This bride called an Uber, jumped in it alone and drove away from her wedding.

When I was in my twenties, I told my friend she was allowed to break off her engagement. She was having a panic attack in a bathroom, literally hyperventilating at the prospect of marrying her fiancé. 

"You don't have to go through with it!" I said, perched next to her on the bath. "It’s okay to change your mind!"

I could see her face relax. Clearly, the thought hadn't occurred to her before. "Thank you," she said to me. "Thank you."

We hugged and together we left the bathroom. Outside, her engagement party was in full swing. Her fiancé was getting ready to give his speech.

I thought of my friend when I read about a bride who walked out of her own wedding. On the AITA ('Am I The Asshole') forum in Reddit, the woman explained that she had specifically asked – no, pleaded – with her fiancé not to do a cake smash at their wedding. She had been traumatised by a cake smash incident with her abusive mother many years earlier and couldn't bear to go through it again.

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Her fiancé had assured her that he understood and would respect her wishes. And then on the day, he grabbed a huge chunk of cake, shoved it in her face, and laughed with the other guests.  

Now, some brides, apparently, enjoy having cake rubbed in their faces. (Or perhaps, more accurately, they tolerate it?) This bride was distraught. She ran out of her wedding reception, called an Uber, climbed in, and drove away.

"This was supposed to be the happiest day of our lives," she wrote on Reddit, "and he embarrassed me in front of everyone for some prank that he knew I hated."

Despite pressure from the groom and her family, she doesn’t intend to return home.

Is it ideal to leave your marriage on your wedding day? Definitely not (although the Uber driver has an interesting story to tell at parties). Was it the right decision in this case? Absolutely. The groom ignored his wife’s boundaries and humiliated her in public. He destroyed her day, her dress, and – most significantly - her trust. The only reason to stay would have been to keep up appearances, and that is a very poor reason to stay married.

We need to normalise leaving relationships in which we are disrespected (and abnormalise smashing cake in a woman’s face). Yes, marriage can be challenging at times, and yes, all relationships involve compromise. But at the barest minimum, a marriage is supposed to be respectful and safe. If it is not, it is time to go, no matter how much time has elapsed since the wedding.

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It can be incredibly difficult to leave a long-term partner, particularly for women. It would have been far easier for the bride to just plaster on a smile, push down her distress, and do what was expected of her on the day. After all, there is intense cultural pressure on us all to couple up, and being single as a female is severely stigmatised. Divorce is considered by many to be a failure, and cancelling a wedding can be embarrassing in the extreme.

But there is no cultural pressure, no embarrassment, no shame as powerful as breaking free from a toxic relationship.

Since her original post went viral, the bride has posted again on Reddit. She can see red flags in her husband’s past behaviours, and she realises now that he was abusive.  

"Some of you may be saying, how did you not realise you were being abused?’ she wrote. ‘I don't know, sometimes it just happens that way."

Sometimes it does. It can take a while to figure out that you are being ill-treated, especially if you’ve been raised to defer to others all your life. But when you do figure it out, it is time to leave the relationship, whether it has been 50 years of togetherness, or fifty minutes since you exchanged vows. 

As for my friend who was panicking in the bathroom at her engagement? She broke up with her fiancé a couple of days after their party. He eventually married someone else; she did not. She never regretted her decision. 

Feature Image: Getty.

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