Woman's Husband Furious That She Threw Her Rings Into The Ocean After He Told Her He Cheated As A Prank
As the saying goes: Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Africa Images / Canva Pro For most of us, a little practical joke now and then is no big deal — a jump scare as your partner rounds a corner of the house, an April Fool's gag or two.
But there are some pranks that are just downright inappropriate, like the type that make the butt of the joke so viscerally despondent they reflexively hurl precious metals and gemstones into the nearest body of water.
A woman's husband said he cheated as a prank — so she threw her wedding rings into the ocean.
You know how the saying goes: Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
That's a lesson this woman's husband is now learning the hard way after a joke she called "the dumbest thing that’s ever happened to me in my entire life."
With the advent of social media, pranks are everywhere nowadays, and the more popularity they gain, the more over the top they seem to become — especially when the laughs are at the expense of kids.
What happened to this woman isn't quite on the level of child abuse, but it's downright cruel — not to mention stupid — on a pretty shocking level.
"My husband thinks he’s a comedian," she wrote in her Reddit post, surely sending millions of women's eyes rolling in unison. "He says dumb [expletive] all the time," she went on to explain, but his most recent gag was on a whole new level.
Out of nowhere, her husband confessed to having an affair in a voice so convincing she instantly went into shock.
"This past Sunday, my husband and I were on our boat together," she wrote. "All of a sudden, my husband gets really serious and tells me, 'Baby, I’m so sorry, but I have to tell you something. I’m so sorry, please forgive me, I had an affair.'"
She said her husband makes stupid jokes all the time, "but he’s never joked about our marriage or relationship or cheating, ever." And the way he delivered the news, she instantly believed he was being for real.
She was so angry she reflexively hurled $10,000 worth of wedding jewelry into the water, and now her husband is furious.
"I was blinded by rage and hurt, and I’m not a confrontational person at all," she wrote, "so all I did was stand up, take my rings off, and throw them into the ocean. I don’t even know why I did it; it was just the first thing I thought of doing."
It's less than a lot of us would have done, for sure. But her husband's "jaw hit the floor," and he immediately began yelling at her, "That it was a joke, a prank, he wasn’t serious, and I was an idiot."
She responded in kind and then burst into tears, "realizing I just threw my lovely and sentimental rings into the ocean." Now, they've been fighting about hit for a day.
"Yes, admittedly, I threw about $10k worth of rings into the ocean, and we will never find them again," she said. "But he looked me in my eyes and told me he had an affair."
Experts say jokes and pranks frequently rise to the level of emotional abuse, and many felt this one fit the bill.
It really shouldn't be hard to recognize what is and is not a good prank. All you have to do is ask yourself, "What is the punchline" and "Who is the butt of the joke?"
In this case, the answer is a woman thinking her entire world has just collapsed and being emotionally shattered for someone's amusement. What exactly is funny about that?
Redditors were downright infuriated on this woman's behalf. "[She] should not have apologized… Her husband wanted her to react, and she did. It's not her fault the reaction proved to be no laughing matter."
Another put it perfectly: "A prank ends in both parties laughing. If only the perpetrator is laughing, that’s abuse."
Experts tend to agree. Psychologists say that because of pranks' potential to trigger past trauma, humiliate, and cause a loss of trust, they can rise to the level of emotional or psychological abuse.
Of course, one ill-conceived prank doesn't necessarily equal an abusive relationship. Counselor Margot Brown told us that in contrast to a "slip-up," abuse is a "pervasive, consistent and ongoing pattern" that is "all about power and control." She urged people to "recognize the pattern if you see it."
Hopefully, this woman's doofus of a husband gets the picture and learns from this. As another Redditor put it, "If this leads to divorce, it will cost him much more than those two rings."
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice, and human interest topics.