I’m not a person who likes surprises of any kind. My older Sister was the opposite and had a surprise birthday party every year until she reached her teens.
Her baby shower was also a surprise. As we’ve gotten older, she’s become more of an introvert like me.
Neither one of us would enjoy a surprise social gathering now.
A like-minded husband turned to the “Am I The A**hole” (AITA) subReddit for feedback after a surprise party in his honor caused tension with his wife.
AITAscancerTA asked:
“AITA for leaving my party for beating cancer?”
The original poster (OP) explained:
“I (35, male) am a very private person. I have no social media, don’t want my wife (32, female) posting photos of me, although I don’t tell her not to, I just don’t ask her to post me.”
“Celebrating Father’s Day or my birthday, I don’t like attention on me and prefer to keep things low key whenever I can.”
“So, keeping that in mind, I was diagnosed with an extremely curable type of skin cancer. It was caught very early on and I never felt scared for my life in any way, shape or form.”
“I’m an engineer and I think analytically and wasn’t scared with a diagnosis with a 0.03% fatality rate. Still, I told my wife of course, and she was terrified.”
“We talked through it and told her my doctor was very optimistic and said we have caught it early on, etc… None of it seemed to help, but I tried.”
“After a while, I told her that we shouldn’t tell our kids, 5, female and 7, female. My wife wanted to tell them, but I was adamant about that.”
“I’m not even sure they would understand what we’re talking about. Reluctantly, she agreed not to.”
“About a week later, I get a call from my dad…..asking about my cancer. Turns out, my wife posted on Facebook about my cancer that morning.”
“I called her and wasn’t happy that she posted my business. She hid behind the ‘You didn’t say I couldn’t post it, just not to tell the kids’ excuse.”
“There is no way she would think I wanted that posted online, no matter what I said. So, she took it down and time went by. In her defense, she did take down the Facebook post when I called her, without my asking her to take it down.”
“Very quickly I was in remission with my skin cancer and my doctor told me, word for word, ‘We don’t like to say you’re “cured”, but, you’re cured’. I told my wife and she was ecstatic.”
“She told me she was worried all this time—I could tell—and glad we put this all behind us. I thought we could put this all behind us too.”
“This weekend, I’m coming home on Friday. I see a lot of cars parked on the street, some in my driveway. I couldn’t think of any birthdays or anniversaries I missed, but went in anyway.”
“It was a party for my remission diagnosis. I was mortified at this, she’s never done anything like this and we’ve talked about how I would hate a surprise party multiple times.”
“I asked what this is for and said ‘I’m sorry, but I didn’t know you planned this, I’m just coming back for some files and heading back to work’. It was a lie, but I gathered up some meaningless files in my office and said thanks to everyone for coming and left to go back to my office, messing around on my phone until everyone left.”
“My wife knew I was lying and we fought that night and I told her I don’t know what’s gotten into her, but she knows I would never want this and she doesn’t get to make a big deal out of something personal I never wanted to be public in the first place.”
“We’ve been cold this whole week and my brother said I’m the a**hole since I told him I just pretended to go to work.”
“So, AITA for not wanting to celebrate beating my cancer?”
The OP summed up their situation.
“AITA for leaving the party on a lie because I didn’t want to celebrate anything? I could have just stayed at the party to make my wife happy and be polite to my family/friends.”
Redditors weighed in by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Redditors decided the OP was not the a**hole (NTA).
“NTA. Does your wife even know you? I find her behavior to be really odd and inappropriate.”
“You should not have to command or request her not to post about you. It should come naturally to her to a) already know what you’d be OK and not OK with and b) know to ask if she wants to communicate something about you.”
“It’s not giving me great vibes about your wife to be honest. I cannot tell if she’s overdramatic to the point of being a liability, and totally irrational, or if she’s a bit of an attention hound.”
“Either way, her behavior is not OK and having a serious talk with her about this is very reasonable. I would guess others find her behavior strange too… there must have been something a bit off for your parents in finding out about your cancer through social media.”
“You need to be able to trust your spouse. In some ways, they should be like an extension of yourself, in that you should be able to trust that they won’t do something you know THEY know you would not want.”
“Missteps happen, of course, but this is her deciding she wants to handle YOUR medical situation a different way than YOU want to handle it, which is obviously inappropriate of her.” ~ owls_and_cardinals
“NTA. I am assuming you had either a basal cell, squamous, or VERY early melanoma/melanoma in situ. Your wife getting spooked about this and going on social sounds (respectfully) like she was seeking attention via your condition.”
“It’s frankly embarrassing and disrespectful to anyone proximal that has had an actual serious diagnosis. For what it’s worth, I very much applaud your rational approach to what is effectively a non-issue medically, once the reality sets in that it is utterly curable.”
“From my perspective as a MD, your real battle is yet to come should you actually have a medical issue that necessitates her involvement and cooperation. I expect you having to deal with her need for attention will exhaust you at a time when you need all the rest and sequestration of resources possible.”
“This was a dry run, time to really sit her down and get across to her that she does not get to hijack your health for her Facebook likes and attention from the public.” ~ popsistops
“NTA. Has she always had main character syndrome? Cuz it seems like she is trying to get attention by using your cancer diagnosis/remission.” ~ Ok_Conversation9750
“Your wife is a trauma vulture and a decidedly gross one at that. I hate Facebook and those that post sh*t like this on it even more.”
“What’s more, I’d never even dream of disrespecting my partner as blatantly as she has (thrice in this post alone!). NTA by a landslide, OP. You handled this as graciously as one could given the circumstances.” ~ ELRONDSxLADY
“My cousin is like this. Her younger brother was dying and she plastered pics of him in a coma hooked up to a ventilator and other machines on Facebook.
“What about his privacy? He can’t even consent.”
“Same with her dad. She now makes monthly posts about her dad and brother’s deaths.” ~ Opening_Drink_3848
“Trauma vulture is a great term for this. My mom likes to talk about her kid ‘who is a cancer survivor’ and will ask if I tell people ‘what I went through’.”
“I had very early stage cancer that required surgery and no further treatment to be cured. I don’t consider myself a ‘cancer survivor’—I just had one surgery.” ~ thatweirdo13
“Well, I don’t like it either when someone spreads my diagnosis. I mean, I don’t have something life-threatening, it’s MS, but it’s inappropriate to spread it when it doesn’t concern your own health.”
“A coworker talked about it to her best friend, who doesn’t work in our shop anymore. I was fuming. We ourselves decide who we tell and who we don’t.”
“We can’t control people, but as your wife, she should have the empathy and brain to know who and how you are and not overstep your boundaries. You are married for a while. She absolutely has to know that you hate attention. NTA.” ~ DaisytheW33b
“NTA. She is the a**hole for making your medical situation public against your wishes.”
“Are there other boundaries she has ignored? Was she seeking collateral attention? Doing so is very selfish of her.” ~ Puddin370
While the gesture may have been out of love, accepting her spouse for who he is and respecting his boundaries would have been appreciated a lot more.