I (35 female), have been good friends with my friend (38 female) for about 10 years. Over the course of our friendship, we’ve been there for each other through ups & downs of our romantic relationships and partners, break ups, moving homes, being supportive of each other, etc….
She has been together with her long term boyfriend (40 male) for 4 years, while I have been with my fiancé (38 male) for 3 years. She’s been living with her boyfriend since the Covid lock down at the beginning of their relationship & I moved in with my partner 6 months into our relationship.
My fiancé proposed to me very close to our two year anniversary. Once this occurred, my friend completely ghosted me, and our entire friend group for a full month. I didn’t pry, but did check in at least once a week on her. I sent texts stating I hope she was okay & if she needed anything at all to reach out & I’ll be there to support her.
At a dinner party towards the end of this ghosting period, but not before; our mutual friend let it be known that our friend was MIA from the dinner party & had been MIA for the past month because she was jealous of my engagement & another couple’s engagement which occurred a few months prior to mine.
She was upset that my relationship had progressed to engagement so quickly, & that our other friends got engaged after dating for 6 years; all the while she’d been with her boyfriend for the past 3 years without any hint of a proposal.
I say all this, because this is how my friend thinks. She’s always comparing herself to others, & she’s settling for her current boyfriend of 4 years.
Now to the boyfriend of my friend. He is a raging alcoholic. He drinks a bottle of bourbon every night to sleep. He will get so drunk he can’t find their bathroom & will pee in dresser drawers, on the bed, in a corner, etc… He drinks on the job, and has been fired from multiple positions because of this.
All of this is bad enough, but my friend enables him. The boyfriend doesn’t have a license anymore (It was suspended due to multiple DUIs, then expired). Yet she allows him to drive her car every day, will buy him liquor, & take him to bars to drink. She doesn’t let him drive when they go out thank god. Now the enabling is not great, but her boyfriend is mean and rude to not only her when he drinks, but to myself and our other friends as well. He’s called multiple people slur names, has yelled at my friend multiple times in front of the public eye, he’s rude to wait staff, & it’s embarrassing to be out in public with them due to his ignorance.
With this background, here’s my question/issue:
My wedding is going to be an open bar. I don’t want to include my friend’s boyfriend because of his alcoholism. Our wedding is in an industrial space, so safety is a concern. In addition his attitude & rudeness is the main issue I have. I don’t want to deal with him. However, my friend is so far down the road with blinders on, she would see it as the biggest slight if I do not invite him to the wedding & would potentially even end our friendship if I don’t invite him.
How do I breech the subject of her not receiving a plus one, because I’m not comfortable with him attending?