Throwaway account. Also english is not my first language. I am sorry if this is gonna be long, but I have a lot on my mind. So at first a looong backstory, its imporant.

Around the age of 14-15, in high school, I met a boy (lets say Dick, then 14yo) who supposedly had a huge crush on me. In my opinion, it was more of an unhealthy obsession. I had a boyfriend at the time, but that didn't stop him from trying to get my attention. It took about half a year before he realized that he wouldn't be able to date me, since I wasn't interested at all.

Then, for some unknown reason, he thought it would be a good idea to make up a story about him dying of a heart disease. He fooled all his friends and mine from high school, telling them that he was dying and that his last wish was to date me. In the meantime, I was already single,  but that didn't change the fact that I wasn't interested in a relationship with him. He started stalking me. Every-single-day when I went home from school to the bus he walked a few steps behind me, got on the same bus, then walked a few steps behind me to my house and waited until I entered, me still ingoring him.

There are so many examples that I could use to express the toxicity of this all, that I could write a whole book, but I´ll stick to the highlights:

One day when I wasn´t giving him enough attention, because I was spending a day with my friends - what a crime - he wrote “I love you *name*” in blood on a wall of an abandoned building we used to visit as kids. Yes, blood. He actually cut his fingers. He wrote me a message about what he had done afterwards and when I went to check with my friend to make sure it is not true, I almost fainted when I saw the bloody
sign. Shortly after that, he appeared out of nowhere and waved at us with his bloody hand in greeting. Like.. „hello there“.

Another time, when I was walking home again with him in tow, I had had a really hard day at school and it was raining. All I wanted to do was to go home, change into something dry and rest. Unfortunately, that very day he felt like he needed to pour his heart out, I guess because it was raining and he is now a well known drama queen. He stopped me a few meters from my house and started dumping his feelings on me, again. It took me a long time before I ran out of patience. I tried to persuade him to let me go home, without any success, until I told him that if he didn't let me go home immediately, I would
call my friend who lives down the street for help. He started screaming at me that I could do it, that he would kill him. After a few minutes, which felt like an eternity, I saw my friend walking up the street and I hoped that it would scare Dick enough to let me go home, so I tried to ran past him. Obviously it wasn't enough since he grabbed me and almost threw me to the ground. At that point I saw a blurry image of my friend, who had been walking toward us, suddenly start running. Long story short, thanks to that friend, I got home. Dick calmed down once another guy was around - surprise. To this day Im thankful to that boy rescuing me from a hopeless situation.

This is one example of more or less of a physical attack, nothing compared to mental abuse though. Half of my high school years I was the heartless one for not dating a “dying” boy. My best friend searched endlessly
for days for professional articles about his illness and tried to give him advice. Once, when he went to visit his family on the other side of the country, he pretended to be in a coma. Like seriously.

However, more months passed and his manipulations reached such a peak that yes, unfortunately, we started dating. He kind of turned my whole school against me, like a walking drama series... and I was young and stupid. So I gave up. Even while we were dating, I always had a nagging feeling that something wasn’t right. I couldn't shake the suspicion, but I just couldn’t bring myself to believe that he would lie about something as serious as being terminally ill. It seemed too extreme, too unbelievable. I understand that this all sounds completely stupid, but you have to keep in mind that I was 15 years old and I operated under the idea that noone would lie about such a serious matter. As I write this now, I don't understand how I could have been fooled so easily, I was a stupid child and I believed in good in people, my bad. He fooled me, he fooled the whole school, he was that good at manipulation. Probably the only thing he's good at to this day.

When I finally found out he was lying to me, I was free. I broke up with him.

Then once after school, my friend and I were at my house when Dick showed up on my street once again. He waited for hours, sent me hundreds of messages, calling me nonstop. When she left my house, he managed to ran up from the gate to my door SUPER quickly, burst inside, and demanded all the things he bought me during our relationship, half of which I couldnt even find so quickly. I managed to throw everything out and send him away (parents came home so that helped a bit), but it was a really terrifying experience.

Then, after a few years I started to make fun of him about it (yes he was still around somehow). I had a new boyfriend and sometimes when we went to a bar, Dick would make appearance there and almost always joined us even though I didn't want to. Noone else opposed cause we had common friends, and my voice didnt count. One of my few bright moments was when he tried to walk to our table on crutches and I said to him: "Hey Dick, do you really have a health problem there or are you just trying to hit on someone?" After this question he turned around with a sad face and limped away. Im sorry, I had to mentioned this as it always makes me laugh.

Now to the question. My current partner was at these bar sessions. He knows about everything that happened in my past, but I feel like he's taking it lightly considering that he's only seen the times when I was able to use humor and sarcasm as a defense mechanism. Problem is that my bf´s friend is getting married to Dick (thats another story) in a year, and she invited him, but I feel really uncomfortable that the person I'm in a relationship with is going to celebrate someone who has been consistently hurting me for several years. She's one of his best friends from childhood. The problem is that he sees it as his good friend's wedding that he wants to be at and ignores the fact that it's also the wedding of someone who knowingly and consistently kept ruining my life, turned my entire high school against me, stalked me for a long time, and used physical force twice to get what he wanted at that moment. I'm posting this story with the approval of my current boyfriend. Is it okay for him to go, or should he not go to the wedding of one of his best friends from childhood? We need to hear unbiased opinions, because we cannot reach an agreement. I dont want to forbid him from going but it honestly feels upsetting to me. I guess what really gets to me is after all this years, he still manages to affect my life in a negative way and Im sick of it. As one redditor said: „sometimes you need to burn the bridges to keep the crazies from following you“ - Ive done my part, but it seems like its still not enough.  Am I wrong to feel this way? Thank you to all that could finish reading this. Sorry for the long rant.