Woman contacts ex's fiancé on social media about gift from late MIL; ex gets angry.

Some people are in great contact with their exes, and even consider them friends. Others practically construct a moat of alligator-infested waters to keep their exes away. And then there's the rest, awkwardly in the middle of the extreme poles of 'friends with exes' and 'mortal enemies with exes.'

If you still have mutual friends, it's not uncommon to have a general sense of where your ex is and what they're up to. And while some people find peace and closure in that knowledge, others find it triggering and annoying. Sometimes you don't know where someone sits, until you've accidentally crossed the line.

In a popular post on the AITA subreddit, a woman asked if she was wrong for contacting her ex's fiance without his consent.

She wrote:

AITA for contacting my ex's fiancé without his consent?

I (30F) was engaged to Anthony (32M) 4 years ago. Our relationship ended for a number of reasons but we had been together since high school. We did not have the best ending and there was a lot of hurt. I moved across the country when I moved out of our shared home. We cut contact following our split and have remained no contact ever since.

We have mutual friends still so I occasionally receive updates about his life and I am sure he receives the same. 5 years ago, Anthony’s mother, Liz passed away after a long illness and because we were engaged, Liz had given me a letter and a wrapped gift that she wanted me to give to Anthony on our wedding day.

It was not specific to our wedding day but since she knew she would not be there she decided I should be the one to do it. She asked me to just keep it between us (she did not want her ex-husband or other kids to know).

8 months later when we actually called off the wedding, I had forgotten about these items as I had stored them in my childhood bedroom for safekeeping, and in the midst of moving across the country, I left the items behind which I am aware was careless.

Fast forward to now and I recently learned that Anthony is engaged to Beth (30s) and my first thought was that I am really happy for them and wish them all the best. I then was thinking about our canceled wedding and his mom. I really loved her like a second mom and I was struck with the sinking feeling that I still had the letter and gift from her and that I had never returned it to the family.

I then remembered Liz asking me not to share it with her other children or ex-husband and while I was unsure of the exact reason, I think it is because she had done the same for her other children but I am not sure who is holding on to their letters and gifts. I brought it up to my husband and explained how guilty I felt about still having these things and I just did not know what to do.

Together we talked through all the different options I could have called him but felt it would ruin the surprise on the actual wedding day which is what his mom wanted. I could have contacted a sibling but then I feel like it would have ruined their surprise since they are not married yet. I thought about relatives but I just don’t know who. I settled on Beth. It just felt right that Liz wanted it to come from his soon-to-be wife.

I reached out to her via social media DM and wrote her an extensive letter detailing what I have stated above. I told her she could do with this information what she wanted but that would be in my hometown next month and would love to get these items to her. Apparently, this was the wrong thing to do. She told Anthony about this my message and he is pissed that I reached out to her.

He says I have no business contacting his fiancé. I am torn now because I was honestly trying to honor his mother’s wishes and return the items to their rightful owner. I really felt like I was doing the right thing for everyone.

The internet was both fascinated by and invested in the situation.

BigBigBigTree wrote:

'He says I have no business contacting his fiancé.' You explained your business with the fiance pretty succinctly here, actually. NTA and good f-ing luck to his future wife.

SmokEMcTokes wrote:

NTA. But I can see why you broke up, what a delightful guy...

Man_at_arms84 wrote:

NTA - you were trying to fulfill his Mother's wishes. His fiancé had the option of responding or not, you at least gave that option. It may have been a bit of a shock to receive the contact but if you accept that someone has a past you have to accept that sometimes that past may sometimes come into contact with your present.

Mother_Tradition_774 wrote:

NTA but you probably should have contacted your ex or even a friend of his instead of his fiancé. The fiancé doesn’t know you and because of that she has reason to believe that you’re just trying to start drama. I realize that you were trying to get to gift to your fiancé in accordance with his late mother’s wishes but that kind of went out the window when you and your ex called off the wedding.

You should have just sent him a message informing him that you have a gift his mother gave you to give to him years ago that you forgot about and you’ll be happy to mail it if he wants it.

TheLongistGame wrote:

Going NAH as it sounds like this is a complicated situation and we don't have the perspective of the ex regarding how the relationship went down and how he feels about OP. So I don't want to judge his reaction as TA. I think your intentions were good, and I understand the process for how you landed on reaching out to the fiancee. That said, I think it was the wrong move.

She doesn't know you and had no reason to believe you had good intentions. Therefore she was justified in showing it to her fiance, your ex. His response is what clued me in that there are some obvious unresolved issues and he has a reason (valid or not) for being against you contacting his fiancee.

Personally, I think you should just mail him the stuff with no return address. Yeah, it's not exactly what his late mother wanted, but she also wanted you guys to get married and that's definitely not happening. It belongs to their family and they should have it.

OP is definitely NTA here, it sounds like a hard situation all around.