A man wanted to surprise his fiancée with the wedding gift of her dreams: He used most of his savings to buy her dream house, which was a lake house that previously belonged to her grandparents.
But the plan went terribly wrong when his fiancée went to Miami for her bachelorette party, ran into her ex-boyfriend from high school, and decided to call off the wedding. Though he lost his relationship, he ended up living in her dream house. In a Reddit post, he explained that her family found out about it and they want to buy the house from him, but he doesn't want to sell it.
The man and his former fiancée went to school together.
The man and his ex met in school. They grew up in the same small town and although they got along just fine, they weren't really friends. He said that his ex was "one of the popular kids" and he was not. When he moved back to the small town a few years after college, they reconnected and he started getting to know her.
They started dating.
In true second chance romance fashion, they realized they had a lot in common and they started dating. After dating for about a year, they moved in together. The man proposed a year after that.
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He bought the lake house without telling her.
In his post, he explained that they started looking for a house and his fiancée wanted to live in her grandparents' lake house. But it wasn't that simple because the house no longer belonged to their family. Her family was forced to sell the house after the grandparents died, but coincidentally, the couple that had purchased it didn't want it anymore, giving the man the opportunity to purchase his fiancée's dream house as a surprise wedding gift.
"6 months before our wedding, a chance event happened," he explained. "The couple who bought her grandparents lake house had grown tired of our snowy winters. It took some work and nearly all of my savings, but I was able to buy her dream house. It was going to be my surprise wedding present so I didn’t dare tell her or anyone in her family my plans."
She had her bachelorette party in Miami.
A month before their wedding, everything changed. The man said that he doesn't know exactly what happened at the bachelorette party, but when his fiancée came back from Miami, she was no longer interested in marrying him.
"It was a mess," he admitted. "She later moved to Florida and eventually married (her boyfriend from high school)."
He moved back to the city but continued to work on the lake house.
After his relationship didn't pan out, he went back to the city for work. Still, the lake house belonged to him and he worked with his parents to fix it up over the course of a few years. During lockdown, the lake house was the perfect sanctuary. He worked remotely from there, enjoyed it, and decided to live there full time and keep working remotely.
His family hosted their Fourth of July celebration at the lake house.
This year, his family decided to celebrate the Fourth of July at the lake house. But somehow, his ex's family found out.
"My SIL used photos from the lake this summer in her Christmas card. One of those cards made it to EX’s cousin. The cousin recognized the house," he explained.
The family wants to buy the house from him.
After the family found out that he owned the house, they wanted to buy it from him. He declined, and then he got a long, angry text from his ex, who he hadn't heard from in about nine years.
"Her family is blaming her for losing the house again. She then asked me [to] sell. I still have no intention to sell. Now her and her family are complaining on social media that this is some sort of revenge," he said. He asked Redditors to weigh in.
To some Redditors, it sounds like the ex thinks he bought it to be petty.
Since his ex never knew that he purchased the house as a gift, some Redditors pointed out that the family probably thinks he bought it out of spite after the wedding was called off.
"It sounds like they possibly think you bought it to spite her," one Redditor suggested. "Show them the property records/ whatever proof on social media as to purchase date. Say I bought this as a wedding gift surprise for my then bride to be."
Other Redditors would be very, very petty.
To many Redditors, the man had good intentions and has no reason to give up the house; he bought it as a gift when they were still together, but it does belong to him, many agreed.
Unlike his ex and her family, they recognize that he definitely didn't buy the house to be petty — but many of them said that if they were in the same situation, they would be petty.
"I'd now be posting daily updates from life around the house," one person wrote. "Then maybe tag the ex and say this could have been yours…lol."
It was clearly not done for revenge, a lot of Redditors agreed. But so what if it had been?
"Ummmmm what if it was revenge?" one Redditor responded. "Who cares? The house was available, you liked it and you bought it. If doing all that also resulted in a huge F you to the ex fiancé who cheated on you and left you, then all the better."
But some don't think the ex did anything wrong.
Though most Redditors agreed that the man did nothing wrong, some of them didn't think his ex did anything wrong either. Although it obviously hurt the man, she was allowed to be unsure about the relationship, and she did the right thing when she told the truth.
"Ex reconnected with a former boyfriend on a girls trip, went home and was honest with OP and broke it off," one Redditor pointed out. "I don't see where Ex is a villain here, who deserves to have revenge exacted upon her. She didn't marry OP anyway and steal years of his life while in love with someone else."
Though the Redditors thinks his ex did the right thing when she called off the wedding due to feeling unsure about it, they also believe the house belongs to the man who bought it.
One Redditor commented: "Now, as regards the lake house, fiancee can f— off. Op's house, fair and square."
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