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The ancient Romans, or rather their sages, used to say: “De mortuis aut bene aut nihil,” which can be translated as “don't speak ill of the dead.” And indeed, many people, judging by the speeches at their funerals, sound like much more decent individuals than they actually were during their lifetime.
But that’s not exactly what we’re going to talk about now. The thing is that the hero of our today’s story, the user u/VisualLifeguard8937, didn’t get whether his current girlfriend was showering compliments on her deceased ex in complete sincerity, or simply based on a long-standing tradition. And it seems the future of their relationship will highly depend on this...
More info: Reddit
The author of the post has been dating his current girlfriend for around 4 years
Image credits: Pavel Danilyuk (not the actual photo)
Before starting a relationship with the author, the woman dated her longtime high school sweetheart
Image credits: VisualLifeguard8937
The guy even attempted to make a move on her recently but got brushed off
Image credits: Mayron Oliveira (not the actual photo)
Image credits: VisualLifeguard8937
When the woman's ex recently died, the couple attended his funeral, and she gave a whole speech idealizing the deceased
So, the Original Poster (OP) says that he and his girlfriend have been together for about four years, and all this time she has been on fairly friendly terms with her high school sweetheart. Moreover, at one time, the guy even tried to make a move on her, after which the woman simply cut all ties with him. However, we don’t know whether it was on her own initiative or at the BF’s request.
But what we know is that the OP’s girlfriend and this guy were together for almost a decade and broke up mainly because she wanted kids and he didn’t. Well, then the woman met the hero of this story, they began a romantic relationship... and you know everything that happened next.
And so, recently the author’s girlfriend learned some sad news - her former partner, alas, passed away. His relatives invited her to the funeral, and the woman, among other things, asked her current boyfriend to come with her. That is, the original poster.
Well, it can’t be said that the idea of going to the funeral of a guy who had been dating his significant other for many years, and then also made an attempt to take her away from him, aroused enthusiasm in our hero. But, in his own words, he "swallowed his emotions and offered his full support."
So you can probably already guess what happened during the funeral dinner. The OP’s girlfriend gave a long and heartfelt speech, the main points of which were:
- she deeply regrets that she and her late ex parted ways;
- they could have had a wonderful, happy family;
- she had never ever met a person in her entire life whom she loved as much as him.
Let us recall that one direct witness of this speech was the woman’s current partner, who had to make several rather unpleasant discoveries for himself. We have to give the dude his due - he again restrained himself and didn’t say anything. But when the couple returned home, the woman continued to act as if nothing had been said at the funeral.
But our hero has an unpleasant aftertaste in his soul - and now he’s even wondering whether it’s worth it to part ways with this woman, since she values his feelings for her so lowly. And it seems that the only thing keeping the guy from making an immediate decision is that the woman may have said all these words solely as a tribute to an ancient tradition. Those very Latin words “De mortuis aut bene aut nihil...”
Image credits: Alex Green (not the actual photo)
Well, it looks like our hero is hesitating for good reason. At the very least, experts say his girlfriend could have actually just been following the tradition. “It is common and understandable for people in the tumultuous days of immediate grief to wrap the deceased person in an idealistic list of words,” Molly Keating, the blog author on the O’Connor Mortuary funeral home website, presumes.
"I think the tendency when we first hear the word 'honest' in this context is to assume that it's negative. No one wants a roast for a funeral, that would certainly be the wrong way to go. While honesty does offer an alternative to the exaggerated language we so easily toss around, it doesn't mean the opposite of it. In fact, honesty is the middle ground that I think we should all be looking to step into."
"After a funeral, it is often the kind words of comfort from the people who attended that the family remembers for a long time," Catherine Betley, Managing Director of Professional Help Limited & GriefChat, writes in her article on the UK-based blog Dignity Funeral Directors. “Sometimes we are truly lost for words and cannot bring ourselves to say something personal because we fear that we may break down or upset the bereaved person.”
But most people in the comments to the original post, on the contrary, are almost sure that with her words in front of many people at the funeral, the woman made it rather clear that the author isn’t her first choice at all. "The good news is now you know exactly where you stand with her, and it’s right behind the ghost," one of the commenters wrote. “Leave. You deserve better.”
Yes, according to many commenters, what happened should be regarded as a direct betrayal - especially since the words were spoken publicly. "She showed you in a room full of people where your rank. You deserve more than this betrayal," another person in the comments claims. It's a difficult situation, isn't it? So what do you, our dear readers, think about this case?
The author got upset - so were most of the commenters, who considered this a betrayal and advised the man to part ways on the spot
Image credits: Brooke Cagle (not the actual photo)
