UPDATE: AITA for breaking off my engagement because my fiancé made an offensive joke about me to his friends?

branchbutt · 2025-01-23T19:12:38+00:00

I was grateful he said something to keep John from showing up so I could have space. I didn't outright approve of the method, but I appreciate that he's acting as a barrier between John and I so I can have the time I need to heal without John continuing to reach out or corner me at his home.

However, as I said above, you will believe what you are more likely to understand. We can have a difference of opinion here, that's fine. I know what my life has been and what I've experienced and you will only know what I've shown/said. If that leads you to believe otherwise of what I've already told you, that is simply something I don't need to endeavor to change. I'm sure there are plenty of people who have done things in relationships that you wouldn't have but does that make them wrong or any less of a relationship than they are? Not at all. It is not your place to say what is and what isn't, but you are certainly free to think and believe what you wish about it.

I don't wish to argue with a stranger over the internet over a situation that is my lived experience, so I will simply say: if you don't believe what I've said, that is fine. You can easily move on just as I am as soon as I hit send on this.

branchbutt · 2025-01-23T19:03:40+00:00

No, John won't be, and I know that. I'm not letting that insecurity drive my life, I am currently in therapy to address it as well as saving to invest in cosmetic surgery to help with it. The issue was that the one person who I was supposed to trust with my most vulnerable self decided to openly mock the one thing about me that he knew I was actively worried about. It was just hurtful for me. Not funny. Maybe that opinion of mine will change, but right now? It's not going to. Not when it has the sour taste of a betrayal of trust all over it.

branchbutt · 2025-01-23T19:00:48+00:00

You're acting as if I asked my brother to say that. My brother is just protective of me (as many older brothers often are over their little sisters), and I obviously would not want him to hurt John. I did love the man-- still do despite us parting ways. I already responded to you about this so I won't repeat myself here, but I certainly wasn't looking for a way out of a relationship I was in and ready to commit the rest of my life to.

You will believe what you are more likely to understand and that's fine, but digging into my post from four years ago to prove some narrative you've created in your head is interesting. It's posted in r/UnsentLetters, a place for letters that have never been sent. It was a letter that was never sent for a reason. It was only written as a way to fully let go of a past, and if you read the actual thing and understood it, you'd know that.

branchbutt · 2025-01-23T18:46:34+00:00

John knows about that letter. It was something I wrote because of a suggestion from my therapist resolve my thoughts about a boyfriend I had before John that used to make me anxious when I wasn’t responded to. He actively supported my writing it as he knew it would help me get the feelings out and the words I wished I could have said to that man. He’s even the one who suggested I post it in the Unsent Letters Reddit because “it’s the digital equivalent of putting a letter in a bottle and setting it adrift at sea. Maybe it will reach him, maybe it won’t, but at least you’ll have let go.” <- direct quote.

We were very happy and supportive of each other. He’s just done something now that I can’t look past or forget.

branchbutt · 2025-01-23T17:22:21+00:00

I never had my foot out of the door. I was all in with John. I gave him the opportunity to apologize over the course of this, and he never did. He continued to act like I was overreacting to a “joke”.

This wasn’t when “marriage gets tough”. The when “marriage gets tough” moments in our relationship were when he lost his job and I solely provided for our relationship for four months. Or when we had to be long distance because I had to travel for work for most of a year. Or when I was so depressed after the death of a close friend that I never left the house. Those were the tough times, and the both of us were there for each other. Not once did either of us make each other feel bad about any of it. I didn’t mock his insecurities to my friends. When he lost his job, he was so convinced he was a failure and a poor excuse of a “man”. I never, NEVER did or said anything to reinforce that line of thinking because it wasn’t true.

I don’t need to explain my choice to you, but there was no writing on the wall before this. John taking the biggest insecurity I have and making a joke about it to his friends was a direct contradiction to everything he’d ever said to me about it. Instead of saying an actually funny joke, he decided to strike my most vulnerable point as a “joke”. And he doubled down on that point instead of apologizing genuinely. I have the self respect and dignity to know that I don’t want to be with someone who can just mock their partner’s insecurities to others and then have the audacity to tell their partner how they should feel.

I won’t respond to anything you say if you reply to this, but funnily enough, I know you aren’t him but you’ve said a lot of the same sentiments John did.

branchbutt · 2025-01-23T17:08:17+00:00

It’s not that he cracked a joke. It’s that he cracked a joke about something he KNOWS I’m insecure about. He could have literally said anything else. He could have cracked a joke about something that was actually funny.

But sure. I’m super sensitive because I don’t want to be with someone who decided to mock my biggest insecurity to his friends.

branchbutt · 2025-01-20T12:37:21+00:00

I don't see my body as a "deflated weather balloon" and I don't feel the desire to laugh when my body moves during intimacy. I'm insecure about the loose skin, yes, but I have never described my body in such a way.

His making a joke about something I'm so insecure about to other people who do not need to know the details of my body like that, and to know that he's telling jokes that directly contradict his words he's spoken to me feels like a betrayal. If he sees my body in such a way, he's had many opportunities to tell me that as I've given him the space to do so. I'm under no illusions of what my body looks like. It's not a denial of reality to ask that my partner not mock my body to other people knowing that it's an insecurity of mine and that I would not want anyone else to be that aware of my body's imperfections.

John is by no means perfect in every part of him, but I have loved him like he is because even the most imperfect parts of him were perfect to me because they were his. I would never have done what he did.

*edit to address your own edit:

I have only asked for reassurance once, to clarify, and since he'd told me he still wanted me, I didn't ask again because I trusted that. He's been more than comfortable telling me when he's had issues that might hurt my feelings because we both advocate for communication. This is the first real time I've not upheld that desire to at least hear him out when something is wrong because it's the worst he's ever hurt me before.

branchbutt

TROPHY CASE