If you've ever had a relationship end out of nowhere, you might be able to relate to feeling completely caught off guard by changes in a person. After a certain amount of time in a relationship, you get comfortable thinking you know someone and how they'd react in certain situations.
Now, imagine how this woman who took to Reddit in a since-deleted post feels when she learned her husband tanked their future plans over Danny DeVito.
Yes, you read that right. The original poster (OP) explained that her significant other found himself at odds with his boss over how his passionate love for the actor is displayed in his home, particularly in the areas visible during virtual meetings, as they are working from home. When things escalated, OP was shocked by her husband's reaction and the impact it's had on their relationship.
OP starts by explaining how much Danny DeVito means to her husband.
"My (31F) husband (33M) really likes Danny DeVito. We have been together now 6 years and he has always liked him," OP explains.
"Even when we first got together he had a cardboard cut out of him he got a few years before we even got together."
Few among us would argue against an intense love of Danny DeVito, and OP felt the same way.
"It's never ever bothered me until he went homeworking because of [the health crisis] and honestly, it didn't even bother me, it bothered one of his colleagues," OP explained.
OP explained a little more about her husband's job and how Danny DeVito became mixed up in it.
OP explained her husband has a great high-paying job that held a lot of promise for the future after he put in over a decade of hard work.
"He has been told by his boss when he retires next year, he will be recommending him for the job," OP explained.
"He has been there 12 years and this will really be a huge advancement for him and he deserves it."
Those plans got derailed by that same cutout she mentioned before.
Danny DeVito and OP's husband's job should have never collided, but working from home during the health crisis set them on a crash course.
"Due to him now homeworking, he has been doing a lot more video calls," OP explained.
"His boss's boss (J) really does not like the Danny DeVito cardboard cut out. He asked him to remove it during a meeting, so he did and the meeting carried on."
Danny's presence at another meeting did not go well.
"The week after that in another meeting, it was back in its usual spot. After the meeting, J asked my husband to hang on and blew up at him over the cardboard cutout being back," she revealed.
"He snapped back that he is unable to tell him how to decorate his house and unless he formally puts it in writing, he won't be removing it."
OP knew her husband was upset, but she thought they could talk it out.
After the confrontation, she gave him time to cool off before she tried talking to him about it.
"I tried to speak with him calmly that maybe he could just move it, but he has had none of it," she shared.
"He even went as far as to buy an oil painting of Danny DeVito and hang it right behind himself, and even got a couple more cardboard cutouts."
The job has let him know the promotion is pretty much a no-go.
"J at this point has pretty much said that although he can't fire him, his career there is dead," OP shared.
"So he decided to find a new job without consulting me and will be ready to leave his job in January after serving his notice."
OP tried talking it out one more time but didn't get far.
"I tried again to speak calmly with him and je just blew me off. He said he isn't staying somewhere who values the decoration of a room over the quality of his work," she explained.
"At this point, I absolutely blew up on him and called him out for how childish he's actually being."
OP wanted to know if she was right in being angry or if she should have backed him up.
"I'm honestly not sure who he is anymore because of this and I am genuinely thinking of leaving him," she leveled.
"We haven't spoken in a couple of days and honestly an argument has never lasted this long."
There were a lot of people who think OP did the right thing.
In the opinion of some commenters, OP was right in recognizing this one incident as speaking to some bigger issues.
"I think OP is rightfully concerned that this is the hill her husband has chosen to die on, to the point of buying more cutouts, an oil painting, and choosing to quit their job over it," one commenter wrote.
"I would not be ok with my spouse endangering our financial security because they can't put a cardboard cutout on the other side of the room, and I don't think I could be in a relationship with someone whose response to a disagreement is to double down on the offending behaviour. What if OP had a concern over a more legitimate issue and her husband acted the same way? I think she sees the writing on the wall and isn'tt willing to stick around to see if he just really loves Danny Devito or if this is a pattern of behaviour that's going to play out in other situations."
A lot of people also pointed out this is a pretty reasonable ask of a professional setting.
Many pointed out that you can't just have anything in the background of your work calls, especially in situations where you're talking to clients or those higher up the ladder than you.
"Your boyfriend has a job where they need to portray a professional image on calls. If he was in the office, there wouldn’t be an issue because his cutouts would be at home," another commenter noted.
"If my boss told me to remove a novelty item from a business call, I would do it immediately and permanently."
A surprising number of people backed up OP's husband.
While to some people it seemed pretty clean cut, other people agreed with and found humor in her husband's situation.
"I would have found this hilarious! His boss sounds like a nightmare, who would want to work for someone like that?" one commenter posed.
"I don't blame him for deciding to leave the job after his boss basically told him his career was dead over something so trivial."
They also pointed out that he had another job lined up.
The fact that he had something else in the works made a lot of people feel like it was OK to stand up for himself and move on with his career.
"It's not stupid to think that your boss doesn't get to dictate your home decor. Breaking up with him because he's setting reasonable boundaries with his work and is getting a new job is BS," one person noted.
"It's not like he's quitting his job and expecting you to cover all his expenses."
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