'AITA for threatening to divorce over a comment my husband made in front of my celebrity crush?'
"AITA for threatening to divorce over a comment my husband made in front of my celebrity crush?"
My husband (33M) and I (29F) have been married for 2 years. I work in the entertainment industry, and since we met I’ve made it far enough to where I’ve been working on pretty big productions.
This year, I booked a very interesting job that has had me working closely with a household name. He also happens to have been my celebrity crush when I was in high school, and I may have made some offhand comments and references about him to my husband in the past without thinking much about it (think hall pass banter).
The issue is, we recently had a dinner with the entire crew and some of us came with our partners. This man also happened to be there, and he was sitting across from us so we picked up some casual conversation— mostly small talk.
At some point, my husband thought it was a good idea to start “teasing” me and started to joke around about how I had a massive crush on him in high school. He also made some offhand references to him being my “hall pass," and how he “hopes I don’t cash that in, ha ha ha." It was so humiliating. I obviously kept mostly silent and waited for it to pass, as I wanted to remain professional.
When we got home, I absolutely blew up. I told him how humiliating and out of line that was. That if I couldn’t take him to work events and if he couldn’t maintain professional boundaries for my sake, I couldn’t see a future with him. My career is extremely important to me, and being perceived as a silly, unserious schoolgirl with a crush is damaging.
He’s been sleeping at his mom’s for the last few days. His mom has been calling me and begging me to let this go, that I’m overreacting. So, AITA?
Here's what top commenters had to say about this one:
IntrepidDifference84 said:
Hall pass conversations are idiotic.
MCMXCIV9 said:
Divorce? Talk about overreacting. If this how you treat him on one occasion, I'm curious how you treat him everyday?
ThrowRA-Tree209 said:
NTA. To be fair, he was probably nervous and making conversation. I work in entertainment and my friends that don’t always get so tripped up in front of celebs. It is absolutely imperative that he knows decorum or at the very least, can be normal. He wouldn’t go up to your high school crush and make conversations about you having a crush on him, why do it in front of your boss/coworker/colleague?
Longwinded_Ogre said:
Man, that whole "hall pass" conversation hits different if you actually work in the field. Your husband had to have dinner with a dude you literally told him you'd sleep with if given the opportunity and you're concerned that it's awkward? I'd be more concerned that I put him in that god awful situation.
I can't help but notice you really only seem to have considered your feelings and perspective here, and not the fact that your husband was eating with some dude you literally said you'd cheat on him with.
The most important thing there was not that you be taken seriously. Your husband was in a shitty situation and chose his words poorly, good thing his loving wife only cares about how that reflects on her and her career.
Imagine he had a long standing crush, since highschool, imagine he told you he wants a hall-pass for her, and then imagine he brought you to his work and sat you across from her. That's f'd up. But yeah, what's really important here is that you're embarrassed. Cool priorities. YTA.
YTA, get a grip and get over yourself. The fact your even talking divorce tells me you don't actually love this guy. I hope he sees the person he married and leaves you.
TearsOfLoke said:
YTA You should not be working with your fantasy hall pass. And you really shouldn't sit right next to them at a dinner. You went out of your way to put yourself in this position, and to completely disregard your partners feelings.
Yes, he's insecure, because you gave him every reason to be. Imagine doing this in any other industry. You get a job with a person you've talked about wanting to sleep with in the past, and then you put yourself as close as possible to them at a company event. It feels like you're fishing for that hall pass, and your husband is letting your crush know that you do not have the pass.
Inside-Associate-729 said:
If he apologized, then you need to get over it. Sure, its uncomfortable for you. You know whats uncomfortable for your husband? The fact that you are now working with a guy who your husband knows you’d love to f-k.
His reaction was immature but perfectly understandable. Hes obviously uncomfortable about the whole situation and this is his lame way of expressing that. Show some understanding. YTA.
He's the one who caused the problem. OP did nothing wrong. Didn't say anything wrong at the dinner and didn't (AFAIK) tell hubby to leave. Sounds to me like hubby is embarrassed and trying to turn it round on OP.
Lost-Lecture832 OP responded:
I concede I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did when trying to have a frank conversation with him after it all happened. I blew up and shouldn’t have.
That being said he left himself. I’m perfectly okay with him cooling off at his mother’s house if he needs to, but if we’re going to have a conversation I do expect him to explain what he did and apologize because he hasn’t done either so far.
You take your career seriously enough to having cheating conversations about someone you work with?
Did you even read the comments in this thread before responding? I made those comments years ago, reciprocating his banter, and before I even could conceive that I would ever work with this person. It isn’t like 8 years ago when we started dating I said these things foreseeing what happened at that dinner.