Those who know they are close to the end of their lives often have certain things they hope to accomplish before they pass away. One woman in this situation decided she had some “last wishes” she hoped to fulfill.
Unfortunately for her friend, it required getting very involved in her personal life. She decided her friend needed to get married so she could officiate her nuptials.
One woman posted on Reddit seeking advice after her friend made a startling request.
“I … have a friend … S, who has stage four terminal cancer,” she said. “She lives on the other side of the country and I haven’t seen her in a few years. She used to live in my town and we were really close, but once she moved (we) started to drift, but kept in contact.”
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“For context, I have been dating my partner, K … for 17 years,” she continued. “We are not planning on getting married anytime soon due to our own reasonings (mainly, money and time). We don’t think getting married would change much about our current situation.”
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It was no secret that the Redditor and her partner weren’t quite ready to walk down the aisle yet.
“S knows this, and has always been a little weird about it,” she said. “She always used to ask when we were going to get married so she could ‘marry us.’”
Despite being very clear about not wanting to get married, S still pushed on this issue. However, the poster said that if she and K were to ever get married, she would want her aunt to officiate “as it’s a tradition in our family.”
“Fast forward to a few months ago,” she stated. “She calls me out of the blue and says, ‘As you know, I’m dying, and one of my dying wishes is for you and K to get married, and for me to marry you.’”
“I was so taken aback, I don’t think I said anything back to her for a solid minute,” her friend admitted. “I told her again, ‘We are not planning on getting married, but I very much appreciate your gesture.’”
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S had an answer ready for this response. “She came back with, ‘Well, you have to get married for me, and for K’s dad. Neither of us will be around much longer,’” she recounted.
“During this period of time, K’s dad, who had MS, recently had a stroke, and was not doing well. (He has since passed.) S does not know K’s father and has never met him,” she said. “He, for the record, did not care we were not planning on getting married.”
“I told her, ‘That isn’t fair for you to bring K’s dad into this,” she recalled.
But S simply wouldn’t let up. “She told me I was being ‘selfish to her, because this was one of her last wishes, and if I was her friend, I would help her fulfill her wish,’” she explained.
“I told her I couldn’t talk about this to her anymore, and that it ‘wasn’t in the cards for us right now,’” she said. “She wouldn’t drop it, so I told her I needed to go, and really didn’t want to talk about it anymore.”
As many pointed out in the comments of the post, S appeared to be “controlling,” “selfish” and “manipulative.”
According to Psychology Todaymanipulation is not always a bad thing. In fact, there are ways to use it positively, like when parents must persuade their children to behave a certain way.
“However, when someone uses this skill to coerce others, as opposed to persuading them, it becomes unhealthy and even dangerous in certain situations,” they pointed out.
In this situation, manipulation is definitely being used to coerce someone. And, even worse, S is using her medical condition as an excuse for doing so. That’s unacceptable.
When and how to get married is no one’s decision except the two people tying the knot.
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Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer for YourTango who covers entertainment, news and human interest topics.
