Kate Hackett
In general, as a redhead, if my spouse refused to wear sunscreen, yeah, I’d probably get a little miffed because — dude, that’s so dangerous! But add the ol “big special day” to the mix…
Well, let’s just say that we all know how stupid weddings make people.
Today we have a tale from u/sunburnedcharlie who wanted to know if they were wrong “for being pissed at my future spouse for refusing to wear sunscreen and getting sunburned 3 days before our wedding?”
OP explains that their wedding is in 2 days at a beach resort. And the spouse-to-be? Not a sunblock fan.
Our wedding is in 2 days, we are having a destination on a beach resort and yesterday they spent a few hours at the beach with their friends. So since we’ve been dating, they’ve never understood the importance of wearing sunscreen. Skin cancer runs in my family so I am hyper cognizant about this. They are not. I have constantly had to parent them when it comes to this, make sure they apply sunscreen like they’re a kid and it’s frustrating.
They’ve been at this beach with their wedding parties and OP can’t check for sunscreen except for in the morning. When OP saw their fiancé again, they were bright red.
We’ve been separate doing things with our respective, parties, so I can only make sure they put in sunscreen first time I see them in the morning. Yesterday I got them to put it on, and around 9 they went out. And I went to see my friends. I didn’t see them again until 5 and when I did, they were beet red all over.
The fiancé explained that they forgot sunscreen and OP was furious — first, skin cancer!, but also, wedding photos!
I asked them what happened and they said they forgot to reapply sunscreen. I was very upset and here’s why, obviously skin cancer, and second this means they are going to be red at our wedding and in our wedding pictures, they’re going to be red. We spent a lot of money on this, and we only get one wedding and these pictures.
OP is sick of babying their significant other and angry that it now may ruin their photos.
I know pictures aren’t the most important but still, it’s incredibly frustrating for me to have to baby them about this and the reason why they’ll look this way in the pictures is because they refused to just listen to me.
OP lost their temper and the partner cried about it. So, was OP wrong?
I went off on them and told them that now they’re going to be red in our pictures because they refuse to listen to me. I told them that I’m tired of babying them on this. They started crying and told me that it was an accident and that I’m being a huge asshole about this and that. We argued about this and it wasn’t resolved.
AITA?
I have to say – I’d be pretty sick of babysitting this crap too. Reddit was ridiculous with its verdict, but some responses were thoughtful enough that I want to share them with you.
I get your frustration, but put things in perspective. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people that learn by doing . . . or by experiencing the negative. Maybe this issue of not remembering to put on sunscreen will become a non-issue now because the impacts are so big . . . feeling uncomfortable on one of the most important days of your life, knowing you disappointed and angered your soon-to-be spouse, feeling embarrassment at how you look on your special day, etc.
But, now on to you. Let it go. You don’t want to look into your partner’s eyes as you are saying your vows and only have angry thoughts. Don’t let it ruin your day. I promise, in time, you will laugh about it.
And also, don’t stress about photos. About five minutes with Photoshop per photo can fix the “saturation” to make their face look like normal. You will NOT have ruined photos, I promise.
Please do talk to your partner, reassure them that you are moving past this, and try to enjoy your day.
Someone else wrote, “You need to understand what’s happened has happened and there is no reason to make someone feel worse. This is one of those funny stories that you will look back on and laugh about how your so was so stupid about sunblock and that’s why he’s red in the photos.”
Another person wrote that OP was NOT the asshole, “You expressed multiple times how important this was to you and why. Your partner did not protect your couple bubble and that is really why you are upset. This ain’t about pictures- it’s about trust. In a coupleship trust is the foundation and this has shaken yours. You need to explain the root feeling here to your fiancé.”
Lots of people seem to use “it was an accident” as some kind of catch-all excuse for whatever kind of absurd negligence they have engaged in. That might work for elementary school kids, who don’t really have a complete grasp of things like cause and effect, but adults should understand that most “accidents” are in fact completely preventable carelessness.
So your future spouse is an AH.
You’re also an AH. You explicitly say that you need to parent your spouse. Don’t do that. I assume you’re marrying an adult, and not a child. If you’re marrying an adult, you should treat them like an adult. If you can’t treat them like an adult, you shouldn’t be marrying them.
So you’re an AH for that.
ESH
