'AITA for referring to my missing partner as my 'late boyfriend'?'
"AITA for referring to my missing partner as my 'late boyfriend'?"
I (M26) have a girlfriend (F27) and we were talking about if we could bring back anyone to talk to them one last time who would it be and why, she said she would love to talk to anyone from hundreds of years ago to see what the world was really like back then.
I instead said I would be really interested in talking to my late boyfriend, who went missing a couple years ago, to find out what really happened to him. I never got any proper information on him and he just went missing one day. I don't know anything and I've always wanted to know what happened but everyone has presumed he's gone forever so i will never know.
My girlfriends mood switched up after that and she ended up being pretty rude to me all day, I kept asking her what was up and it took a couple times before she finally said something after pushing me off all day.
She told me the fact that I still talk about him and even refer to him as my late boyfriend instead of just my ex annoys her, she told me that it's rude to call him my late boyfriend when I have a girlfriend.
I asked her why and she said it was because it means I don't view him as an ex and if he ever came back I would be more interested in him. I told her he's been missing for years and that he isn't going to come back and that the reason I don't call him my ex is because we never broke up.
To me, ex sounds like a negative thing and the concept of calling a man who I unfortunately lost my ex sounds horrible. I told her I was sorry she was upset but I just mourn him a lot but it's been years and even if he did ever show up again I am with her now and I love her. I told her I did love him and I will always have some love for him in my heart but it has been so long now I have moved on.
She was still angry and nothing I seemed to say helped. She told me I shouldn't even be talking about someone who I used to be with while I have a girlfriend, i tried saying that it was just the topic of the conversation and that it was just that I want to know what happened to him.
She wasn't happy with any of this and stormed off in the end and she's been nasty towards me for the last few days. I haven't properly apologised for talking about him because I hadn't felt I was in the wrong for doing so at first but now I'm second guessing myself because of how long she's been angry.
Here’s what people had to say to OP:
Your poor girlfriend needs to do some growing up, she's jealous of somebody who may very well be dead and even if he's not probably is in some very bad circumstances or why would he just vanish? She's also treating you badly for a very long time, is this what you want from somebody you're in a relationship with?
You've done nothing wrong, you have a good heart and your kindness is evident in your unwillingness to say anything bad about your girlfriend in spite of how badly she's behaving. I hope she gets over it and you work it out if that's what you want, but please know, you do not deserve to be treated this way. And you have done nothing wrong.
Yeah she's jealous of a ghost. She needs to work on herself.
bandstuf (OP)
Thank you. I attempted to work it out with her again today, I asked if she was doing alright and if she wanted to talk about it and she told me she wasn't interested and that I was "too busy putting a most likely dead man above her feelings". I'm trying to understand her point of view properly but she won't communicate with me and when she does it's just pure anger.
NTA. You were right, you have not broken up. Since she already told you her side and she seems insecure about her position in your life, you might want to reevaluate your relationship. Good luck.
That sounds like a huge red flag, to me. She’s not just phenomenally insecure. She’s not just blowing this way out of proportion. She’s showing you that she has no empathy and either cannot or will not take her partner’s feelings into consideration. It’s all about her. NTA, and you do NOT owe your girlfriend an apology.
She’s 27 and she pouts like a young teen. I don’t know all the details about what your relationship is like day to day, obviously but this incident doesn’t bode well. You did nothing whatsoever wrong. NTA.
Wow NTA and im so sorry for your loss and what you've gone through. Your current partner sounds like an insecure brat. Unless she learns how to better communicate instead of going passive aggressive over something like this you may want to really think about a future with this person.
NTA - She’s being unreasonable and very insensitive in expressing her insecurity. If my partner died today there is no way I’d ever refer to him as my Ex. I guess she’s never lost anyone close to her because to her it was a silly thought experiment, but to anyone who ever lost someone they loved, they will always imagine having just one more conversation with THAT person.
The fact that it is all about her, when you have some real fricking trauma going on is straight up narcissism. Red Flag. NTA, and I'm really sorry that happened to you.
NTA. Late bf is the correct term to use in this situation—he is not an ex for the exact reason you said. You very eloquently articulated your feelings on your mourning of him, but she dashed your feelings out of jealousy. She owes you an apology and is acting like a teenager not an almost 30 year old woman.
If she can’t see the error of her ways on this, I’d call it a deal-breaker. Losing a partner would be a big life event, and if she cannot navigate it, especially when you seem to have done a good job of doing so, is only going to continue to cause problems.