Relationships

<h2>&quot;Just want to say this is going to sound insane but I am not trolling/making it up.&quot;</h2><blockquote> <p>Me and this guy were together for 3 years. We&#39;re 19 now. We never talked about the future until a year in. Before then I&#39;d try to discuss it and he would change the subject. In short, I wanted kids, he didn&#39;t.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>I wanted to stay in Ireland, he didn&#39;t. I wanted to get married, he didn&#39;t. When I realised it was a bad match I broke it off but he asked to get back together, saying we were too young to worry about the future, and we got back together. This happened a few times over the next 18 months In this time we probably spent more time apart than together.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>If I were dating him 10 or 15 years from now and he didn&#39;t want to get married, then I might have an issue, but when I&#39;m barely out of my teens, it&#39;s not a huge concern, and just loving him and wanting to be with him is enough.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>When I went to see him this time I was again, considering breaking up with him. Aside from the long term issues, he is also inconsiderate and has a mean streak that I really don&#39;t like.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>So when I arrived at his place, mentally debating breaking up with him for good this time, and he told me he wanted to take me out to dinner, I assumed he wanted to break up too, publicly so I wouldn&#39;t cause a scene. I don&#39;t normally cause a scene but being in public tends to prevent yelling, and we both yell every time we break up.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>In the last year he has asked me 2 things that looking back now stand out to me. First he asked about jewellery, what kind of stuff I liked and what my taste was.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>I assumed it was because my birthday was coming up and he was getting me a bracelet or something so I told him simple and delicate, silver or steel rather than gold, if there was a colour then blue, nothing flashy or expensive as both my job prefers plain jewellery and it&#39;s just my personal preference. I also said &quot;go cheap&quot;.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>The other thing he asked me was how I felt about public proposals. I told him immediately that I, personally, disliked them as I felt I wouldn&#39;t be able to say no, even if I wanted to. I feel like public proposals are OK when they&#39;ve been specifically requested and agreed on, but one that&#39;s totally out of the blue is not OK at all.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>I assumed he was asking about this because his friend had just proposed to his girlfriend of several years, publicly, and she&#39;d accepted but admitted to him after that she would have preferred something private. I never thought in a million years that he would propose.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>So you can imagine my shock when we went to dinner and the first thing he did was propose. The ring was huge, gold, gaudy, red gems around a diamond and the whole thing was the size and shape of a super bowl ring. He got on one knee, and held it out to me. We were in the middle of this popular restaurant and the place was packed.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>Everyone there could see what was going on and wasn&#39;t even trying to hide that they were looking at us. I said no. Well, I didn&#39;t so much say &quot;no&quot;. I ran out of the restaurant. He drove me there, so I got a cab back, and drove home that night.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>I realise running out wasn&#39;t the best thing to do but I didn&#39;t know what else to do. I could feel everyone&#39;s eyes on me, and all I knew was that I didn&#39;t want to marry him or accept his proposal. I felt like I couldn&#39;t even speak, I was so upset about the whole thing. So I just got up and ran.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>I just want to take the opportunity to say here that I really really don&#39;t care about the rings. Honestly, when I want to get married (which is absolutely not when I&#39;m 19 years old) the right person could just turn to me and say &quot;wanna get married?&quot; and I&#39;d say yes. I wouldn&#39;t even need a ring.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>I know I&#39;m focusing on the ring and the public proposal a lot, but that&#39;s only because of 1) how far away it was from what I&#39;d told him my taste was and 2) what happened next. I didn&#39;t hear from him until a few weeks later. He said that he thought a proposal was something I&#39;d want, but he saw now that it wasn&#39;t.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>He said that he was out of pocket for the rings. He&#39;d bought us both the same one and gotten them engraved. He linked me to the jeweller&#39;s website and the ring was up for &euro;1450 (about $1650/&pound;1300).</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>When I asked why he was telling me this he said that he&#39;d hoped I would cover the cost of mine. He said that as they&#39;d been engraved he couldn&#39;t get a refund. He&#39;d hoped that I would say yes to the proposal, in which case he wouldn&#39;t have asked me to pay, but I said no.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>He also said I&#39;d embarrassed him by saying no in public, and should have said yes, and if I was really against it waited to say no when we were alone. We both live in small towns where gossip spreads at church. Enough people were at the restaurant that night that both of us got asked about it at church on Sunday.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>He has since messaged me saying he&#39;s debating calling in a lawyer to sue me for the cost of my ring (&euro;1450) and he also says that I have caused him &quot;emotional distress&quot; by turning him down in public, and have publicly humiliated him for both rejecting his proposal in public and leaving him to deal with church gossip, which I had no part in spreading.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>He says he can also get some money off me over those other 2 things. So &euro;1450 for what he spent on my ring, and extra money for emotional distress and public humiliation.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>I think his legal claims are all bullsh*t, and he wouldn&#39;t have a leg to stand on in a court of law, but I am not a law student or a lawyer. He is studying law currently and has an internship at a legal firm.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>What do I do about all of this? Do I need to prepare myself for a lawsuit or is it not even worth worrying about?</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>Thanks in advance :)</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>EDIT: He knew I wanted to get married but not to him. He not only knew this but said he had no intention of marrying me, either. He openly despised marriage right up until the time he proposed and he knows that we want different things out of marriage, and I told him that this was why I was breaking up with him the times before this that I have ended the relationship.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>During the course of our relationship he&#39;s also said stuff like &quot;we&#39;re still too young to think about marriage&quot;, &quot;it&#39;s not like we&#39;re getting married&quot; and (my favourite) &quot;it&#39;s not like I&#39;m gonna propose&quot; (that one was last April)</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>EDIT 2: His mother has reached out to me apologising for her son&#39;s actions. She has said that nothing will come of this and that she raised an idiot.</p> </blockquote><p>Comments:</p><p><a data-testid="comment_author_link" href="https://www.reddit.com/user/axell2/">axell2</a></p><blockquote> <p>You can&rsquo;t sue someone for the cost of an engagement ring they didn&rsquo;t accept. <strong>Had you said yes initially and then privately said no, like he&rsquo;d suggested, he may have had a semblance of a case.</strong> But you didn&rsquo;t.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>You are not on the hook because he can&rsquo;t read a room or understand your perspective on the relationship. Block him, ignore him, and go live your life without him. It sounds like it&rsquo;s much better without him in it!</p> </blockquote><p>OP</p><blockquote> <p>Okay, thank you. That&#39;s a huge relief tbh. Can he sue me for &quot;emotional distress&quot;, though? I don&#39;t think he can but I&#39;m going off the internet here...</p> </blockquote><p><a data-testid="comment_author_link" href="https://www.reddit.com/user/vasion123/">asion123</a></p><blockquote> <p>He can sue, he won&#39;t be successful at winning. If getting rejected was actionable for damages I&#39;d be a millionaire.</p> </blockquote><p><a data-testid="comment_author_link" href="https://www.reddit.com/user/AVikingsDaughter/">AVikingsDaughter</a></p><blockquote> <p>I&#39;m Icelandic but when I dumped my ex with good reason his mom approached me in the street to apologise and tell me I was right to end it. She wished me well, called her son an idiot, hugged me and we went our separate ways.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div>

Woman asks for advice after ex threatens to sue her for dumping him in public.

&quot;Just want to say this is going to sound insane but I am not trolling/making it up.&quot; Me and this guy were together for 3 years. We&#39;re 19 now. We never talked about the future until a year in. Before then I&#39;d try to discuss it and he would change the subject. In short, I wanted kids, he didn&#39;t.  I wanted to stay in Ireland, he didn&#39;t. I wanted to get married, he didn&#39;t. When I realised it was a bad match I broke it off but he asked to get back together, saying we were too young to worry about the future, and we got back together. This happened a few times over the next 18 months In this time we probably spent more time apart than together.  If I were dating him 10 or 15 years from now and he didn&#39;t want to get married, then I might have an issue, but when I&#39;m barely out of my teens, it&#39;s not a huge concern, and just loving him and wanting to be with him is enough.  When I went to see him this time I was again, considering breaking up with him. Aside from the long term issues, he is also inconsiderate and has a mean streak that I really don&#39;t like.  So when I arrived at his place, mentally debating breaking up with him for good this time, and he told me he wanted to take me out to dinner, I assumed he wanted to break up too, publicly so I wouldn&#39;t cause a scene. I don&#39;t normally cause a scene but being in public tends to prevent yelling, and we both yell every time we break up.  In the last year he has asked me 2 things that looking back now stand out to me. First he asked about jewellery, what kind of stuff I liked and what my taste was.  I assumed it was because my birthday was coming up and he was getting me a bracelet or something so I told him simple and delicate, silver or steel rather than gold, if there was a colour then blue, nothing flashy or expensive as both my job prefers plain jewellery and it&#39;s just my personal preference. I also said &quot;go cheap&quot;.  The other thing he asked me was how I felt about public proposals. I told him immediately that I, personally, disliked them as I felt I wouldn&#39;t be able to say no, even if I wanted to. I feel like public proposals are OK when they&#39;ve been specifically requested and agreed on, but one that&#39;s totally out of the blue is not OK at all.  I assumed he was asking about this because his friend had just proposed to his girlfriend of several years, publicly, and she&#39;d accepted but admitted to him after that she would have preferred something private. I never thought in a million years that he would propose.  So you can imagine my shock when we went to dinner and the first thing he did was propose. The ring was huge, gold, gaudy, red gems around a diamond and the whole thing was the size and shape of a super bowl ring. He got on one knee, and held it out to me. We were in the middle of this popular restaurant and the place was packed.  Everyone there could see what was going on and wasn&#39;t even trying to hide that they were looking at us. I said no. Well, I didn&#39;t so much say &quot;no&quot;. I ran out of the restaurant. He drove me there, so I got a cab back, and drove home that night.  I realise running out wasn&#39;t the best thing to do but I didn&#39;t know what else to do. I could feel everyone&#39;s eyes on me, and all I knew was that I didn&#39;t want to marry him or accept his proposal. I felt like I couldn&#39;t even speak, I was so upset about the whole thing. So I just got up and ran.  I just want to take the opportunity to say here that I really really don&#39;t care about the rings. Honestly, when I want to get married (which is absolutely not when I&#39;m 19 years old) the right person could just turn to me and say &quot;wanna get married?&quot; and I&#39;d say yes. I wouldn&#39;t even need a ring.  I know I&#39;m focusing on the ring and the public proposal a lot, but that&#39;s only because of 1) how far away it was from what I&#39;d told him my taste was and 2) what happened next. I didn&#39;t hear from him until a few weeks later. He said that he thought a proposal was something I&#39;d want, but he saw now that it wasn&#39;t.  He said that he was out of pocket for the rings. He&#39;d bought us both the same one and gotten them engraved. He linked me to the jeweller&#39;s website and the ring was up for &euro;1450 (about $1650/&pound;1300).  When I asked why he was telling me this he said that he&#39;d hoped I would cover the cost of mine. He said that as they&#39;d been engraved he couldn&#39;t get a refund. He&#39;d hoped that I would say yes to the proposal, in which case he wouldn&#39;t have asked me to pay, but I said no.  He also said I&#39;d embarrassed him by saying no in public, and should have said yes, and if I was really against it waited to say no when we were alone. We both live in small towns where gossip spreads at church. Enough people were at the restaurant that night that both of us got asked about it at church on Sunday.  He has since messaged me saying he&#39;s debating calling in a lawyer to sue me for the cost of my ring (&euro;1450) and he also says that I have caused him &quot;emotional distress&quot; by turning him down in public, and have publicly humiliated him for both rejecting his proposal in public and leaving him to deal with church gossip, which I had no part in spreading.  He says he can also get some money off me over those other 2 things. So &euro;1450 for what he spent on my ring, and extra money for emotional distress and public humiliation.  I think his legal claims are all bullsh*t, and he wouldn&#39;t have a leg to stand on in a court of law, but I am not a law student or a lawyer. He is studying law currently and has an internship at a legal firm.  What do I do about all of this? Do I need to prepare myself for a lawsuit or is it not even worth worrying about?  Thanks in advance :)  EDIT: He knew I wanted to get married but not to him. He not only knew this but said he had no intention of marrying me, either. He openly despised marriage right up until the time he proposed and he knows that we want different things out of marriage, and I told him that this was why I was breaking up with him the times before this that I have ended the relationship.  During the course of our relationship he&#39;s also said stuff like &quot;we&#39;re still too young to think about marriage&quot;, &quot;it&#39;s not like we&#39;re getting married&quot; and (my favourite) &quot;it&#39;s not like I&#39;m gonna propose&quot; (that one was last April)  EDIT 2: His mother has reached out to me apologising for her son&#39;s actions. She has said that nothing will come of this and that she raised an idiot. Comments:axell2 You can&rsquo;t sue someone for the cost of an engagement ring they didn&rsquo;t accept. Had you said yes initially and then privately said no, like he&rsquo;d suggested, he may have had a semblance of a case. But you didn&rsquo;t.  You are not on the hook because he can&rsquo;t read a room or understand your perspective on the relationship. Block him, ignore him, and go live your life without him. It sounds like it&rsquo;s much better without him in it! OP Okay, thank you. That&#39;s a huge relief tbh. Can he sue me for &quot;emotional distress&quot;, though? I don&#39;t think he can but I&#39;m going off the internet here... asion123 He can sue, he won&#39;t be successful at winning. If getting rejected was actionable for damages I&#39;d be a millionaire. AVikingsDaughter I&#39;m Icelandic but when I dumped my ex with good reason his mom approached me in the street to apologise and tell me I was right to end it. She wished me well, called her son an idiot, hugged me and we went our separate ways. 

&quot;Just want to say this is going to sound insane but I am not trolling/making it up.&quot;   Me and this guy were together for 3 years. We&#39;re 19 now. We never talked about the future until a year in. Before then I&#39;d try to...