Most of us have an internal list of deal-breakers in relationships, and they tend to be big breaches like cheating, lying, financial infidelity, or the like.
But every now and then, a totally unexpected scenario happens that reveals questionable aspects of our partner we might never have seen otherwise. Such was the case for a woman on Reddit who decided to break things off after a life-threatening experience left her abandoned by her fiancé.
The woman ended her engagement after her fiancé bolted when they got mugged.
Uh, yeah, that seems like a bit of a turning point in a relationship! The woman shared in her since-deleted post that she and her fiancé had been together for six years and blissfully engaged for a few months.
They had been looking forward to a Christmastime wedding; however, after the upsetting events, she’s considering breaking up instead.
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It all began when she, her brother, and her fiancé left a restaurant after dinner and began walking to their car.
It was a bit of a hike to where they’d parked, and along the way, a mugger on a bike stopped them and “demanded we give everything we had.” To say her fiancé was terrified is an understatement.
The woman’s fiancé immediately panicked and ran away while her brother beat up the mugger.
The woman was astonished when her fiancé “just ran away” and left her and her brother to deal with the mugger. Her brother definitely handled things — he “just attacked the man,” she wrote, beating him to a pulp.
They then went and picked up her fiancé, who was deeply shaken and very thankful to her brother. But she was left feeling “extremely weird, and sort of disappointed that my fiancé just ran away.”
“I understand it was his natural instinct,” she went on to say. Many of us would have done the same thing without even thinking — that’s literally what our “fight or flight” instincts are for, after all.
“But just seeing my brother take the attacker down, and in comparison to my fiance just running away, I just feel like I lost a lot of love for my fiance after last night,” she admitted.
Her brother thought she should give her fiancé a bit more understanding, but she was left feeling really thrown off. “I just got a massive ick,” she wrote, “and I don’t think this ick will ever go.”
After a lot of thought, the woman decided it was indeed a deal-breaker and called off the wedding.
In a follow-up postthe bride wrote that she decided to call off the wedding. In the end, it was just something she couldn’t get past.
“Yes, I loved him a lot, and will always cherish the memories I had with him,” she wrote. “But after the incident last night, I just don’t have that same love for him anymore, and I don’t think I ever will.”
She reiterated that she doesn’t blame him for having the instinctual response to run away. But the contrast between the response from the man she was going to marry and her brother was just too stark to ignore — and it changed something in her heart.
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“When my brother instinctively stepped in front of me to shield me from the attacker in comparison to my fiancé just running away scared, it pretty much evaporated most if not all of my feelings for my fiancé,” she wrote.
She went on to say that her fiancé was devastated but understanding. She, too, is heartbroken. “My fiancé is a really kind and sweet man,” she wrote, but she thinks it would be unfair to still marry him now that her “heart isn’t in it.”
Many agreed that this incident was revealing about how the woman’s fiancé probably would have handled crises in their marriage.
On one hand, it seems unfair to judge someone on such an extreme scenario when their instincts told them their very life was in danger. But on the other, many on Reddit couldn’t get past one detail — if her fiancé had just tried to take her along with him when fleeing, everything would be different.
“If he bolted while dragging his then-fiancé with him, the situation may have turned different,” one person wrote, going on to say that it was the “saving his own skin” that seemed to rub everyone — the bride included — the wrong way.
In the end, it comes down to trust. Another person added that when someone does this, it’s hard to feel that they “have your back.” It may seem a bit frivolous given this has all arisen from a situation they’re unlikely to face again, but experts say there’s something to the bride’s instincts.
Psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten says that choosing to take a partner back after they’ve fallen short and hurt you is not necessarily a bad thing, and to do so is “brave, kind, and honest” and can often strengthen a relationship.
But, she cautions, it also requires setting boundaries. And sometimes, that means ending things, especially when trust has been breached. Relationship coach Pegi Burdick told us that a lack of trust is the key component of “insecure relationships.”
That, in the end, seems to be what this bride sensed she was heading for. It’s sad that it had to come to this, but she’s likely making the best decision for both of them in the long run, heartbreaking and difficult as it may be.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.
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