Photo: VAKS-Stock Agency | Shutterstock
It was a bit funny...
By Nia Tipton — Written on Nov 30, 2022
A man has caused quite a debate on Reddit after sharing what he said while giving a speech at his brother's wedding.
He posted the debacle to the subreddit "r/AmItheA--hole" (AITA), a forum where users try to figure out if they were wrong or not in an argument that has been bothering them.
In his Reddit post, the man offered some backstory, explaining that while he was in elementary school, he was paired with a student in high school to tutor him.
"So my tutor was a freshman named Abby," he wrote, adding that she would come over to his house after school to help him with his schoolwork.
Eventually, his older brother, John, and Abby began to date since they were around the same age and would sometimes speak when she came over to help his little brother.
"She stopped tutoring me officially after a month, but since she was at our house a lot, I talked to Abby and we were close as well," he continued.
Ten years later, Abby and John were married and had a child together, though their relationship eventually fizzled out.
The man's brother told him that he'd had an affair while married to Abby.
Several years after Abby and John had married, John told his brother that they were getting a divorce "because he'd met someone else."
While the man acknowledged that hearing about the divorce saddened him, he didn't think much of it until John told him that he had an affair with his new girlfriend.
After learning that his brother had an affair, he immediately contacted Abby to ask how she was doing.
"She told me she wasn't doing well but she didn't want to be the reason I have a bad relationship with my brother," he wrote.
However, two months before his brother's wedding ceremony, he learned that Abby was being harassed by his brother's girlfriend.
"She showed me texts and his girlfriend was saying some pretty disturbing things about how she's so much better than Abby, taunting Abby for having to share custody of her kid, etc," he explained.
Even though he went to his brother about his girlfriend's disparaging texts toward Abby, he claimed to see "nothing wrong" with them.
At his brother's wedding, the man decided to make a joke about the affair.
After hearing that his brother didn't find any issues with the texts, he was on the fence about attending the wedding, however, Abby encouraged him to go.
"Abby apologized for involving me in the whole thing in the first place and encouraged me to still go to the wedding, where my brother asked me to make a speech."
That's when the man decided to spice up the speech he would be giving.
He noted that many of the wedding guests were enjoying it, up until he made a joke about his brother's affair with his new wife.
"The gist of the joke was me turning to his new wife and telling her that if she's learned anything from this she should know that my brother 'will never let his wife stop him from finding the love of his life.'"
The man's decision to joke about his brother's affair drew a mix of responses from other Reddit users.
"If I was attending that wedding I would have laughed my a-- off!" one user wrote. "Sometimes being an a-hole is appropriate. Not all heroes wear capes."
Another user echoed that sentiment, pointing out that while the man was wrong for making the joke, it seemed to be well-deserved for his brother and new wife to hear.
"This guy's brother cheated after a decade and not only married the woman he cheated with but let his mistress HARASS the mother of his niece/nephew," they wrote. "[Homewreckers] and cheating husbands don’t deserve an ounce of sympathy they made their beds."
A third user chimed in, "EVEN IF he is the a-hole, so is pretty much everyone else in this story. But I think it was appropriate, it wasn't even that bad a joke, really."
Nia Tipton is a writer living in Brooklyn. She covers pop culture, social justice issues, and trending topics. Keep up with her on Instagram and Twitter.