Personal Background: 30M, 24F. Together ~1.75 years. Engaged and living together. Both work, no kids. Exemplarily sex life, and LTR is by all accounts a conservative, RP woman.

Issue Background: The last time I moved, it was permanent. This meant moving away from all of my friends and most of my family. While unfortunate, I no longer wanted to live in that area of the country. My lifestyle also drastically changed when I moved. I went from having a very flexible work/life balance, to being busy all the time.

My friends didn’t agree with my decision. They’re allowed their own opinions, but it is my life so I didn’t really care what they thought. I had to do what was best for me.

Right after LTR and I got engaged, we attended one of my friend’s weddings. This is the first time my friends had the opportunity to meet LTR.

The first night of the wedding weekend a large group of us went out for drinks. LTR is shy and introverted, and confessed that she was very nervous. I built up her confidence by telling her that they were all excited to meet her and that everything would be fine.

Throughout the evening LTR didn’t talk very much. I just assumed she was being shy. As it turns out, the entire evening, my friends ignored LTR. If she tried to start or participate in a conversation, they pretended like she didn’t exist. She’s shy, but not socially retarded, so she picked up on what was happening rather quickly. I did not.

At one point, I went to go get a drink from the bar and ended up leaving LTR alone for over an hour. I assumed she would continue the conversation with the group we had been standing with or come find me, but when I came back she was sitting at a table by herself. She explained that whenever she tried to approach people, they just walked away from her, and because she didn’t want to ruin my night, she just decided to sit and wait for me to come back.

The rest of the weekend was a nightmare. LTR claims she was confused, embarrassed and upset by the entire situation. She cried most of the weekend, and kept asking why I allowed my friends to be so rude. At this point, I was skeptical of her claims and I figured she was making a big deal out of one evening, but I noticed the behavior continued throughout the weekend.

I did not confront my friends, because I didn’t feel like there was anything to gain by making a scene at a friend’s wedding. My belief is that they don’t like her, because they view her as the nail in the coffin of their hope that I would move back. LTR believes their behavior was rude and immature, and blames me for not pointing this out and “having her back.”

It took a while, but I haven’t heard about this incident in months. We both moved on.

Present Issue: LTR and I are attending a reunion that will include the same group of friends. I was going to go with or without her, but I gave her the option. I was proud of her for putting the incident in the past, and deciding to attend.

I never brought the issues from the wedding up with my friends and don’t intend to before the reunion. My hope is that they will have let their dislike of LTR go, and this will not be a repeat of the wedding. Additionally, LTR now has appropriate expectations for the event and we have talked about some signals and coping mechanisms if she starts to feel uncomfortable.

My question is, if this does turn into a repeat event, what is the appropriate way to handle the situation? Am I focusing too much on managing LTR’s happiness at the sacrifice of my own? I know you can’t please everyone, and that life is not ideal, but I would like to facilitate at least a cordial relationship between my friends and LTR.

tl;dr – Having an issue with integrating LTR into friend group, because friend group is unwilling. Rarely see friends, so only an issue on rare occasions. Looking for advice on how to handle friends showing no interest in getting to know LTR.