One man thought he was giving his fiancée the space she needed to grieve after finding out an ex boyfriend had died. The problem is that his bride-to-be has now decided that to help her heal she wants to get a brand new tattoo — in honor of this other man. Sure, people mourn in their own ways, but he’s not really comfortable with the idea of her getting another man's name inked on her wrist. “I told her that I'd be postponing the wedding which was supposed to be in January until she reconsiders her decision of getting a tattoo,” he wrote on Reddit.
This whole mess started about a month ago.
That's when the 26-year-old man and his 24-year-old fiancée found out that her old boyfriend died.
“Thing is they remained friends and were both part of the group and had many mutual friends,” he explained in a since deleted post on the Am I the A–hole forum. “To be honest I don't know her group that much and I met her via work so I don't see her friend group much."
His fiancée then asked for some time to process the death, so she decided to stay with her sister for a few days.
Which the original poster didn’t mind at all. His fiancée was heartbroken when she left and they spoke every night while she was away.
“I didn't rush her or anything instead I'd ask if she needed something,” he recalled of their nightly conversations.
Well, a few days turned into three weeks.
When she finally returned, she seemed to have calmed down. She even made arrangements with some friends “who knew her ex and they'd plan doing things to honor him.”
And surprise, surprise — she’d also come up with her own personal way to pay homage.
She wanted a tattoo of her ex’s name on her wrist.
Just her ex’s first name, she told him. But it was still a shock to the OP, who let her know that he wasn’t pleased with this decision at all.
“I was taken aback. I asked her where she came up with this idea and why she decided without telling me,” he explained. “She lashed out at me for saying that it felt weird to me.”
His fiancée said that the OP just couldn’t relate to the pain she was feeling.
She felt that he couldn’t understand that she needed to do this.
“The conversation turned into an argument,” he recalled. And he ended up giving her an ultimatum: It’s either the tattoo or their wedding.
“She called me selfish and blamed me for not wanting to tell me anything saying that I'd say no,” he wrote. “She went back to her sister who thought I was pressuring her during these rough times.”
He didn’t really think he was pressuring her, but now he’s wondering if he should apologize to her for getting angry.
“I don't know how I reacted like that, I just never dealt with a situation like this before,” he explained.
Other people agreed that a tattoo seemed unnecessary.
“The kind of performance grief your GF is pulling here is just gross,” one commenter wrote. “It's not about her dead ex or even the guy's family, it's all about her. How this guy dying impacted her, and how sad she is, and ‘Oh, that tattoo of a man's name on my wrist? Don't ask. It's too traumatic. Just know I'm strong and deep and you wouldn't understand. Blah blah blah.’ Don't postpone the wedding, this is a perfect opportunity to just bail altogether.”
“‘Don’t get another man’s name tattooed on you while we are together’ is an incredibly reasonable boundary,” someone else agreed. “If she wants it permanently on her body badly enough, she can do that, but she has to realize how damaging that will be to her current engagement.”
“You should not postpone the wedding if she does; you should CANCEL it and the relationship entirely,” added a third commenter.
A few people thought the OP was being too harsh.
“You're the A–hole in my opinion,” one commenter wrote. “It's her body. If she wants to get a tattoo of the name of a good friend that passed away, then it's her decision to make. And she certainly does not need to tell you before deciding on a tattoo. It feels like you're jealous of a dead person who was friends with her, which feels very weird to me. Would you react the same way if it was her brother or a good friend who's not a man?”
“If it’s a dealbreaker for you then that’s your choice,” someone else chimed in. "But I really don’t think it needs to be! She’s honoring a dead loved one in a way that feels right to her, and it takes nothing away from you and your relationship with her. In the kindest way possible: it’s not like you need to worry she’s going to leave you for him.
"So yeah. Obviously you don’t have to marry her if it’s really that big a deal to you. But I suspect that once you’ve got over the (understandable!) weirdness then you’ll realise it’s not something worth falling out over.”
While third person agreed that the OP was sort of the a–hole: “Here's why: not every relationship that ends, ends badly. My ex-boyfriend/best friend of a decade passed away a while back, and I got a tattoo in memory of him. My husband understood completely and respected my right to do as I like with my skin sack enough to recognize that despite my prior relationship with my ex, we were friends on a very deep level. He recognized that losing my best friend was very difficult for me, and that my friend had been instrumental in me becoming the person he fell in love with.”
The commenter added: "It's fine to feel some type of way about it, and maybe you guys could have a talk about her getting a representative tattoo (rather than his name) or putting it somewhere else on her body, but at the end of the day y'all trust each other and love each other enough to be getting married; if she wanted him, she would have picked him.”
The truth is, some people find tattoos to be part of their healing process, but it’s understandable that the OP isn’t thrilled with the idea. All the OP can do is tell his fiancée how he feels and hope that she hears him.
Forget the ultimatum, OP, just talk this one out and see if you can get on the same page.
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