My Wife Treats Me Like a Joke in Public, and I Can’t Pretend It Doesn’t Hurt

When you marry someone, you expect the big day to be something you both treasure — a joyful milestone you’ll look back on with shared fondness. But what happens when one partner starts rewriting that history, almost erasing it from memory? What if the person you call your wife begins to reject the very word — not in anger, but in quiet denial?

One husband found himself in this unsettling situation, as his wife began to act like their wedding never happened. At first, it was playful. Then it got strange. Now it’s getting painful.

This isn’t your typical story of marital drift — it’s more complicated, more confusing, and just a little bit haunting.

A man turned to Reddit to share his crazy story and find support from Internet users.

The man opened his post, saying, “My wife (33f) and I (29m) have been married four years now, coming on five. We have generally had a good relationship and a good marriage.

We had a reasonably expensive wedding, which we’re still paying for now. I get the bill every month to prove it. My wife took charge of planning the wedding, so it was to her tastes. She seemed to enjoy it at the time and for the first few years of our marriage, she would look back at the wedding with me happily and without issues.”

Things took an unhealthy turn when OP’s wife started behaving strangely.

The man wrote (Edited by Bright Side), “In recent months, I’ve noticed my wife’s strange attitude to our marriage. She started referring to herself as my ’girlfriend’. She told me to buy her a ’girlfriend’ card for Valentine’s Day rather than a ’wife’ one. Now, to my shock, she even started openly denying we’re married at all.”

The OP shared, (Edited by Bright Side), “When we’re with friends, my wife will get upset if I talk about her as ’my wife’ rather than just a girlfriend. She interrupts me if I’m talking to ’correct’ me on our relationship. The situation became even more shocking when she started behaving like this all the time, ignoring my feelings about it.”

The wife’s behavior only escalated, and it makes the husband feel hurt.

The man wrote, “I thought she was just playing around at first. But this behavior has only escalated. Two months ago, my wife stopped wearing her wedding ring. I was understandably upset and asked her if there was something wrong. She told me everything was fine and she just ’doesn’t the sensation of jewelry on her hands’. My wife has never liked rings and jewelry, so this could be the case.

Initially, her denial of our marriage was something our friends laughed at, but now everybody just finds it understandably awkward.”

OP feels something is very wrong in his relationship with his wife and asks people for some advice.

The OP shared, “One of our friends was talking about their own wedding, which is scheduled for early next year. They asked for advice from my wife about how she’d planned ours, and my wife responded with ’what wedding?’. When our friend continued talking about the table decorations my wife had used, my wife visibly teared up in front of the whole group and had to step outside.

Later that evening, I asked her directly if she has a problem with our relationship or if I’m doing something wrong in our marriage. She assured me that everything is fine between us. From my perspective, outside of this issue, our relationship is as strong as ever. We are considering kids in the near future, our love life is great, and my wife recently suggested we get matching tattoos as a renewal of our love.

Is there advice anyone can offer on why my wife might be acting like this and what I should do?”

People of Reddit rushed to the comments section to share their opinions and advice with OP.

One person wrote, “I think your wife might need a doctor or some therapy. What you’ve written sounds like she is having a disconnect from reality. Get professional help.”

Another user added, “Agreed. It could be as serious as a physical issue, or means of coping with something that she did, either a concern with the cost of the wedding, or it could be postpartum to the wedding.
Obviously this is a serious issue if she’s completely denying it, but there are lots of women who spend so much time of their life planning ‘the perfect wedding’ that when it’s over, there’s sometime anxiety and depression akin to what some athletes get when winning gold in the Olympics. It’s over. That’s it. You do it once, and it’s not happening again.
Her approach to just simply denying it ever happened is odd, and there could be underlying issues to why, but it seems like she might be upset that the wedding and celebration is all over, and they’re still paying for it. Either that, or she cheated and has completely snapped and prefers to rather believe that she cheated on her boyfriend rather than her husband.”

One more person advised, “You need to sit down with her seriously and make sure she’s okay. This does sound like she could be having a break-down and needs some help.”

Someone shared, “This is the exact way my friend’s mom was acting. Then they took her to the doctors eventually when it got really bad and found out she had a tumor pressing on some part of her brain.
It was like she was transported 20 years into the past, but only in her head. She would start acting shy around her husband because she didn’t know if he had a crush on her or not (They’ve been married for 15 years).”

And here’s another family drama which unfolded because of the unpredictable behavior of family members. One woman shared how she suffered from her in-laws’ humiliating attitude during a family dinner. They’ve gone too far, and the woman’s husband didn’t even take her side in this appalling conflict. And now she is asking people if she should divorce him or if she’s overreacting.