Woman cancels anniversary trip after husband destroys her terrarium: 'Pride and joy'
The woman said she'd made the terrarium with her mother and had it for 15 years — now the couple aren't speaking
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}A woman who canceled her anniversary plans after her husband accidentally destroyed a treasured terrarium was completely within her rights to do so, said fellow Reddit users.
"AITA for canceling our anniversary trip because my husband drowned my terrarium?" asked Reddit user "Tiny-Pen-2289" in a Jan. 31, 2024 post on Reddit's "Am I the A--hole" (AITA) subreddit.
In the post, Tiny-Pen-2289 said she's a 29-year-old woman who recently traveled across the country to visit a company that offered her a job.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"I spent two days touring the company to decide if it would be the right fit for me after years of self-employment. After meeting with the company, I visited my sister (32f) and her family a few towns over," the woman said, adding that she does not see her sister very often.
Tiny-Pen-2289 was gone for eight days before returning home – and once she arrived, she discovered that her husband had destroyed one of her prized possessions.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The woman wrote that her husband over-watered her prized terrarium (not pictured), killing most of the plants. She then canceled their anniversary trip. "It was always super healthy and beautiful," she said of her "pride and joy." (iStock)
"I have a very large closed bioactive terrarium, which I made with my mother 15 years ago. It's one of my favorite things I have of her from before she passed," wrote the woman.
She said the terrarium was her "pride and joy."
"It was always super healthy and beautiful," she added, "and I've only ever had to open it four times to do a little maintenance and watering." That was something she thought her husband understood.
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Instead, she found that while she was gone, her husband "poured a few cups of water into the vessel and sealed it again" the day she left for her trip.
"The roots were rotting and the plants dying and molding," she said.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"I was so mad I cried, and it turned into a huge argument because ‘it’s just a plant' and ‘all you do is look at it anyway.’"
Her husband, said the woman, called her "ungrateful and overdramatic" — and insisted he was just trying to help and didn't want to bother her during her trip.
"I was so mad I cried, and it turned into a huge argument because ‘it’s just a plant' and ‘all you do is look at it anyway.’"
Tiny-Pen-2289 wrote that she and her husband were planning to take a luxury train trip to celebrate their anniversary after she returned home from her trip, and that her husband is "a big train enthusiast."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Since calling off the anniversary trip, the woman said her husband hasn't been speaking to her and is sleeping in another room. She did not say if he apologized for destroying her terrarium. (iStock)
"I ended up canceling our anniversary plans, partly because I was so upset that I didn't want to go, and partly because I wanted to try and salvage the plants and that would require time," she said.
Her husband "hit the roof when I told him" — and is now refusing to speak to her and is sleeping in a different bedroom.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"According to him, I'm being petty and trying to destroy our marriage," said Tiny-Pen-2289.
She asked others, "Am I being oversensitive about my plants?"
Her friends, she wrote, "are pretty evenly split" about the situation, and she said she was hoping Reddit users could weigh in on the drama.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The woman turned to social media users for help after she said her friends were "pretty evenly split" in terms of whether canceling the anniversary trip was the right thing to do. (iStock)
Fox News Digital reached out to Tiny-Pen-2289 as well as a family therapist for additional comment and updates.
On the AITA subreddit, people can reply to posts and indicate the poster is "NTA" ("Not the A--hole"), "YTA" ("You're the A--hole"), "NAH" ("No A--holes Here") or "ESH" ("Everyone Sucks Here").
Users can "upvote" comments they find helpful, and "downvote" those they do not.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Nearly 4,000 people responded to Tiny-Pen-2289's post — and most stuck by her decision to cancel her anniversary trip, saying she was "NTA."
Many Reddit users expressed doubts at the husband's intentions of "helping."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"NTA — and I doubt your husband was trying to help," said Reddit user "deathandtaxes2023" in the top-upvoted comment.
Many people even warned the woman that her husband might be abusive. (iStock)
"Firstly, if you have only opened it a few times, then he knows it doesn't get watered that often. Secondly, he knows how much it means to you, so [he] should [have] known that you would have taken care of it before you went or would have left very detailed instructions," said deathandtaxes2023.
The same commented further noted that the amount of water added was likely far too much for a terrarium, "even if he was just being helpful."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"The 'you just look at it' comment is also strange — that's what everyone does with their plants," said deathandtaxes2023.
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Others had a harsher view of the husband's intentions.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"He didn’t forget. He maliciously killed something you love. NTA," said one Reddit user.
"He maliciously killed something you love."
"Yeah, agreed — he did this on purpose to kill something [you] loved," said Reddit user "Kitchen_Victory_7964."
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}That commenter also warned Tiny-Pen-2289 that her husband may be "enjoying being abusive or is trying to drive you to leave him."
He "has no intentions of treating you well," said Kitchen_Victory_7964.
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