Every family has their traditions. Some people get matching pajamas on Christmas and others always celebrate July 4th with a massive barbecue because — well, that's what you do on a big holiday. But no matter how many traditions (normal or otherwise) that we've heard of, none of them come close to being as uncomfortable as one woman's family who has a special sex ritual for a new couple's wedding night.
The story was shared by her 23-year-old fiancé who was looking forward to entering her big family.
As he explained on r/relationship_advice, his 23-year-old fiancée's family are "very loud and have huge personalities." Even though he's more on the quiet side, they've always gotten along "great."
"Overall [they're] very warm and caring people," he explained.
But as they're getting closer to their wedding, he's starting to pick up on some strange behavior.
Sometimes his fiancée's cousins make joke about their wedding night.
"It's weird for them to joke about it since I'm pretty sure her family is aware we've slept together before since we share a bed at holiday gatherings and vacations," he wrote.
And then he and his fiancée had a strange conversation recently when trying to plan their honeymoon.
The man and his future wife were brainstorming ideas when she told him that "we won't need a bridal suite right away."
Clearly, he wasn't sure what she was talking about.
"She says that she'd like for us to stay at her parent's house," he explained.
At first, he thinks the move could be a huge money saver.
But his fiancée seemed to have more to say about the issue "so I push for why she wants it," he recalled. "She tells me that there's a really old tradition in her family on the wedding night."
"The husband and wife go into the master bedroom together and they are supposed to 'consummate' the marriage. The rest of the family are waiting outside the door so they can applaud them and cheer when they come out. Then a piece of the bed sheet is cut off and sewn into a big tapestry my GF's mother owns," he wrote.
He was freaked.
She quickly added that they wouldn't have to actually consummate the marriage — "we could just pretend," he wrote.
No matter how much they cheated the tradition, he still felt like the whole thing was really weird.
"When I came back from taking a walk to clear my head, she was now noticeably acting down and still is," he added. "I think she's also been texting her family about this because I received a text from her mother telling me that I 'don't understand the importance of family' and tradition yet and this kind of tradition has been around longer than I've been alive."
Now they're at an impasse.
He loves his fiancée, but is her family tradition just too weird?
People in the comments agreed that this "tradition" was straight up too strange.
"Jesus, a family sex blanket? I sure hope it's only decorative and Grandma doesn't sleep with it," one commenter wrote.
"Tell them your family had a tradition of having a separate, private, honeymoon suite and being alone," someone else suggested. "If she needs to, you wife can cut the corner off the hotel sheets or a sheet you already had sex on (though that's really weird…who TF has a sex sheet for their kids)."
A third commenter put it this way: "This is straight up weird as [expletive] and I have no advice apart from the fact that tradition is just peer pressure from the dead and you need to stand your ground."
A few commenters thought the OP should go for it.
"Well, if you really love her, and you would do anything for her, why not?" one person asked.
"I say do it.. Who cares," a second commenter wrote. "Weird, h— yeah."
"Dude, just do it," another commenter chimed in. "It's a family tradition. At least she's not asking you to cut off part of your penis."
Of course, cutting off a part of your penis doesn't have to be the litmus for how far out of your comfort zone one should be willing to go to honor a partner's family tradition, but it's totally understandable if the future groom was having second thoughts. A wedding night should be about the couple getting married — they can see their family after the honeymoon is over.
