Dealing with the death of a loved one is already a difficult endeavor. There’s a lot of emotions you want to work through and having the support of family can go a long way.
But things are a little more complicated for J4ne_F4de. The original poster (OP) has a rocky relationship with their former fiancé’s mother.
Things only get harder after the fiancé passes. Now his mother is demanding something from OP that they don’t feel they can give.
OP isn’t sure if refusing the mother’s request was right or wrong and decided to ask the “Am I the A**hole” (AITA) about what happened.
And if they might still go back and fix things.
“AITA for not giving my dead fiancés passwords to his mom?”
But she’s making things really difficult.
“My fiancé has passed away unexpectedly. His mother is asking me for the code to unlock his android phone, and his email password. I chose not to disclose them to her.”
“Instead, I told her I don’t know.”
“After four years of intimacy with her son, I’ve observed that she is dramatically self-centered, insecure, and entitled. She makes everything about herself, no holds barred: a textbook codependent parent.”
“I know my fiancé wouldn’t want her going through his private conversations and pictures. (I want to protect my privacy, too.)”
“She wouldn’t just get into his stuff to get useful info or pictures for his funeral and drop it. She will scrutinize everything he ever said, focus on anything that makes her feel attacked, (her victimhood narratives know no bounds,) and become hysterical.”
“It will be a nightmare for everyone, including her.”
“Moreover, she will almost certainly scapegoat me, then passive-aggressively punish me, as she did to her son. My fiancé went to lengths to protect me from his troubled family.”
“Now, he cannot. He loved his family very much, but endured an agonizing struggle to maintain reasonable boundaries with them.”
“Perhaps unfairly, my other consideration is the sh**ty way she’s treated me, especially during my fiancé’s final days.”
“For instance, she wouldn’t tell me what hospital he was at… I had to call several area hospitals to find him. (I wish we’d been married before he had the aneurysms.) I did get to give him comfort and companionship while he was still coherent.”
“Sadly, when he slipped into his second coma, she made it impossible for me to even call the nurse and check on him. (Privacy laws.) It was excruciating, not knowing what was happening, not being able to visit… not even knowing if he was still alive, because she was/is so controlling.”
“She was a cruel gatekeeper to me, and to my dying soulmate.”
“He’d been dead only a couple hours when she started asking me for his passwords, which indicates to me that she wants to get in his phone for emotional, not administrative reasons.”
“Throughout the horrific ordeal of his death, she never asked if I was ok or expressed any sympathy, as I did for her. nor did she express sympathy for her son. When I broke down and begged her to please just tell me if he was still alive, she accused me of threatening her.”
“My dad thinks I’m an a**hole for not giving up my fiancé’s passwords. I countered she should be able to gain access to her son’s few assets through standard legal procedures, and it isn’t necessary for her to have access to his phone, which is in her possession.”
“I want to keep the peace and protect the intimacy I shared with her son. I don’t care if that means she has to deal with a slower process. Am I the a**hole here?”
OP tries to justify why they don’t want to give their fiancé’s mother the passwords to his account. But as his mother, is she entitled to that information?
On Reddit, the users of the board judged OP for refusing to give their fiancé’s mother the passwords to their deceased loved one’s accounts by including one of the following in their response:
- NTA – Not the A**hole
- YTA – You’re the A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everybody Sucks Here
The ongoing issue is the mother’s attempts to cut OP out of her son’s death altogether. OP was the dearly beloved of the deceased man and she should have been involved in his end-of-life moments.
On top of that, the mom has made it clear she doesn’t want the password for administrative reasons. She’s not trying to get access for the purpose of settling his accounts or getting photos for the funeral.
She’s nosy, and the Reddit board agreed she didn’t need the password.
“NTA”
“If he wanted her to have them, he would have given them to her. I’m so sorry you had to go through this and that she kept him from you. You deserved your time to say goodbye.” – RoxyRockSee
“NTA. Your privacy is at stake too.” – 4682458
“NTA – if we knew how long we had on this earth we would do so many things so differently. This woman has been so unnecessarily cruel to you.”
“She would know his passwords if he wanted her to know them especially his phone password. So do not feel obligated to provide them.”
“Either way the information you do or don’t provide will be used against you by people like this.”
“Grief can have strange effects on you so make sure you take care of yourself and make sure you have space to grieve properly and be vulnerable. Make sure you’re uncontactable because it’s easy to blow up at small things when you do this.”
“The funeral comes next so you will need to prepare yourself. I wouldn’t be surprised if she tries to deny your attendance and hide the date and time from you.”
“I’d find out which funeral home the body is being released to and then just talk to the home directly for funeral details. It’s the only way you’ll get a straight answer.” – Snoo-74562
“Yes, I am concerned about the funeral. I decided not to go, unless she explicitly extends an invitation.”
“My sweetheart wouldn’t want me to put myself through any drama or humiliation.” – J4ne_F4de (OP)
“NTA – Nope, not even slightly, she’s wanting to dig through private stuff like some voyeuristic ghoul. Utterly vile.”
“As for your father. Enh. Not helpful and I wouldn’t have told him I knew. I’d have just claimed not to have known to everyone.”
“All I’ll say is be prepared for his mother to come back at you both barrels if she finds anything she doesn’t like. She’ll want to ‘get back’ at you out of spite.”
“Personally I’d cut ties and block her/them as soon as you can and feel able.” – Sacred_Apollyon
“NTA. If he would’ve wanted her to have the passwords, he would’ve left them in his will for her. He left those for you. They’re yours. I wouldn’t share them, personally, either.”
“Not only are they not hers, but having that sort of access would be giving her a layer of control that could make your life very stressful and prevent you from grieving him well.” – Terrible-You-9269
It’s a difficult situation and how to handle it after the fact has a lot of repercussions. But trying to figure that out while handling the devastating emotions is too much for some.
Which is why a lot of comments talked about what OP should do to handle the situation.
“NTA”
“Try and log on remotely (if android has a version of iCloud) and retrieve anything you want to keep a copy of. Photos, messages, anything saved.”
“Sorry for your loss.” – Sarah_J_J
“In order to use Android phones, you have to log into a Google account in order to have access to the Google play store and download apps, so his Google account should have everything” – Dolphin-on-e
“My only concern with doing this is you might have to go through a 2 factor authentication in which case you may need the phone connected to the account. It’s worth a shot, but might not work if you don’t have the phone in your possession” – gonnabmay
“NTA. Change the password to all of his accounts though. If she has his phone she may be able to find a way in.”
“If she does that and his passwords are saved in his phone she’s going to snoop through everything” – Dramatic-Tell6810
“NTA do not give them up! My ex passed away and not even a week after his mom had already gone through our text messages, some of which were explicit and private in nature.”
“He would have never wanted his mom to read his messages. Don’t give the passwords up, it’s not worth it. She can go thru whatever legal means she needs to get it if she needs it that badly” – velveteen94
OP has a lot to do to protect their fiancé and to protect the privacy they also share with their deceased future husband. They can’t sit still and just wait for the mom to get access some other way.