A 26-year-old woman wondered if she was wrong to interrupt her husband’s work meeting so he could celebrate her sister’s birthday.
She aired her conflict on the “r/AmItheA–hole” (AITA) subreddit, a forum where users post about arguments that bothered them.
She explains in her post that her family invited her to celebrate her sister’s 18th birthday at a restaurant and asked her husband to join.
He declined the invitation because he had a dinner with clients that same night.
She admits that her family felt disappointed, especially her sister, because turning 18 was a big deal for her.
She arrived at the restaurant with her family on the night of her sister’s celebration and saw her husband at a corner table with 4 other men.
She posted that she was surprised by the coincidence, saying her husband was “obviously” as shocked as she was.
She waved at him, but he pretended not to notice and didn’t wave back.
When her sister’s cake arrived, her parents asked why her husband didn’t recognize them, causing her to get up, leave the table and approach her husband’s table.
He sat in silence as she said “excuse me” and introduced herself to his customers.
She asked her husband to leave his date so she could watch her sister blow out the candles and sing “Happy Birthday.”
Her husband politely replied, saying, “I don’t think so, I’m busy right now.”
She “insisted” on coming with her, as if, in her own words, “just to get some [of] minutes and means so much to [her] sister.”
Her husband looked at her, then back at his customers who said nothing in response.
The woman’s parents motioned for her to hurry, whereupon her husband rose from his table and joined her.
She said: “He stayed with us while my sister blew [out] the candles and cut the cake. My parents insisted he take a bite and join us in the selfie, but he got up and went back to his table looking upset.”
The couple did not interact again until later that night when they got home.
Her husband said it made him look unprofessional and ruined his business meeting.
She thought she overreacted, “because it only lasted a few minutes and that was it [her] sister’s birthday and [her] the family wanted him to join because he was literally in the same restaurant.”
Her husband called her ignorant, accusing her of “tampering with her work.”
She said ignoring her and her family’s presence at the restaurant was “unacceptable”.
After arguing further, her husband “started to boss her around” and gave her the silent treatment.
At the end of the post, she admitted that she only saw one problem with her, seeing him at the restaurant.
She defended her decision saying the whole thing “literally took 5-7 minutes. He didn’t even eat or drink. I just sat and watched.”
Reddit users unanimously agreed that he was wrong for what he did.
In a post that has been upvoted more than 55,000 times, one user wrote that she “embarrassed him in a professional setting. It is also allowed to have limits. It’s not a complete sentence.”
Another user responded directly to the woman, saying “what you did is like walking into a boardroom and asking her to leave her meeting to watch someone blow out some candles. You interrupted his work and wouldn’t listen when he said no.”
Some doubted that her presence at the restaurant was actually a coincidence.
“I have a strong suspicion that she knew where this meeting was and decided to hold the celebration there so that this exact situation would play out,” one user wrote.
Whether she knew it or not, she crossed a clear line by ignoring her husband’s refusal, making her an unmistakable “a-hole.”
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango’s news and entertainment team. She covers celebrity gossip, pop culture analysis and all things related to the entertainment industry.