Reddit users insist newly engaged widow not wrong to keep memento of late husband
A young widow who is now engaged to be married should not feel obligated to give a keepsake she made from her late husband's wedding rings to his sister, Reddit users and an etiquette expert said.
"AITA for not giving my former [sister-in-law] the necklace I made from my wedding rings from my deceased husband?" asked Reddit user "SleeplessYellowSun" in a June 18 post on the "Am I the A--hole" (AITA) subreddit.
In the post, the woman said she's 27 years old and that, when she was 22, she married her high school sweetheart.
But five months into their marriage, her husband was tragically killed by a drunken driver.
After his death, the woman said she had their wedding rings melted down and made into a necklace and a set of earrings — she said she did not want the rings to just sit in a drawer forever.
SleeplessYellowSun said she keeps the earrings in her jewelry box and wears the necklace every day.
"One, because I like the way it looks and two, because I like the idea of having a tangible part of him with me always," she wrote.
Recently, however, the woman said her boyfriend of nearly two years proposed to her — which SleeplessYellowSun accepted.
"I keep in touch with my former [sister-in-law] (29F), who we will call Ava, and last weekend she invited me out for drinks. We caught up a bit before she congratulated me on my engagement," SleeplessYellowSun said.
Ava then asked her for her necklace, the woman wrote — "since it would mean more to her as [her late husband's] sister than it would to me now that I was getting remarried and moving on."
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This, she wrote, "honestly stunned me that anyone would outright ask for something like that," SleeplessYellowSun wrote.
She also said Ava had many of her husband's things and pieces of his clothing.
SleeplessYellowSun did not give Ava an answer — instead saying she would think about giving her the necklace.
Meanwhile, SleeplessYellowSun's best friend agreed with Ava's request — saying that "it seemed strange that I was still so attached to it given its history and my new engagement," wrote the woman in her post.
"She thinks that I should probably give it to Ava as it would mean more to her, and I should shed anything from my old life and embrace my new one. She said that I should get a new necklace and make new memories, and that she would go with me or I could ask my fiancé."
This, too, did not sit right with her.
While SleeplessYellowSun said she was "completely happy" in her new relationship and is excited about the life she'll be making with her future husband, "a part of me will always have love for my former husband and mourn him and the life that we could have had together, and I don't think that that takes away anything from my new relationship," she said.
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"They are different loves and lives."
She added, "But now it feels silly to me that I have conveyed all this into a necklace."
She went on, "My fiancé says he does not care, and he knows that I love him and our life together, and understands that I will always have some level of grief and that he loves how I have loved and keep loving and how I embrace life and people because of my experience," SleeplessYellowSun wrote.
"So AITA," she asked others on the social media platform, "for not wanting to give my former SIL my necklace?"
In the over 1,300 responses to the post, most Reddit users said the woman was not in error for wanting to keep the necklace despite her new engagement.
An etiquette expert told Fox News Digital that neither SleeplessYellowSun nor Ava were truly in the wrong for their actions.
"The sister could ask for whatever she wants; however, she should not expect to receive it," California-based expert Rosalinda Randall told Fox News Digital in an email.
"Especially when she has been given several of her brother's items already, according to this story."
Randall also said, "Asking is not a sin or a crime. We all have the right to say 'no,' no matter what others think."
In situations involving a death, "no one can determine when or whether we should or shouldn't release an item," Randall said. "In this case, no one is wrong."
Perhaps, she said, Ava thought she "was even trying to be sensitive by considering the new husband's feelings" — and was attempting to keep the jewelry in the family.
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"If [SleeplessYellowSun] feels that there are lingering feelings about this, she should speak openly about it," Randall also said.
"Tell the SIL that she appreciates her interest and understands why she'd like it, but that she wishes to hold onto it to always remember that special moment in her life. Who can argue with that?"
Reddit users were less nuanced in their reactions — saying that Ava was wrong for even thinking about asking for the necklace.
"You're [not wrong]. The necklace is yours, and it is wildly inappropriate for your former sister-in-law to ask for it," said Reddit user "Dittoheadforever" in the top reply to the post.
This same commenter continued, "I see nothing wrong with hanging onto a [memento] of someone who helped make you who you are."
"Wildly inappropriate," wrote Reddit user "GrapeGatsby23" in another top comment.
The user continued, "I can't even imagine asking someone for a commemorative piece of jewelry that they had made specifically for themselves."
In an update to the post, SleeplessYellowSun wrote that she'd decided to keep the necklace. She defended both her best friend and her former sister-in-law.
"I want to give [Ava] the benefit of the doubt at first, but if she pushes the topic, then I will have to make some choices," SleeplessYellowSun wrote. "I am not sure how I am going to word it yet or if I want to say it via text or in person. But I will figure that out."
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"Grief," she said, "is really strange and hard and isn't something you understand until it happens to you."
Fox News Digital reached out to SleeplessYellowSun for additional comments.