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By Robert Read
Life & Trends Reporter
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A married woman whose husband essentially said—in front of their friends—that he would pick his late wife over her has been met with immense support online.
The 34-year-old woman and original poster (OP), Reddit user No-Context7758, shared her emotional story on r/AITAH, explaining that her 37-year-old husband's first wife—his high school sweetheart—had died unexpectedly from an aneurism about three years into their marriage.
The OP and her husband met four years later and have now been married for roughly three years and have two children together.
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At a recent potluck, the topic of past relationships came up, and the OP's husband said something in front of their friends that left her in shock.
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The OP wrote, "Everyone knows he was married before me and that she passed. He was talking about her and then drops a bomb and goes, 'If she walked through that front door right now, I'd pick up where we left off.'
"If I am being honest, it felt like someone put my heart into a blender and punched me in the gut as hard as they could. Everyone in the room could sense the awkwardness that followed.
"To avoid making a scene, I just laughed it off even though I think it was still obvious that it hurt me.
"I just felt that if you still felt that way, then why are we married? I have never had a deceased spouse...so I am unsure how that feels. But I would never SAY that in front of my new spouse."
After the OP and her husband left the gathering, she didn't speak to him the entire car ride home, or practically at all for the rest of the night.
However, she did tell him—before opting to sleep on the couch—that what he said "hurt my feelings deeply and that we could talk in the morning once I've calmed down because I didn't want to say something mean to him".
Ahead of that conversation, the OP turned to the internet to open up and ask if she was in the wrong for being so upset. But for practically every Redditor who weighed in, the answer was no.
One wrote, "That's a very hurtful thing to hear from your partner, hearing it while with a group of your friends would be understandably brutal. Very disrespectful to you."
"That's such an incredibly cruel and heartless thing to say"
A second assured the OP, "That would gut anyone," while a third noted the timing of his comment: "He says that RIGHT AFTER you said you had bad luck with men and were lucky to have found him. What the ever-loving frick frack?
"Does he just not care about your feelings? That's such an incredibly cruel and heartless thing to say, grief or no grief. I get that he lost his wife, but good lord."
A fourth remarked, "It's one thing to acknowledge a deceased partner...But, he was disrespectful and hurtful on another level...I'd be feeling like crap and angry, and truly wondering what role I play in this relationship outside of being a bed-warmer."
"I shouldn't have said it"
In an update, the OP revealed that her husband "apologized profusely" when they finally talked in full about what happened.
"I asked him how he would feel if I said that to him," the OP explained, adding that her husband also agreed to attend both individual and couples counseling.
"He says, 'Yeah. It's bad. I know. I shouldn't have said it. I wouldn't be happy. I know you aren't happy. I should've apologized in front of everyone as soon as I said it or not have said it at all'."
According to Mental Health America, the loss of a loved one is one of life's most "stressful" events, and mourning in these cases is "personal and may last months or years."
Experts at Healthline stressed that "talking with a therapist can help you understand and work through what is related to your grief".
Newsweek has contacted No-Context7758 for comment via Reddit.
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