Workplace chats are usually pretty casual, except when they involve a widower’s wedding ring. When one woman brought up an awkward conversation with her co-worker who recently lost his wife, things got a little uncomfortable.
While browsing the AITA thread on Reddit, we stumbled across today’s story. The person who posted this story was the woman who made things awkward. Let’s see what she said, and what the general public response has been to her actions.
“I saw his wedding ring and thought he was being misleading.“
User u/Ideal-Mind3099 went to Reddit 2 weeks ago to ask the public a simple question. Am I the a**h*le?
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Apparently, the original poster (OP) on this thread was confused. Her 36-year-old co-worker lost his wife 8 months ago. However, he still wore his wedding ring. This issue was so astonishingly bothersome to the OP that just had to mention it to the widower.
A couple of weeks ago we had a new employee hired at the company. he’s a good guy and a widower named “James” (36) and to my knowledge his late wife passed away 8 months ago. Me (f32) and the other coworkers got along well with him. However I noticed that he is still wearing his wedding band on his finger. It kind of confused me a bit and I couldn’t help but bring it up with him while on lunch break.
Reddit
Naturally, the widower was a little surprised by what happened next.
We talked and I pointed out that he was being misleading by still wearing his wedding band when he’s a widower. He looked quite bothered by what I said but I tried to explain that I think that he was giving people the wrong idea or impression about his relationship status since he’s technically single and on his own right now (don’t want to sound cruel but I’m speaking from technical angle).
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Won’t Let It Go
After OP already made the widower uncomfortable, she decided to keep going. It was obvious that her other co-workers thought the topic was awkward as well. However, OP truly believed her opinion was worth repeating and made sure the widower heard her again.
James said that he didn’t give it much thought (meaning he don’t care what people think) and that even if he wasn’t wearing his wedding band and some woman approached him he’d still turn them down since he’s obviously not interested.
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OP didn’t understand why James would keep wearing his wedding ring after his wife passed away. Instead of letting the answer he gave be sufficient, OP harassed him until he left in a hurried rush. Now, OP is hurt and offended by James’ reaction. Did he overreact? Or, did she overstep? To us, and the rest of the Reddit followers, the answer is glaringly obvious.
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“For some reason things got awkward…”
For some reason things got awkward and everyone stopped eating and just stared at James and me. I told him I don’t know but that really really felt generally misleading of him as in making people think he is in a relationship (married) when he is not regardless of how he felt about being in a relationship. He got upset, called me rude, and said that I repeatedly disrespected his marriage and his late wife’s memory with what I said then took his stuff and walked away. My co workers said regardless of who is right or wrong (though some said he overreacted) there was no reason for me to bring this up on the first place and cause a scene.
Reddit
AITA? Did I overstep or did he overreact?
This was just a conversation we were casually having with the other co workers and I didn’t use any insensitive tones or anything but we had a discussion and it suddenly turned into an argument. I tried to let things calm down but the situation got out of my hand unexpectedly.
Reddit
Do you think OP should have mentioned her thoughts on James’ wedding ring? Or should she have left the opinions on wedding rings after death alone?
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Attention: While many of these stories are interesting, and we would love to take their word for it, the content in this article was taken from an unverifiable source (i.e., a Reddit forum). As such, we cannot guarantee that these events truly happened in the way that they are described in the original source.