Narcissist who’s always the victim of her own actions

My husband and I had a really good friendship with this couple for the past few years. Over time, though, we started noticing a pattern. She was constantly complaining, criticizing us, and talking down to us over little things. Everyday for her was about her, how miserable she was being retired and rich. We tried to overlook it because we valued the friendship, but eventually it became impossible to ignore.

We are officially getting married in Hawaii, and a few weeks before the wedding, this friend threw us a party. During the party, she began making incredibly disrespectful comments about my husband’s dad (who is mentally disabled)—not only in front of us, but in front of our friends, my brother in law and members of our wedding party. It was hurtful, inappropriate, and completely unnecessary.

After the party, we decided to confront her about it. We did so calmly and rationally. We weren’t looking for a fight. We simply wanted to explain that what she said was disrespectful and that there were certain boundaries that needed to be respected, especially surrounding our wedding and our families.

Instead of having a conversation, she completely lost her temper. Her husband even threatened physical violence. Suddenly, the situation became about how we had supposedly wronged them. She demanded refunds for the party, her first-class airfare, and the expensive hotel she had personally chosen.

We never uninvited her. We made it clear that she was still welcome at our wedding, but that this day was not about her. It was about us, our marriage, and celebrating with the people we love. We simply asked that she respect our boundaries and not bring any more negativity into what should be one of the happiest moments of our lives.

From there, things escalated.

She convinced two other couples not to come to Hawaii. One was her daughter and son-in-law. (Not surprising) The other situation stemmed from her canceling an Airbnb where she and several other friends had originally planned to stay, after the wedding her plan was to move to a five-star hotel.

What hurt the most was that she never had the courage to tell us directly that she wasn’t coming. Instead, she made sure everyone around us knew that she was canceling her entire trip.

Throughout all of this, she has portrayed herself as the victim.

We’ve been told that we said “mean and hurtful” things. Yet when she and her husband reacted by becoming aggressive and threatening violence, we were somehow expected to simply forgive them and move on so that we could focus on how “terrible” we supposedly were for defending someone who was being disrespected.

We truly believe that she was trying to get my father in law uninvited to our wedding. That was never going to happen. He’s a handful, but he’s ours and I will stand up for him till the day I die.

It has been exhausting and heartbreaking.

No matter how calmly or rationally we try to communicate, the conversation always gets turned around. Somehow, she becomes the victim again and again. She has even tried to convince us that the things she said and did never happened—even though we were there. We have eyes. We have ears. We know what happened.

Now, after all of this, she has decided to come to Hawaii after spending weeks telling people she wasn’t coming, convincing other couples to cancel their trips, and putting people who genuinely wanted to attend in an incredibly difficult position.

Now my husband is convinced we will run into her while we are here and is nervous to go out and do anything to avoid her.

The hardest part of this entire situation is that this was never supposed to be about her. It was intended to make her aware of how rude and ignorant she was about our own family members.

This was supposed to be about our wedding. About celebrating our marriage with the people we love. Instead, we’ve spent weeks dealing with unnecessary drama, hurt feelings, manipulation, and fallout that we never asked for.

We are tired of defending ourselves against a narrative that simply isn’t true. We aren’t asking anyone to take sides. We just wish she would take responsibility for her own words and actions instead of continually rewriting what happened and positioning herself as the victim.
At this point, all we want is to get married, enjoy Hawaii, and celebrate this incredibly important moment with the people who genuinely want to be there for us.