She Invited Her Ex and His Fiancée to Her Graduation. Now She’s Being Accused of Not Moving On

A woman turned to Reddit for perspective after what should have been a joyful graduation day took an unexpected turn.

In her post, she explained that she married her high-school boyfriend, Elias, after four years together. Money was tight, and sending both of them to college wasn’t realistic. They agreed that one of them would go first and even flipped a coin to decide. Elias won the toss, so he went to college while she worked full-time to support them.

She remembered how serious they were about that promise. They even wrote out a contract on a sheet of paper stating that no matter what happened between them — even if they divorced — their pact for him to help her attend college after he graduated would still stand. Neither of their families could afford anything more official, but they both treated that promise as binding.

While Elias studied at a local college, both sets of parents contributed what they could, and she covered the household expenses so he could focus on his degree.

After he graduated, though, life started to change. A year later, as she was getting ready to start college herself, he confessed that he had developed feelings for a coworker. According to her, he said he was “starting to fall in love” with this coworker, but insisted that he respected and loved his wife enough not to act on it. That conversation led them to take a hard look at their marriage.

They eventually decided to separate on good terms. Even then, she says, he reassured her that their agreement still stood — he would help her go to college the way she had helped him.

Years passed before she finally reached her own graduation day. By that time, Elias had moved away and gotten engaged to the coworker, Lorna, but the woman remained close to his parents.

When a classmate offered her an extra graduation ticket, she decided to invite Elias. “I called him and told him I had extra tickets if he would like to attend with his fiancée,” she wrote. He was excited and said he would try to take time off work so they could be there.

On the big day, her own parents, her former in-laws, Elias and Lorna all attended. Her ex-in-laws reserved a restaurant for a celebratory meal and later gave her a meaningful gift, telling her that she would always be like a daughter to them.

Her parents shared their own emotional congratulations, and then Elias surprised her with a custom-made necklace. She felt deeply moved by the support from everyone around her.

She made sure to thank everyone individually. When she approached Lorna, she didn’t want to overstep and asked if she could give her a hug, adding that only if Lorna was comfortable. Lorna laughed and declined, saying she was okay without a hug. When the woman hugged Elias, he told her, “I’m really proud of you, cricket,” using the old nickname he had for her.

After such a warm celebration, she assumed everything was fine. But a few days later, she started receiving anonymous messages.

The messages called her a “homewrecker” and told her to “take a hint” because Elias had moved on. They claimed she was “obviously still obsessed” with him because she’d stayed single since the divorce and was “leeching off his kindness.” The accusations left her stunned and hurt.

She couldn’t tell whether the messages were from Lorna, from Lorna’s friends, or from random people who had somehow heard about the situation. She confided in her parents, who suggested she talk to Elias’s parents about it. The idea made her nervous, though, as she worried bringing it up might make things worse and put strain on those relationships.

In her post, she emphasized that she truly had moved on. She now saw Elias as her oldest friend, not as a romantic partner. She explained that she’d chosen to stay single on purpose after their divorce because she wanted to experience living on her own and figure out who she was outside of marriage. On top of that, her studies were demanding, and she hadn’t had the time or energy to date.

Even so, the anonymous attacks made her question whether she had unintentionally crossed a boundary by inviting her ex and his fiancée to such an important milestone. “Was I really the a—— for inviting him?” she asked. She wrote that she had never considered it might be disrespectful to Lorna, but was now wondering if that’s how it had been perceived.

One Reddit commenter assured her she’d done nothing wrong, pointing out that she and Elias had honored a long-standing agreement: she supported him through school, and he supported her through hers.

The commenter also encouraged her to tell Elias about the messages, saying his fiancée’s behavior, if she was behind them, wasn’t fair. In response, the woman wondered whether Lorna even knew about the original pact before the graduation. If she didn’t, the woman suggested, that might explain why things had become so tense afterward.