Chip Chick
This 25-year-old woman is marrying her fiancé, 29, in May. They met when she was 21 and he was 25. At the beginning of their relationship, her fiancé informed her that when he was 20, he married his high school sweetheart.
Tragically, she had died of sepsis during a surgery in which the medical team made serious mistakes. He and his late wife had been married for two years when she passed away. Understandably, this loss devastated him, and he kept in touch with his wife’s dad and two sisters, 19 and 24.
“It was a soft spot for me for a while at the beginning because there was so much history they had that we would not have, and it was tough knowing she was all around him. I never told him and decided to work through it independently, especially because he would often spend time with her family during our relationship,” she said.
On his late wife’s birthday, their wedding anniversary, and the anniversary of her passing, her fiancé got together with her family. She was uneasy about this in the beginning because she acknowledged that the person she was in love with was thinking back on memories of someone else whom he loved.
But she reminded herself to put herself in his shoes, and over the last couple of years, she isn’t as uneasy about her fiancé honoring his late wife because she knows her relationship with him is stable. A year ago, he proposed, and she was thrilled. She adores her fiancé, but not long ago, she found out that he’d never told his late wife’s family about their engagement.
Over the last several months, she’s been frequenting local coffee shops instead of where she used to go. Recently, she went to a coffee shop she’d never been to before, and it turned out that one of her fiancé’s late wife’s sisters worked there.
While it was uncomfortable, the situation worsened when his late wife’s sister eyed up her engagement, gawked at it, and then looked visibly upset. She didn’t bring up the engagement to her fiancé and left the coffee shop.
After this uncomfortable run-in, her fiancé informed her that his late wife’s sister had told him about the incident on social media. She told him she was sad he’d hidden their engagement from his late wife’s family, and he told her he was sorry. It was obvious that the drama exhausted him.
During the conversation, her fiancé told her he didn’t intend for her to be a secret, but he also was worried about upsetting his late wife’s family. He added that she and his late wife were both important to him, which she accepted. She agreed to move forward after asking him to be honest with her. Last Sunday, she received a message from his late wife’s older sister.
Sign up for Chip Chick’s newsletter and get stories like this delivered to your inbox.
