Man tells 'rambling' fiancée to 'shut up about archaeology' at a funeral.

Small talk is unbearable on it's own. But at a funeral? Oh god.

When a woman tried to connect with the family of a deceased friend, she went off the rails. After several uncomfortable moments, her fiance snapped at her. Now he's coming to Reddit to ask why his beloved isn't talking to him like she used to...

'AITA (Am I the A-hole) for telling my fiancée to shut the **** up and stop talking about archeology at a funeral?'

Madonnn writes:

Me (28M) and my soon-to-be-wife Phoebe (27F) have been dating for 4 years. We’ve a quite amazing relationship to be honest.

We were at a mutual friend's funeral, George (27M). The three of us met at college and we basically became buddies from the get go. None of us are archeologists by the way. Our BA was Business administration.

A couple of weeks ago we were at George’s funeral service, most of the time just us with his family. We were the only ‘outsiders’ there. Phoebe, completely out of the blue, started to talk about archaeology to George’s mother.

In detail, she talked about about an ancient native boy who was found buried with a purposefully punctured (broken) “antara” flute next to his mouth, that they called a “killed instrument” as it was meant to never be played by anyone else, in the same way it was played once by its owner.

The flute was made of stone called “combarbalita”, which means it was meant to last through generations, so it had to be broken on purpose.

She talked about a connection between the flute and its owner being buried together, and the idea that the instrument was willfully broken in order to bring the instrument closer to his owner in eternity, achieving immortality for both of them by that irreversible action of breaking an instrument that was meant to last forever.

I’m basically paraphrasing but that was the idea. I can use some of her fancy words because she literally air dropped the article she was talking about, right there at the service. I’m wasting characters on this just so you know how obscure the conversation was.

I get the idea. I get the intention. It is interesting… for a college class. In the context of a funeral for our dear friend, however, I thought it was out of pocket and sort of distasteful, disrespectful, to talk about that.

George’s mother was polite and she asked some questions but she was mostly quiet just listening to Phoebe talking non-stop. Then, George’s father and brother approached us and she was about to start to tell them the whole damn story once again. I quietly said “Please don’t…” she was about to start rambling so I told her “just shut the f*ck up, please”.

She didn’t speak to me for that entire evening. We talked about it later, back in our place and I explained why I reacted that way. She said “gotcha, you’re fine” but she has acted differently to me since that day. One of my friends told me that I ‘broke’ her and it does feel that way. It’s almost like she’s a robot and her software it’s malfunctioning.

Tension is high for both of us and George’s death hit us hard on both of us, so IDK if I’m missing something. AITA?

Well, what do you think? Did Phoebe deserve to be shut down that hard, or did OP overreact?

Reddit had a lot to say on the matter...

ariesgal11 says:

YTA (You're the a-hole) - I get what she was doing might be not the most appropriate in the moment, but it was probably very uncomfortable and when people are uncomfortable sometimes they ramble about random things.

There was zero reason for you to swear at her and tell her to shut up. You could have just quietly said 'maybe not now,' or 'hey just don't talk about that right now please.'

Like the way you delivered that message was not okay and I wouldn't have been okay with my partner speaking like that to me in any context. She's mourning the loss of a friend and then her partner is swearing at her and telling her to shut up... that would make anyone feel like garbage. You have some apologizing to do.

Yetanotherpeasant writes:

ESH (Everyone sucks here) - I disagree, he told her to 'please don't' and most people pick up on this social cue and warning when in a contexted situation like that. He messed up by swearing at her, he needs to choose better words.

If I was George's mother, burying my child and having someone yapping in my ear like that I would probably vomit, never mind not want that person talking to me again. She was very inconsiderate and rude tbh. If the mother was engaged in the conversation, then this would be different.

notlucyintheskye shares:

YTA (You're the a-hole). A) she was probably pretty uncomfortable because funerals suck, (B) she was talking about something relating to immortality, which ties in to death, so it's not like the topic just came out of left field, (C) there were 101 ways to tell your girlfriend that it was not an appropriate time - and you still managed to pick the worst one.

You told your gf to 'shut the f*ck up', so she did - and now you want to be all 'I don't understand why she's being standoffish and quiet!' Yeah, it's also not great to refer to your girlfriend as an emotionless malfunctioning robot.

Inner_Working9343 agrees:

Calling her a malfunctioning robot is so out of line. Especially when op’s friend let him know HE “broke” her. Take some accountability for hurting her feelings instead of insulting her.

Real-Olive-4624 adds:

The fiancée honestly gives me some vibes of being neurodivergent, which if true would give another squicky layer to the describing her as a malfunctioning robot.

Either way, I agree, OP is YTA due to there being reasons behind the fiancée's actions, and there being far better ways to handle the situation. Hearing someone yell at their significant other to 'shut the f*ck up' would be just as, if not more, uncomfortable than an unnecessary story.

bongbongtree sees a bigger, more sinister pattern at play:

He sucks for his language. And she needed to read the room, wrong time and place. Everyone calling him an AH are forgetting he is grieving as well. They’re all cutting her slack, saying ‘she’s just grieving and uncomfortable, so she can talk about whatever she wants’, what about OP? He was grieving and uncomfortable as well. Sometimes you say the wrong things when you’re under distress.

Either they both suck, or neither of them do. I’m prepared to get downvoted for this, but I will say this sub is increasingly getting more misandrist, and it’s rubbing me the wrong way. I feel I always read that the women have valid and perfect excuses, while the men do everything wrong and everything is their fault. It’s f*#ked.

milesfromsonic says:

I’d be livid if my son just died and someone came up to talking about mummies and immortality. The gf had no idea what was going through their minds. She chose to ignore her bf. She’s TA.

Well, it seems like there were no winners here.

But perhaps OP's question should be less 'who was the bigger a-hole in that one moment?' and more 'how can I get my fiancée to talk to me again?'