Reddit is the ultimate cure for boredom, but every scroll is a coin toss between heartwarming and pure nightmare fuel. Case in point this time: a recent AITA thread that managed to set a new gold standard for nightmare.
A first-time 29-year-old Redditor opened up to the community about an incident where his 28-year-old fiancée tattooed his dead brother on her arm, which left him “stunned” and severely uncomfortable. The tattoo was not a subtle name or a discreet symbol, but a “big, realistic gray scale tattoo of his face with a little Snoopy icon beside it…with his nickname and his birth AND death dates underneath.”
“For context,” he explained, “my older brother (30M) passed away three years ago in a motorcycle accident.” He recounted how they were inseparable since childhood and considered each other best friends.”Even if he was older, he was never the stereotypical older brother bully sort, and I loved him for that,” he wrote. Naturally, the death wrecked him, but what his fiancée did has left him at a weird intersection. “When I saw this, I was f*cking stunned,” he said.
While everyone who read the post agrees that the tattoo was “a wild overstep on her part,” his fiancée instead defended her move as a “tribute” to his brother. She claimed that her motive was to support the man since she knows how much he still struggles with grief.
“I honestly didn’t know what to say at first, but the more I sat with it, the more it bothered me. I told her (gently, as much as I could tbh) that I appreciated the gesture but found the tattoo really uncomfortable. Like it’s unsettling to see HIS face on MY fiancées body. Like it’s too much, especially since they barely knew each other??”
He also revealed that his fiancée met his brother only a few times, “but always said she admired our bond as she has no real siblings of her own.” However, when the man confronted her about his uneasiness with the tattoo, she got upset and called him weird instead for “making her regret doing something beautiful.”
“Now I’m stuck with a fiancée that won’t even talk to me properly, and my brother’s perfectly black and grey eyes stare at me when I’m lying beside her. And honestly, I don’t even want to think of how horrifying having sex would be with that on her arm. Am I being unreasonable??”
Most users agreed that his concerns and discomfort were valid and called his fiancée’s step “a huge red flag and some real pick-me/look-at-me behavior.” They also tried to offer him real advice, saying, “Put a pause on the wedding and get both of you some individual therapy.” Another commented, “If the tattoo can’t be modified, and she likely won’t remove it, I would be considering breaking up with her. Weird AF.”
Validating the redditor’s feelings and ultimately labelling him “Not the A*sh*ole,” One user wrote:
It’s one thing to support you through grief; it’s another to permanently tattoo your brother’s face on her body when they barely knew each other. That’s not a tribute, that’s weirdly possessive of your grief and your bond with him. You have every right to feel uncomfortable seeing your late brother’s face on your fiancée’s arm every day, especially in intimate situations.
And that’s enough internet for today.
