She Wants To Divorce Her Husband Because He Left Her Behind When A Fire Broke Out And She Nearly Got Trampled By A Crowd Surge
This 26-year-old woman and her husband, 29, are high school sweethearts and have been married for three years. She has a health condition that dramatically impacts her digestion, mobility, and breathing. She is 4’10” and 93 pounds.
While she can walk, she needs to use a cane or sometimes a double cane if she walks greater distances. After an hour or two at the most, she can’t walk anymore and needs to rest. Because she struggles with mobility, she walks slowly and cannot run or walk quickly. She’s fragile and needs to be careful while out and about.
Several months ago, she and her husband celebrated their anniversary at a small venue where local musical artists performed. The venue was quite small and could only hold about 200 people. It was standing room only, but there was limited seating available toward the back by the bar. Venue staff reserved a seat for her, and she and her husband could stand if they felt up for it.
“It was a pretty crowded house that night, near capacity. I don’t know what happened, but at some point, something caught fire, and it was IMMEDIATELY chaos. People were screaming, and once the panic truly kicked in, there was a bad crowd surge to get to the exit. When this happened, I was MASSIVELY struggling not to get knocked down and trampled,” she said.
Unfortunately, because she’s small and doesn’t have the strength to push through people, the situation was terrifying and dangerous for her. Then, her husband abandoned her and raced off toward the exit with the rest of the crowd.
When the crowd panicked, he ran away instead of grabbing her hand so they didn’t get separated. At the time, they’d been seated by the bar on the opposite side of the building from the exit, so she wouldn’t have been able to push through the people to reach the exit.
“I was certain I was going to be trampled. I wasn’t even worried much about the fire at that point. It was growing, but it wasn’t huge yet. It was just how knocked around I was in the crowd. I even lost my cane at some point. Luckily for me, a woman noticed how close I was to being pushed down, and she grabbed my hand and kept me close. She had a pretty sturdy build,” she explained.
The kind woman was stronger and able to avoid being knocked over or trampled, and they moved toward the exit and successfully exited the building a few minutes later. By then, the fire department arrived to put out the fire.
When she got outside, she looked for her husband, and when they reunited, he was sobbing and asked if she was alright. In hindsight, she feels guilty that she’s so upset with his response to the fire since he was worried about her.
kegfire – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual person
“When I later confronted him for leaving me, he apologized and said he just panicked, that he grew up browsing [certain websites on the internet], and had been especially traumatized by the footage of The Station Nightclub fire that made the rounds. When the fire started, and the crowd started panicking here, he immediately went back to that and panicked,” she shared.
According to her husband, he wasn’t thinking and only reacted impulsively. He said it was as if he was an animal. Thankfully, the fire wasn’t too severe and was put out by the fire department several minutes after it started.
The ordeal was only covered by their local media and wasn’t in the news for long. However, she can’t forget how awful it felt for her husband to run away from her without grabbing her hand or carrying her out of the venue.
Her husband is athletic, stands 6’3”, and weighs 200 pounds, so he is much stronger than her. At the very least, she wished he’d looked over his shoulder to ensure she was okay before he raced toward the exit. Her husband didn’t think about her until he exited the building and was safe.
If she didn’t have mobility limitations, she could understand why her husband might have instinctively run away because he would have believed she could follow behind him. A stranger saved her, and because her husband abandoned her, she can’t look at him the same way anymore.
After the event, she tried to take time to process her emotions. She started going to therapy, but because the wait list was so long, she’s only had two sessions so far. Over the months since the venue fire, her feelings about her husband have stayed the same.
She explained to her husband how she felt, and he had various reactions every time they talked about it. Sometimes, he pleaded for her to forgive him. At other times, he brushed her feelings aside, saying that the event only lasted two minutes. In her view, it felt way longer than two minutes because her life was at risk.
Her husband added that she survived and got out of the venue safely. Then, he attempted to look at the situation in a “logical” manner, arguing that people don’t know how they’ll react in a life-or-death situation until they’re in it.
In his view, some people can control their reactions, but he can’t. When she thinks it over, she feels she can’t flip the switch and love her husband as she used to. So, she contacted a divorce lawyer but is unsure whether she wants to go forward with divorcing her husband.
What advice would you give her?
You can read the original post on Reddit here.
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