There are some things you just know are going to be messy. Grief is messy. Remarriage after loss is messy. Blending lives is messy. But there’s a huge difference between navigating a delicate situation with love and empathy, and just being a giant, insecure, controlling man-baby about it. And this story, friends, has a man-baby of epic proportions.
Our narrator is a 35-year-old woman. Her first husband, John, died suddenly six years ago. They were together for eight years, happily married for four. It was a tragedy. She loved him. She lost him. This is a cored part of her life story.
Three years later, she met her current husband, Ned. They hit it off, fell in love, and got married last year. Everything has been great… except for one recurring, glaring, Ned-shaped problem. Ned absolutely hates that John ever existed. He is pathologically insecure about a man who is no longer here.
Now, let’s look at what the wife has done to be “sensitive” to his feelings, because it is… a lot. She doesn’t want him to feel like he’s competing, so she doesn’t bring John up. Fair. But that’s not all. She has taken all her mementos from her first marriage—her wedding photos, home videos, gifts, his old record collection—and locked them away in two large chests in the basement.
She has literally boxed up and buried eight years of her life in a grief-dungeon to appease this man’s jealousy. She gave everything else away to John’s family. She’s only even looked in those chests three times in the last two years, and only at his family’s request. This is not a woman living in the past. This is a woman with a past who is being forced to hide it.
But the mementos aren’t the only problem. She is still, understandably, very close with John’s family. After eight years, they are her family, too. Every year on John’s birthday, they have a reunion to remember him. And it’s not a sad, weeping affair. They eat, they laugh, they tell funny stories, and they celebrate his life. It’s a beautiful, healthy way to honor someone you’ve lost.
John’s family, by the way, has been super welcoming and wants to meet Ned. But Ned refuses to go. He feels “uncomfortable.” Okay, that’s his right. But he also doesn’t want her to go to any of their family events, like other birthdays or weddings. She still goes, but it hurts her feelings that he’s trying to shut out an entire group of people who love her.
And then, one day, the whole thing imploded. Ned found some of John’s old books on their shared library shelf that she had forgotten to move to the basement crypt. A simple mistake. But Ned, in his infinite insecurity, didn’t see it as a mistake. He accused her of leaving them there to spite him.
He then went nuclear, accusing her of not loving him and telling her “he knows I wish John were still alive.” Just… wow. The cruelty of that.
She, like any sane person, told him that was unfair and that she can’t just say “I’m glad he’s dead.” But that’s exactly what he wants. He told her that if she really loves him, she’ll “prove it.” And how does she prove it? By throwing out all the mementos—the ones already locked in the basement—and by being forbidden from ever celebrating John’s birthday with his family again.
She tried to explain that she can’t just erase eight years of her life, and now he is giving her the silent treatment until she complies.
So, is she the ahole? Let me be as clear as humanly possible: NO. She is not the ahole. She is a kind, patient, and loving woman who is married to a deeply insecure and controlling man.
This man is not asking for respect. He is demanding she amputate a part of her own history to make him feel secure. He is jealous of a dead man. He is threatened by her memories. His “discomfort” is not a valid reason to control her, her relationships, or her past.
What he’s doing isn’t just “insecure.” It’s manipulative. Telling someone to “prove” their love by destroying their past is a red flag so big it could be seen from space. She is not being unreasonable. She is being held hostage by his jealousy, and he is the ahole.
I think you married a chump the 2nd time