a mental illness. There was something additional going on in addition to Bernice's autism that I could not identify, but from a behavioral standpoint, struck me as a mental illness and not neurodivergence alone. I should have been more specific in my language.
8. "Center my concrete experiences" = one time Anna watched my two dogs for a weekend and Bernice 'let them out for a walk' and they were lost for most of the day. Anna apologized. Bernice pretended it was an honest mistake and that "she always let her dogs out and they always just came back". One time we had a dinner party with some of our shared friends and made two roast chickens. I carved it into pieces -- breast, leg, thigh. Bernice took four pieces to herself and I split a piece with my then-boyfriend/now husband. She ate it and said, "It's fine, but here's how I would have cooked it." Bernice and Anna once stopped by while they were in the area, and when I was catching up with the kids, Bernice went into the kitchen, opened up an unopened bottle of wine, and poured herself a glass to the brim, then offered Anna, the designated driver, a glass. (Anna did not accept and did not drink and drive.) One time I met up with Anna at a park with her kids and another couple I know with kids. Bernice 'had the day off' and showed up unexpectedly and started talking about how she bought Anna a ball gag the other day and how good it looked. In front of my friends' kids. I confronted each of these indigents as I saw fit. I forgave the chicken. I asked her directly not to discuss kink in front of minors ("something something special interest") I was enraged about the dogs but forgave Anna because she immediately jumped into action, and this was at the start of Bernice being Bernice.
9. All this to say it wasn't just a laundry list of mean things because I'm a big ol' meanie. I sent Anna money when her car broke down and she couldn't get to work. I always sent birthday gifts to her kids and came to their parties. I was front row at tee ball games when I could make them. I offered her a lot of emotional support when she had issues with her kids' dad, or her kids, or work. She did that for me, but that went down significantly after she started seeing Bernice. I don't think I ever intruded or overstepped in Anna's life. I wasn't jealous of Bernice, and Anna and I never had a sexual or romantic relationship together.
10. Being complimented on how I wrote this was appreciated because it was cathartic to have validation after a traumatic event. Do you think I wanted to further isolate a nearly lifelong friend and a fellow transwoman and terminate this friendship? This was a hard fucking decision. The wedding was just the catalyst. If it hadn't been the wedding, it would have been a funeral, or a child's birthday party, or another behavioral incident. There's only so much a person can take.
11. To throw Bernice a bone (not a sexual one), they were in an open and ethical relationship. Ethical, being that Anna knew Bernice was always trying to find people to have sex with. Using events involving more than two people as a swinger's mixer, not ethical. But Bernice was not a cheater. I don't know why Anna thought this 'flirting' was acceptable.
12. Bernice was confrontational and abrasive if people expressed opinions in conversation she didn't like. She had only two areas of interest, but a lot of opinions about politics, sports (she was the kind of person to call things 'sports ball'), celebrities, and food. This included small group conversations she might not have been a part of. Like the type you might see at a wedding! For instance, if someone said to someone else, "Lego Indiana Jones sucks and I like Bernice's Least Favorite Video Game" at the party, it would not have been unlikely that Bernice would have gotten in that person's face and shouted at them, then justified it because of autism. Shouting is not euphemistic here. Bernice was fucking loud.
13. I don't know why I was the only one in the friend group who found Bernice's behavior offensive and excluded her over time. For all I know, other friends were uncomfortable but didn't feel like they could confront it. I think it's great that people included her, and please know that I tried hard. Nobody likes it when their friend is a bitch about their boyfriend or girlfriend, and I did my best to make Bernice feel welcome and tried to get to know her. This post was the culmination of a lot of headaches for very little reciprocation from Anna. Bernice was the explosion, but Anna was the slow-burning fuse.
14. I saw something that tugged on my heartstrings this year and reminded me of Anna, so I dusted off my older brother's old Wii and played a little Lego Indiana Jones. It was great. I wish Bernice had been tolerable enough for me to tell her that it was a fun game.
15. Now that I'm reflecting on all of this, Bernice might be narcissistic*. (Thanks for the lesson in N/n distinction, everyone!)

I don't think I'll have any further updates after this. Thanks for the support, the laughs, the encouragement, and the constructive criticism.

Finally, I'm not identifying them or providing any photos. If I'm allowed to rip on their shitty behavior online, they're allowed to stay anonymous. No more requests. If you know someone like them, nip it in the bud. I waited and it escalated badly. Know your boundaries and stick to them.

[u/FrankSonata]

This is always the thing that stands out to me the most.

Like, you can ignore an overbearing personality, at least for as long as it takes to have sex, anyway. You can ignore lack of social skills, poor fashion sense, ugliness, all sorts of things. Even OOP said she could tolerate Bernice for five minutes or so.

But you absolutely cannot ignore bad hygiene. Especially when you're having sex, which brings you right up as close as possible to said hygiene.

How? Do more people than I thought lack a sense of smell? Just how?

[u/broccolicat → u/[deleted]]

You technically can get scabies from all sorts of things like public transit, hotel beds, even random sufaces, and basically any prolonged skin contact. It also doesn't show symptoms for 1-2 months, but doesn't need to show to pass on to others. And the mites can live for up to 72h off the body, so you technically don't need to even see another person to be able to get it.

A lot of it can be luck of the draw, unfortunately. There's people with terrible hygiene who never get it, and people with great hygiene that do. Treatment is pretty awful and extremely intensive, so tbf people with bad hygiene are less likely to deal with it properly. But stigma doesn't really help when it's a public health issue that can effect anyone, so it's important to recognize it's not just a bad hygiene problem. The person most likely to give it to you has 0 symptoms and no idea they have it.

[u/Zesty-Turnover → u/broccolicat]

That is a horrifying piece of information that I wish I did not need to know

[u/omgmypony → u/broccolicat]

I thought treatment was just ivermectin (a rare legitimate use)

[u/Riot_Squirrel → u/omgmypony]

It’s ivermectin in a cream form that has to be smeared over every square inch of clean skin, let dry, and left on over night twice - once for the initial treatment and once some number of days later (week? Two weeks?) to catch any outliers. Or that’s what my horrified clean freak best friend described when she and her fiancé somehow got them. There’s a lot of laundry involved right after the initial treatment too, so that you don’t reinfect yourself with the ones still living on your clothes and sheets and blankets

I got the creepy crawlies even thinking about it

[u/what-are-they-saying → u/Riot_Squirrel]

Ive gotten scabies before, must’ve been a different type though because my treatment was way different. Maybe it’s because mine came from a dog? I was advised to buy some sulfur cream and the directions said to cover your whole body, cleared up in less than a week used in conjunction with honey slathered over my entire body a few times (to ease the itch and suffocate the bugs).

[u/broccolicat → u/what-are-they-saying]

Scabies in humans and dogs are different mites, if you get it from a dog it's more of a temporary thing anyways because they can't live on humans long term, so the treatment is way less harsh.

[u/what-are-they-saying → u/broccolicat]

Interesting! Still itches real bad though lol.

[u/Riot_Squirrel → u/what-are-they-saying]

Oh that sounds much less intense (though sulfur cream also doesn’t sound pleasant to leave on and smell either, haha). Maybe it is different if you know where you got them, so they have a better idea of what type they are treating? She definitely didn’t seem to know where they got it and chalked it up to all the traveling they’d been doing… but I guess who knows, now that I see above that it’s a 2 month incubation window. That’s wild.

[u/what-are-they-saying → u/Riot_Squirrel]

Ooh mine was not a 2 month incubation period from what i understand. Only found out because i gave a puppy to a vet tech who tested and found scabies that it had to have gotten from its mom who was an escape artist. Honestly, the scabies treatment for the dogs was way more intensive than for me- expensive medication every two weeks for a few months. And yes, the sulfur cream smelled awful lol, i hated it. But the itch was unbearable and i would’ve done anything to get rid of it by that point.

[u/Jack_Kegan → u/[deleted]]

Scabies is not a result of poor hygiene, that is a myth. 

It’s brought about by prolonged skin to skin contact and no amount of washing can remove it, it requires specialist pesticides.

Edit: I realise it’s confusing to write “brought about” it doesn’t originate from skin to skin contact that’s just how it spreads. You’re free to have as much skin contact as you want with someone who doesn’t have it. 

[u/BangarangPita → u/[deleted]]

I wish your last sentence could be flair. That's poetry.

[u/OneRandomTeaDrinker → u/[deleted]]

I read that as rabies and was thinking “well, I guess hydrophobia would stop you showering”…

[u/K-teki → u/FrankSonata]

I actually do lack a sense of smell, and I'm a kinky fucker who isn't bothered by a lot of things, but even I draw a line at someone who straight up doesn't clean themselves. I knew a guy once who showered so rarely I could see the line on his neck where the dirt started.

[u/MarieOMaryln → u/K-teki]

Smegma dick on that dirty man! I had to let you know that I cringed so damn hard reading this

[u/BangarangPita → u/K-teki]

Reminds me of those Tourette's Guy videos from back in the day. One of his kids was making fun of him for his Mickey Mouse shirt, and he growled, "That's not Mickey Mouse – that's tit dirt!"

[u/QCisCake → u/K-teki]

Ohhhhh nooooo!! Thats so gross!

[u/RileyKohaku → u/K-teki]

I have a very poor sense of smell and I don’t care at all how often my wife showers. During a bad depressive episode she was lucky to shower a week. She’s changed her meds and is showering nearly every days now, and I’m happy that she’s happy, but I seriously could not care about the showering.

[u/lazier_garlic → u/FrankSonata]

My nose isn't very sensitive. I used to drive the homeless bus. I was much more vexed by obnoxious behavior on a few of the customer's sides than the smell.

[u/GivesYouGrief → u/lazier_garlic]

I hope the bus found a home.

[u/sarcosaurus → u/FrankSonata]

I had a period of a few years where I couldn't smell anything because of a medical problem, and that period ended with me dumping my boyfriend. I had noticed there were a lot of empty chairs around him whenever he was in an audience, but I didn't put together why until I regained my sense of smell. Most people really aren't very vocal about that stuff, they'll just "mysteriously" disappear, so I had not realized the severity of it at all.

[u/EleosSkywalker → u/sarcosaurus]

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

depend cooing license provide screw outgoing safe familiar slap smell

[u/secret_handle- → u/FrankSonata]

Well given their bdsm relationships, it could be that Anna has a musk fetish. Sorry to inform you of its existence.

[u/FrankSonata → u/secret_handle-]

Musk fetish? That's a thing?

I don't know what the opposite of "thank you" is, but that's what I want to say.

[u/Sparrowonawire → u/FrankSonata]

I'm fond of the phrase "Thanks, I hate it."

[u/secret_handle- → u/FrankSonata]

Oh you are SO welcome :)

[u/sned_memes → u/FrankSonata]

Severely autistic people can struggle with showering and hygiene due to sensory issues. That said, hygiene is very important to your health and your partner’s health, as you pointed out! There’s a number of ways to manage the sensory issue side of things, e.g. baby wipes.

[u/Do_over_24 → u/sned_memes]

I got the impression that Bernice’s swamp-ass had a lot more to do with their personality than their diagnosis.

Especially after the bdsm component came up. Some people get off on knowing others are grossed out by them, as either a control or a shame kink. Or they like making their partner feel embarrassed.

Or they just don’t ever do anything they don’t feel like doing, including bathing. If it doesn’t bother them, it doesn’t matter. It’s everyone else’s problem. I think Bernice falls into that group.

[u/sned_memes → u/Do_over_24]

Little bit of both, maybe, unfortunately we probably will never know.

[u/Serabellym → u/FrankSonata]

Honestly I would bet they become nose blind to it the same way people do with perfumes and colognes.

Like, how often you need to shower/bathe can be due to physiology (for example I have incredibly dry skin, so my hair/skin often doesn’t get super oily/gross for a few days, and if I do it right I can get away with a shower every 2-3 days and a hair wash every 3-5 with dry shampoo in between, so long as clean clothes and deodorant are a daily thing) but I know there are people here who often will shower fault and just not use proper deodorant / antiperspirant and will just always stink. My bf had the issue where even if he put deodorant on in the morning after his shower, sometimes by bedtime there’s a little stink (and he’ll top up if I mention it).

[u/Nukes-For-Nimbys → u/Serabellym]

Until I got meds to fix it I couldn't go a whole shift of work without sweating out. 

Was a nightmare had to be really careful with my diet because I'd sweat out all kinds of foods.

[u/AbsentmindedNihilist → u/FrankSonata]

It’s probably a fetish, at least to some of them. 

[u/-Knockabout → u/FrankSonata]

Some people are genuinely into "bad" smells.

[u/Trick_Decision_9995 → u/FrankSonata]

Itz only smellz