Woman gets face tattoo, loses family, fiancé and job; turns up after 8 months. CONCLUDED
It's what is on the inside that counts, but sometimes a sudden choice to drastically change your appearance can be a sign of larger issues. One man took to Reddit after his fiancée came home with a startling tattoo out of the blue. Now, he says their relationship will never be the same.
"My fiancee got a face tattoo without talking to anyone."
Dapper_Lemon_7495
I... am honestly stunned right now. My fiancee 'Kim' I have just learned is completely insane. She took some days off work this week 'Sick' and avoided seeing most people in person. She claimed she was feeling sick and just wanted to stay home alone.
She has never given me any indication that she would lie about this in the 6 years we've been together. No one in her family had any worries because she was a stable individual who would never do anything crazy. She got a face tattoo.
She took 3 sick days from work to recover from the fact that she got a face tattoo. She told no one of this plan beforehand. I have never in our time together been talked to about tattoos by Kim.
She showed no indication that she was even interested in getting any. I was not even the first to learn. Her sister visited her because she got worried after Kim canceled meeting with her for lunch on her 3rd day 'Sick' and got the grand reveal.
She didn't tell anyone beforehand because she 'Didn't want to be talked out of it' and hate the results because the swelling and redness were so bad that we would 'react badly and not be able to understand the artistic meaning.'
Kim is Asian American. She got Japanese symbols going down her forehead and under her eye. I don't know the meaning of them. I don't really know if I care to know the meaning of them.
Kim's parents are Japanese immigrants. According to her sister, who was nice enough to inform me of this whole debacle, this is a big no-no in Japanese culture. Tattoos have links to crime and are looked down upon. Her parents are beside themselves and that is a whole other set of drama I can't even begin to approach.
Kim talked to me last night about it, and acted offended and started a fight because I told her it was absolutely insane of her to do this. She works a public-facing job. She talks face-to-face with clients in the financial industry.
The minute her boss finds out, the career that she went to school for will be over. She actually didn't consider her job, or family, or me at all and decided 'a long time ago' she was going to express herself freely without any concerns.
I'm worried about her right now. This is not normal. She blocked my number after our fight and is ghosting me and her sister because we're trying to help. But, dear lord, this is far beyond me.
I cannot comprehend what I'm even supposed to do right now. Kim's lost her mind. Is there any chance I will be happy married to.... this? A woman who went and got a face tattoo, and hid that fact because she knew we would all talk her out of it? Dear lord, I really need to run don't I?
Here were the top rated comments from readers after this initial post:
Conscious_Front5650
This is really odd. It sounds like a terrible decision to me as I’m not a face-tattoo fan, but my bias aside, she’s hiding it from you and her family, she hadn’t been talking about getting it. It sounds like a very rash decision. I would try to get her help if she’s in crisis, but you also need to think hard about marrying someone who is acting out of impulse like this.
FigSpecific2502
If she’s acting this completely out of character, there might actually be something wrong. I have no idea how to approach it but I’d say she needs to see a doctor and be evaluated. I’m so sorry. It’s a very helpless feeling.
sljbspe3
Could be something she always wanted though and she just didn't want to listen to the arguments....along the lines of the old saying 'It's better to ask for forgiveness than permission'
NotAnAlgorithm
'Is there any chance I will be happy married to.… this?' I hope not because you literally just called your fiancée a “this”. This post reads more like a “I value peoples opinions about my girlfriend more than I value my girlfriend”.
dodgyduckquacks
Personally I find face and neck but mainly face tattoos (unless permanent makeup which is technically a tattoo) the ugliest and most disgusting things to look at. I don’t care if it’s tribal, cultural, historical or your dead gran came to you in a dream and told you to do it.
I would never date someone with it and if my SO got one without telling me that would end the relationship unless they were willing to get it removed or wear heavy duty makeup the entire time I have to see them.
Again I realise this is an extreme view but you need to think long and hard if this is someone who you want to spend the rest of your life with. Someone who made an irreversible, life changing decision that impacts both your lives without talking to you first.
CuriousAlice86
I’m sorry but good for her!! I’m covered in tats not face but hands neck and forearms. Attitudes are changing towards tattoos it’s become so mainstream these days.
When did doing something for you become mental health issues or something really wrong? Perhaps she feels suppressed by everyone else’s opinions let her be there’s make up to cover and also laser removal. Let her be her not the version you expect/want!
The next say, after their post received an onslaught of attention, the OP returned with more information:
Dapper_Lemon_7495
Wow, uh, this got some attention huh? I read through the replies, but I can't really respond to all of you so I'll just update here. The engagement is pretty much off. Kim has told me she never wants to see me again and I woke up this morning with her ring and a box of stuff I gave her on my porch.
I don't know what's going on with her. Her sister and family have been trying their best, but nothing on their end is working. I brought up to her sister the idea this is a mental breakdown and they are looking into getting her help. It's painfully slow, considering Kim is not responding to anything and is refusing to talk to anyone.
I really don't know what to say here, I guess? To answer some questions, Kim is 29, and I'm 28. In the 7 years, I've known her, she has never acted like this at all.
She had a good relationship with her parents and while they were a bit overbearing at times, they supported her in going to college and getting a career rather than starting a family.
From what I've gathered, they probably would have been fine with any tattoo she got as long as it was not on her face, neck, or hands. Even then, this kind of behavior is as far from Kim as I could have imagined.
She just, lost her mind out of nowhere? It's not like I can do anything about it either. She's blocked my number and does not want to see me. I'm just at a loss for words. One day I'm engaged, and the next I'm not and my Ex has a face tattoo...
People had this today after the update:
Majestic_Jazz_Hands
I’m a tattoo artist, I’ve been doing this for over 20 years. In my entire career, myself and a very large majority of my coworkers have morals about this issue.
We don’t do facial tattoos unless the person is already heavily tattooed and/or they are over an age where they’re settled into a career where getting a facial tattoo isn’t going to affect whether they will be able to get a good job. That’s why they’re called Everlasting Job Stoppers.
I’m really disgusted that another artist was that greedy and that immoral that they didn’t take the time to get to know this woman even a little bit to find out what she does for a living and how that tattoo could potentially negatively affect her for the rest of her life, or until she’s able to get it removed.
danuhorus
The fact that she's burning so many bridges (engagement, career, family) in one swoop makes me wonder if this hasn't been building up for a while.
informantxgirl
I know some cultures have facial tattoos as something sacred and beautiful and if that were the case, there'd be no problem, but the Japanese taboo is pretty major from what I've heard. I mean, you can't onsen because of them right? Yet this young lady did it. This is...one helluva rebellious moment.
cloudnineamy1217
This poor woman. All the people in her life appear to be selfish a-holes who only care about her decisions in so far as they see them affecting themselves. It took until the very end of this tale before he started questioning a mental break? At that point it seems like he'd already washed his hands of her.
Boggles my mind how you can go from let's get married, I'm going to promise to love you forever and sickness and in health to you made a reckless decision I don't agree with we're ending this relationship.
And I'm not suggesting that someone has to remain in a relationship with someone if they're refusing to take care of their mental health but it seems like this mental health crisis just started and not a single person in her life cares. They're too worried about their own shame.
8 full months later, the OP surprisingly returned:
Dapper_Lemon_7495
About 9 months ago, my ex-fiancee 'Kim' got a face tattoo without telling anyone. This was just the start of her doing everything she could to ruin her life. She broke up with me and called off our 7-year relationship when I questioned why she did this.
She worked in a client-facing job for an incredibly large financial institution and was let go within a month of showing back up for work after getting the tattoo. I kept in contact with Kim's sister hoping for some news.
They tried to get her help, as they thought she was having some kind of psychotic break. However, she eventually called the police on her own family claiming they were harassing her. After that, I decided to just walk away.
Kim didn't just destroy her own life. When she broke up with me, I felt numb. I knew this wasn't Kim doing this. I wanted to believe deep down that Kim was always like this. Always this impulsive crazy who would ruin her life by getting a face tattoo. I tried to convince myself that I had not lost a wonderful woman who I had spent 7 years of my life with.
However, the person who made these choices was not Kim. The woman who told me over the phone she hated my guts for not supporting her. The woman who wrote she hated me and only ever stayed with me out of pity. That was not the woman I asked to marry. That was not Kim.
That was someone, who I came to find out, was having a mental breakdown. That resulted in months of bad decisions that will affect the rest of her life.
The day I walked away and told her sister I could not deal with it anymore was the worst day of my life. It hit me like a train. The numbness and denial of what I lost hit me all at once. I almost quit my own job and moved back home to my parents.
I can only thank my boss for being so understanding that she let me take 4 weeks off to deal with what happened. She and the rest of my team went far beyond what should ever be expected of co-workers and management that it makes me realize how close I was to leaving a job I actually enjoy.
I never moved on from Kim, but I came to accept what had happened. I thought I was ok, until 2 weeks ago. I got a call from Kim. She had blocked my number, and done everything she could to remove me from her life.
My mind just blanked when I saw it was her calling. I picked up, and it was actually her. We didn't talk, I did not know what to say to her. We decided she would come over to my place, and we talked.
The tattoo is still there, but she's covering it up now with makeup. She says when she has the funds she's going to look into getting it removed if possible. She had lost a lot of weight since I last saw her.
She's not been able to find a new job, she'll probably need to move to a new city for that. She wasn't the Kim I had fallen in love with. She was like a shell of her, something just wasn't there anymore that used to be.
Kim told me what had happened. The year leading up to the tattoo was awful for her. The stress of everything seemed to pile up more and more. I'll respect her, and keep much of what she told me secret. However, the thing that is important is that she said that one day, she just out of nowhere decided she hated everything about her life.
She explained why at the time she wanted the tattoo. It doesn't really make much sense, but a lot of what she was thinking at the time didn't. And from there, she just lost control of everything.
I won't talk about what happened after she disappeared, but it is not pretty. There are things she did that will follow her for the rest of her life. It explained a lot, but it did not make things any better.
We talked for nearly the entire night. She didn't leave my place till almost 4 am. Since then, she's said that she wants to try and get back together with me. She admitted she knows things cannot be the same. Yet, she wants to try.
I haven't talked to anyone about what I'm about to say yet. I've held off on talking to Kim about it because it feels selfish. But, there's something about the way Kim acts about the way it affected my life that irks me.
When we talked that night, she said that I was lucky she cut me off. I was lucky I didn't get put through any of this. I was lucky that my 'crazy ex' wasn't at my door screaming or showing up to my work and causing a scene.
She acts like my life wasn't affected at all. I told her what happened after she left. How much it hurt, how I almost quit my job and moves across the country. her response was just dismissive.
She acted like because I was not the one with the tattoo on her face, I don't get to act like it had long-lasting effects on me. She didn't even apologize for the explicit and hateful note she left with my things when she returned them. Or for the phone call where she called me a manipulative selfish a**hole who only wanted her for her body.
Or even just for breaking up with me. She knows she was wrong to do it, but it's almost as if she's acting like because she had a breakdown, I can't hold her accountable for what she did to me because it 'wasn't long-lasting.'
I texted her last night, saying how hard it was for me when she left. She ignored it entirely and tried to move on. No acknowledgment at all. I don't know why, but it hurt me. It hurt me so much.
I feel like I did back when all those emotions finally hit me after she left. I wish she had just never come back into my life now. I wish I didn't know what happened. I wish I hadn't picked up the call. Because it hurts.
But, a part of me feels like I'm being selfish or complaining too much. That I don't get to feel this way, because I'm not the one who had the mental breakdown.
Here were the top rated comments from readers after this, most likely, final update:
Smart-Way1246
You are not being selfish. You are choosing yourself. She may have been going through a breakdown all those months ago, but she also chose herself over you, her family and her career.
Are you 'lucky' that she cut you off? Maybe. But that's something that you are allowed to think, not something she's allowed to say, especially while being so dismissive and stoic in the face of the pain she put you through.
I think you need to block her, cut contact completely and move on with your life free of her. You need to protect yourself emotionally amd psychologically, and keeping in contact with her is not the way to do that. Be safe.
Humble_Nobody2884
It’s like she sees you as some kind of side character to her main story. She never shared her stress and issues with you as if she didn’t trust you as a partner. She condescendingly dismisses your feelings as if those concerns are beneath her experience. She doesn’t sound capable of being a true partner right now.
SamuelVimesTrained
Wish I could say I was surprised, but there’s a lot of drug use in the finance industry. She definitely sounds like she’s in denial about the damage done.
InvectiveDetective
Jesus f*$k. She’s still not taking any accountability for her actions. Poor OP. Hope he doesn’t get back together with her. He deserves so much better.
Blablablablaname
Someone very close to me also had a mental breakdown a few months ago and there was a point where they sent a message to my wife saying 'hey, can we just act like nothing happened and move on, haha,' and when my wife said no, because we were both really hurt by the situation, they spiraled massively and cut us off.
It felt like they didn't really have any room left for even contemplating how their actions affected others. Eventually you have to move on and realise you're probably never going to get that closure from someone who's struggling to hold onto themselves.