Husband Labeled 'Heartless' For Calling His Wife's Bluff When She 'Jokingly' Asked For A Divorce While Drunk
"In vino veritas," as the saying goes, and he's refusing to play her game.
bulatovic | Getty Images | Canva Pro It's the oldest excuse in the book — "but I was drunk!" We've all heard it, and we've probably all said it once or twice in our lives. But is it actually true? Is booziness really an excuse for the things we say and do when we've thrown back a few too many?
That's the debate that erupted after a man refused to accept his wife's excuses for a very provocative joke she made while intoxicated. While she feels he's being "heartless" by holding her accountable, the actual science on the matter is firmly on her husband's side.
The husband called his wife's bluff when she jokingly asked for a divorce while drunk.
As the saying goes, "in vino veritas" — Latin for "in wine, there is truth." Many are quick to argue that this is nonsense — just because someone says or does something under the influence doesn't mean it's a true reflection of who they are.
Yet one husband is unwilling to forget his wife's intoxicated words or accept her "but I was drunk" excuse.
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"Yesterday, me and my wife were just chilling and watching TV [when] my wife all of a sudden said that she wants a divorce and started laughing hysterically," he wrote in his Reddit post. "She was quite drunk. She drinks, I do not."
Her statement left him "shocked" because in six years together, "she never ever asked me something so absurd." But he decided to take it seriously, and it ended up being a very revealing choice.
He immediately agreed to the divorce, and she called him a 'heartless pig' for not 'fighting' for their marriage.
"I got angry and said 'Sure, door's that way, send me papers but make it fair,'" he recalled, which he said made his wife immediately stop in her tracks and get angry that he "wouldn't even fight even a little to save our marriage."
She then asked him if he stopped loving her. "I told her I love her but if you want to leave me I won't stop you or beg you," he wrote. This set her off even more, and she accused him of being a "bad husband."
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His attempts to talk it over were met with the silent treatment. Then, after a day of silence, she told him that he needed "to become a better man and husband and fight for my wife instead of just agreeing to divorce like a heartless pig." She claimed that she would refuse to speak with him until he "works on himself."
He wondered if he should apologize, but his fellow Redditors said absolutely not. "She’s the one who needs to work on herself," one person wrote. "If you say stuff like that when you drink maybe you don’t need to drink."
"Your wife's 'joke' crossed a line," another commenter wrote, "and it's unfair for her to expect you to beg and plead for her to stay after a cruel and drunk comment." They went on to urge him to "stand your ground" and have a serious discussion about the issue. "Let's be real," they added, "who jokes about divorce while drunk? That's not funny or acceptable."
Research shows that alcohol does not change our character — basically, 'in vino veritas' is true
Here's the thing — "But I was drunk!" might be a convenient excuse for doing and saying hurtful or provocative things. But if you're the type who feels like that excuse doesn't remotely hold water, you're not alone — scientific research says you're right.
Because it turns out "in vino veritas" is actually real. A study at the University of Bristol essentially proved that when you say and do things while drunk, it's not because you've momentarily turned into a monster. It's simply that the guardrails that would keep you from hurting someone by saying or doing those things are temporarily gone.
In its study, University of Bristol researchers presented subjects with two things: images of people's emotions and complicated ethical questions like the famous "trolley experiment."
They found that drunkenness impaired subjects' empathy such that they laughed at people's negative emotions or mocked their happy ones, for example. But the ethical questions like the trolley experiment? Their responses were consistent, whether drunk or sober. Nothing changed.
So, while booze clearly made this man's wife feel comfortable hurting or toying with him with a request for a divorce, it likely had nothing to do with the motivation or desire for the divorce itself — that idea was already there, whether in sincerity or simply as a tool of manipulation.
Either way, he quite literally called her bluff in the truest sense of the phrase, and his fellow Redditors are right — she doesn't get a pass for being drunk. Perhaps he is a "bad husband," but her inability to express it unless she's drunk enough to be manipulative is no one's problem but her own, and he doesn't owe it to her to solve it for her.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.