My friend (“Rebecca”) and I are both 27 and she is getting married to her fiancé (“Alex”) [28M] very soon. I believe they’ve been together for around three years. For a while, I honestly never really bothered looking into him – Rebecca and I haven’t seen each other in person in years, as we live quite far apart, but we met as teenagers online and a few years later in person. When Rebecca and Alex were dating, I just saw her looking happy in photos on instagram and Facebook, nothing unusual, and I certainly didn’t think to sweep his social media presence.
Earlier this year, Rebecca messaged me to ask for my address as she was sending out wedding invitations. I happily obliged; I hadn’t seen her in a while and was excited for her. But then, I don’t know why, I had an urge to look through Alex’s social media. Fair to say, not really what you want to read.
I am disabled. Not that it would be any better if I wasn’t disabled, but somehow it stings a little more when it’s personal. Selfish? Sure. Human nature? Probably.
I’m not sure if I should add a content warning for ableism here, so here it is now.
I found a video of Alex giving an interview to a small media outlet calling disabled people a drain on the country and the taxpayer. He had posts up mocking people on disability benefits. He had reposted things about how poverty is associated with low IQ, and so allowing rich people to keep their money so they can pass it down to their high IQ children is a positive for society. That carers for disabled people shouldn’t be getting paid because it’s an “unnecessary burden”.
Yeah. Needless to say, I told Rebecca I’d seen the kind of stuff Alex had to say about my community and didn’t want to be part of a wedding with a groom who thought of people like me as jokes and burdens on society. I wasn’t aggressive. She accepted that I didn’t want to come but argued he believed people with “genuine disabilities” should get help and that he wasn’t talking about everyone – but she didn’t want to argue and neither did I. Anyway, I’m now blocked by both of them, and have been for several months.
At first I thought, fuck her. Surely she wouldn’t marry someone like that if she didn’t agree with him, even if she’s never expressed such views herself. But there’s a creeping sense within me that this guy’s attitudes towards disabled people must spill out into his treatment of anyone he deems less than. And I can’t stop fearing that, if it isn’t already, this will one day be directed at her.
If you’re disabled from something acquired later in life you’ll know it can be triggered by anything. One trauma, accident, virus, illness, anything at any time at any age for no reason at all. What if Rebecca becomes disabled? Will he make her feel like a burden and a drain on society? Will he accuse her of wasting his money? What if one of their children is born disabled, or becomes disabled? (I know she wants children). What if his attitude to disabled people is one piece of a very big and callous puzzle?
I can’t stop thinking about how my friend is going to be treated being married to this man. The one spoken interview he gave showed him to have the most awful, unpleasant “vibes” I’ve seen in a while. I know she’s ended our friendship but I still care about Rebecca. And now I’m worried about her. Maybe I’m the fool for worrying about someone willingly marrying a man who thinks I’m a drain on society but I’m not someone who can just stop caring about a friend of well over a decade overnight. I talked to my husband about it and I joked that if I turn up in my wheelchair Alex will tip me out a second-floor window for wasting taxpayers’ money. He said Alex sounds horrible, but he doesn’t know Rebecca well enough to know whether she secretly agrees with him or it’s something more sinister. The thing is, after over a decade of friendship, you’d think I would know.
And I don’t.
TL;DR My friend of over a decade ended our friendship because I found out her fiancé’s views on disabled people, and as a disabled person myself I couldn’t possibly attend the wedding of someone like that. I’m now starting to worry for her, especially if she becomes disabled herself, but even if not, because I fear such cruel attitudes towards disabled people signal something much greater about a person’s character. And I also wonder if I’m a complete fool for even worrying about her.