Dear Prudence is Slate’s advice column. Submit questions here.

For this edition, Hillary Frey, Slate’s editor-in-chief, will be filling in as Prudie.

Dear Prudence,

My partner of five years and I just got married after two years of extensive wedding planning and preparation. We had a very large guest list with a variety of needs that needed to be taken into account, such as international travel and physical limitations, and I feel grateful that my husband was very intentional about making sure the labor of wedding planning was split as equitably as possible between the two of us. We agreed that we wanted to write our own vows because we thought it was more meaningful than using traditional ones. As a self-admitted perfectionist and English major, I spent an immense amount of time thinking about and writing mine, and while I wouldn’t hold my husband to impossible standards, I was really looking forward to hearing what he wrote.

At the ceremony, things went off without a hitch. The vows he wrote were beautiful and made me tear up. During the reception, however, his best man gave a (I believe slightly drunk) toast where he mentioned my husband using ChatGPT to write his vows. Everyone laughed, including me, until he emphasized that it wasn’t a joke and that my husband actually did use ChatGPT to write them at the last minute, apparently to emphasize how lucky he was to find such a “creative and talented” wife since he is “lacking” in that department. My husband was laughing nervously, and I was taken aback. As soon as the toasts were over, I ran to the restroom and cried, feeling extremely hurt that not only did he use AI to write something so intimate, but mostly that he presumably would not have told me had this not been revealed during the toast. He followed me to the bathroom and apologized, saying that he felt too overwhelmed to write them himself, but he didn’t want to disappoint me. I told him that I didn’t want an apology from him but just wanted to survive the rest of the reception, which we did, although the entire time I was distracted and hurt by this situation.

That night, we continued to fight about it, and I told him that I wish he had just been honest with me and that his lying was far more hurtful to me than not writing his own vows. His best man texted me and apologized, saying that he assumed I knew he used ChatGPT and that he wouldn’t have brought it up otherwise. This was even more upsetting to me, as apparently, his friends are also comfortable lying on his behalf. Days later, my husband is still apologizing, and while part of me wants to move on, another part of me can’t stop thinking about his dishonesty. I’ve asked him whether he ever planned on telling me or if he would have taken that secret to the grave, and all he can tell me is that he “doesn’t know.” Am I overthinking this? I feel like I have every right to be upset, and I worry about what other things he might keep from me in the future, but I genuinely love him and want to move on—I just don’t know how. Help!

—Vexed About Vows

Dear Vexed About Vows, 

Well, honey, you asked, so I’m going to tell you: You are WAY overthinking this. Weddings are totally overwhelming for all of us. Your husband was overwhelmed and used AI to write his vows (although, it sounds like he did a good job with that since you liked them when you heard them!). You were overwhelmed, and crushed with the news that ChatGPT was a henceforth unnoticed presence at your wedding. If anyone deserves some flak here, it’s your husband’s friend, who really should have known better than to include that fact in his toast, drunken or not. Who was that going to make feel good?

I don’t know why, but wedding toasts are eternally fraught. At my first wedding, the best man—who was not only one of my then-husband’s best friends but one of mine—gave a toast that made it sound like he didn’t know me at all. There was one line about me. To be fair, he also made it sound like my husband was dead; it was a eulogy more than a toast. Did I carry around anger and disappointment about this for a long time? Yeah, I did. My feelings were really hurt, and I was embarrassed. I think, if people were really honest about their weddings, you’d hear a lot of stories about toasts and comments that tarnished what we all wish were pure days and nights of celebration, but so often are not.

But back to you: Your husband, who is not an English major or perfectionist as far as I can tell, needed some help writing something that articulated his feelings better than he felt he could. Based on his best man’s actions, I wouldn’t have gone to him for help, either! So, there is our fraught companion, ChatGPT, offering its services. His heart was in the right place. Even more, he apologized; a lesser man would have been defensive and somehow made this your fault, I promise.

I am sorry that you will have this unsavory memory from your wedding day, but I promise, you aren’t alone. I am glad that it sounds like you have a thoughtful partner who holds you in such high regard that he enlisted help, even if it was from a robot. These are the times we live in! I can promise that married life is going to throw much tougher moments your way. So accept his apology, delete the photos of the best man giving his toast, and pick the one picture from your wedding you like the best and make it your home screen. The more you see you and your partner looking happy on your wedding day, the more the stupid best man speech will recede from memory.

Dear Prudence,

My husband and I are “get together for dinner every couple of months” friends with another couple, the “Johnsons.” Initially, we enjoyed these dinners, but over the past few years, we’ve come to dread them. Although we share similar political viewpoints, we have little else in common—they live a wealth-adjacent lifestyle that we don’t relate to, are big foodies, have no children or pets, etc.

That in itself isn’t a huge issue, but they tend to be self-centered, and we never get beyond surface-level topics, so it’s just them telling stories about their niece’s extravagant wedding, their latest visit to the bicycle fitting consultant, all the specialty grocery shops they went to, etc.  They rarely ask about our lives, and we don’t talk about deeper interpersonal topics, so it makes for a long, dull evening that we drink our way through, which leaves us drained the next day.

This came to a head recently, when Mr. Johnson reached out and droned on for 10 minutes before my husband got a chance to tell him that I was recuperating from an unexpected hospitalization. That really crystallized (for me especially) that I just don’t want to do these get-togethers anymore. Neither my husband nor I enjoys them. There is no real friendship, and we get little out of socializing for its own sake. The problem is, they are always the ones who reach out, and continue to follow up if we initially brush them off, so eventually we run out of excuses and have to say yes to “get it over with.” We can’t think of a good way to put them off permanently, since they’re not bad people and haven’t done anything egregious. Any advice? (And before you ask, they do actively socialize with others, so it’s not like they rely on us exclusively for companionship.)

—Tired of Circling the Drain

Dear Tired of Circling the Drain,

I don’t know how many times you are brushing them off before you say yes, but it needs to be more. They aren’t getting the message. Another Prudie might tell you to sit them down and rationally tell them that you just aren’t into them, but that seems too high stakes to me for the kind of relationship you all share. Just … don’t answer them. Or, decline, but do NOT say, “Maybe another time!”, or, “Maybe when things calm down.” Eventually, they will get the message. They will also probably be mad at you, but that’s the cost of ending relationships, and probably a small one given the dinner bills and time wasted with these folks.

Prudie Wants to Hear From You!

Readers often have great suggestions for our letter writers, occasionally disagree with a point Prudie makes, or simply want to provide some additional advice. Each week, Prudie will be replying to some of these comments and suggestions from readers, which will be featured on the site on Fridays for Slate Plus members. Write to us!

Dear Prudence,

My wife’s birthday rolled around last week. She asked me and the kids not to make a big deal of it this time, so we didn’t and treated it like any other day. Now she’s mad at us! I offered to take her out to any restaurant she wants for a party with all her friends and the rest of the family, but she says we’ve “ruined” it for the year. Where did we do wrong?

—We Did What You Wanted!

Dear We Did What You Wanted,

Is it possible that you misunderstood “don’t make a big deal” to mean “don’t do anything”? I don’t know what you’ve done in the past, and whether you have gone too big or over the top for her birthday, or if you tend to do modest celebrations. And I don’t know if your wife genuinely doesn’t like attention or if she said this as a ploy to bait you into “surprising” her with something bold. Either way, treating her birthday like any other day was clearly going too far.

I wish I could say she was overreacting, but I feel her: Most everyone wants a little something to mark their birthday. She didn’t say, “Don’t do anything.” Why don’t you give her some time and, when your birthday comes around, use it to celebrate hers? Let her cool off and then come up with a creative way to make it up to her that you know she will like. It doesn’t have to be big, but it’s gotta be at least a small deal.

—Hillary

Classic Prudie

My husband and I had our first child in March of 2022 and my mother-in-law came to stay with us for two weeks almost immediately after we came home from the hospital (literally arrived two days after we got home). We really didn’t want her to come that soon but almost felt obligated to. Well, long story short the visit was awful….

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