AITA for not inviting my fiancé’s best friend’s wife to my wedding?

Hey everybody! This is going to be a long post due to a lot of history and betrayal. I had a best friend since elementary school growing up, let’s call her Beth. Beth moved to our small town of 2,500 people in the middle of the school year, so she didn’t have many friends and the town was very new to her since she used to live in a big city. Right off the bat, we hit it off. As children, we always spent time together: sleep overs, outings, etc. I helped her through her hardships such as being there for her for the death of pets and to protect her when her biological father made her uncomfortable (he was a deadbeat but was trying to contact her). As children, I couldn’t do much, but I tried to be as present as possible. Growing up, she was always the friend in a relationship. She’s a pretty girl, so it made sense to me that she’d cycle through boyfriends every month. However, when we reached the age to go to college, everything changed.

By a stroke of faith, we both attended a local community college that was a 45 minute drive away from our home town. She moved earlier than I did because she became an RA, so she knew everyone before I did. When the semester started going, she introduced me to her friends and we met new people, totaling a friend group of over 10 people. We all went out to school events, parties, and dorm hangout sessions to watch movies or for me to cook dinner for everyone. Our friendship just grew stronger during our first year of college. However, I got into a really toxic and abusive relationship, causing me to spend time with my friends less and becoming secluded.

Moving forward to the summer before second year of college, she and I both went through some hardships. Me going through my horrible relationship and her being cheated on with her ex-boyfriend while she was recovering from cancer. The stress of everything caused her to drop out of college while everyone else moved on with their lives. During this time, I met my current ride best friend (let’s call her Cat) at a required class that all freshmen are required to take. We instantly hit it off and hung out often. Cat saved my life that year. She was able to show me how horrible of a relationship I was in and with her guidance, I was able to dump his ass and forget about him. As a way for me to get my mind off of everything, she had me download Tinder and just talk to different people. I went on a few dates, but I wasn’t really feeling it. However, just when I was about to give up and live the single life, she took control of my app and swiped right on someone I was iffy on. Later on, I found out he’s actually a lost childhood friend I used to hang out with during family parties (it’s very uncommon to find people the same nationality as us, so they would throw parties every now and then to socialize. Us kids would just run to the basement and play on the Wii. However, the adults got into a fight and we never saw each other’s family again.) We went to Applebee’s and had instant chemistry. It felt like we were picking up where we left off from over 11 years ago. A week after our first date, he asked me to be his girlfriend, and I said yes.

Going back to Beth, she was feeling lonely and outcasted during this time. She missed being in college and being so close to all of her friends. I felt bad for her because I knew exactly what that felt like. So I invited her over to my dorm and introduced her to everyone, just like she did for me my first year. I introduced Beth to Cat in hopes that we could form a “friendship” circle, so we all got pretty close. As time went on, Cat’s and I’d birthday was coming up, so we decided to have a joint party. We invited everyone from close friends, partners, and acquaintances, anyone that wanted to get shit-faced to be honest. Beth helped Cat and I set up and even covered some of the cost, which we were grateful for. When everyone started to show up, I noticed that my boyfriend invited his best friend, let’s call him Josh. Josh was pretty laid back, but also introduced himself to everyone and socialized. I thought nothing of it until I saw him talking to Beth. Before I get to the next part, here’s a little side note: (Cat and I thought it’d be fun to have color coded solo cups. Red means you’d single, blue means you’re taken, purple means you’re looking for a one-night-stand, and orange meaning you’re not looking for anything. We implemented this to help get some friends laid.) Josh and Beth both had purple cups and seemed like they were hitting it off. Cat, my boyfriend, and I were just watching all of the events unfold, absolutely dumbfounded. We were all looking at each other in a “Is this really happening?” way. It wasn’t because they were hitting it off, it was because Beth had told us that she was done with men and hook-up culture after her messy break up and here she is now flirting up with the guy trying to pick up every girl at the party. I don’t remember much after that because I was absolutely sloshed and my ex actually crashed my party, so I left for a bit while everyone else was trying to get him out (he knew he wasn’t supposed to show up but did anyways. Someone leaked him the address of the party). Come to morning time, my friends and I stayed the night at a hotel and Beth comes bursting in absolutely glowing. Everyone already knew what happened: miss girl got the good good.

After that faithful night, Josh and Cat became a couple. Everything in their relationship happened fast. Two months into dating, Beth moved in with Josh. A couple of months after that, Josh proposed. A few months after that, they got married with a small ceremony. During her entire relationship with Josh, I was there with her since we were basically going through the same thing. We were best friends dating another pair of best friends. Once she got comfortable with Josh, however, she started being a bitch. On a night when the boys were out, Beth had invited me to her house for karaoke and movies. It was fun for a bit, but we both got bored easily. I got invited to a party that same night so Beth wanted to go. We went to the party, however, she hit the fan by the time we arrived. The owners of the party house were absolutely furious at the amount of people that showed up and pulled out a gun. People were running out of the house, trying to get away as soon as possible. Beth tried to skrrt on out of there, but somehow managed to get herself stuck into a ditch. In a panicked situation, I hop out of the car and try to push the car out with me at the hood of the car. I have no clue what had happened, but instead of reversing her car, she went full force into drive and ran me over. I ended up dislocating my left knee, obliterated my jeans, and injuring my rotator cuff. To this day, I have chronic patella dislocations and shoulder dislocations. I manage to get the car out and the second she makes it out, she drifts onto the dirt road with me holding onto the passenger door, trying to climb inside as the car’s moving. This seems like a random story, but just keep this in mind. It’ll come back later.

As time went on, Beth became more and more horrible to me and Cat. Cat and her partner had helped Beth with her birthday party but Beth had completely put all of the responsibilities on them and kept leaving to go have sex with her boyfriend. WHILE CAT AND HER PARTNER WERE STILL THERE. Not only that, but when Cat had given Beth her present (which were a pair of cute matching Christmas hats for her and Josh), she looked at Cat in disgust and told her “This is really it?” in front of the whole party. Because of this behaviour, Cat dropped her friendship with Beth and advised me to do the same. I refused because Beth had been there for me since childhood, but I should’ve listened to Cat.

The summer when my boyfriend was supposed to propose to me, I was gone for a month to visit my family. It was a long trip since my family lives abroad and out of the United States. I knew my boyfriend was going to propose when I got back, so I got my hair, lashes, and nails done and even got myself an outfit for when it happened. Coming back to the US, I spent a couple of days with my boyfriend but quickly had to leave again to go to an athletic camp since I was a college athlete. For some reason, we fought hard and a lot during this time, to the point where I wasn’t sure if he was the one I wanted to be with anymore. I texted Beth for advice and told her “I don’t know if I can say yes anymore when he proposes” and she understood. However, the next day, my boyfriend shot me a text saying we needed to talk. I gave him a call and he told me that Beth had told Josh who had told him that when he proposes, I’m going to say no and laugh right at his face. I instantly defended my position and even screenshotted the messages between me and Beth, but even with evidence, tension started between me and my boyfriend. A couple of days later, I get another “We need to talk” message from my boyfriend. I give him a call and he tells me everything that Beth as been telling everyone. My boyfriend had taken his brother, Josh, and Beth on a lake day since he had just built a new boat. My boyfriend wanted to show Josh how fast the boat really goes, so my boyfriend’s brother and Beth stayed behind. While they were gone, Beth had apparently told my boyfriend’s brother that when she and I had gone to a party (remember the party story?), I had disappeared for a little while and apparently had sex with my ex-boyfriend. This angered my boyfriend’s brother and when my boyfriend and Josh came back, he demanded that my boyfriend no longer go through with his plan on proposing to me because I’m a cheater and a whore. I instantly cleared that entire story up because when we got back from that whole party fiasco, we actually met up with the boys and my boyfriend saw how beat up I was and I even had to go to physical therapy to get my limbs back to normal-ish. Because of her smear campaign, my boyfriend decided to cancel his proposal to me which absolutely broke my heart. However, there was nothing I can do but understand.

Rather than focusing on our future, my boyfriend and I worked on repairing what we had now and how to go to each other rather than others if we had a problem with our relationship. This helped us grow stronger not only as a couple, but as separate people as well. After much work and understanding, my boyfriend proposed to me during our 2nd year anniversary and I said yes. Now here comes my conundrum. While Beth and I are no longer on speaking terms, Josh and my now fiancé were still very close. We want to invite Josh to the wedding as a groomsman, however, that means Beth would be present as well as they’re always next to each other. I don’t want my fiancé to harbor resentment because his best friend won’t be present in our wedding but at the same time, I absolutely don’t want someone coming to our wedding when they were trying to destroy our relationship in the first place. While talking it out with everyone, Beth reached out and asked why she isn’t invited when I was her maid of honor and I told her the truth and confronted her with everything she’s said about me. She told me she was just trying to make conversation and that she didn’t mean to hurt me. I told her that’s impossible because everything she has said about me was nothing positive and almost destroyed my relationship with my fiancé. She called me over-dramatic and that I’m throwing our entire friendship in the trash for not inviting her. I couldn’t take her bullshit anymore, so I blocked her on all of my social media and try to avoid hanging out with my boyfriend and his friends when I know she’ll also be in attendance. Everyone’s telling me to just forgive her and that she’s just stressed from financial struggles, but I feel like I have the right to be angry at her. But at the same time, it wouldn’t be fair for my fiancé to not have his best friend at our wedding.

So Reddit, AITA?