Reddit Stories - UNEXPECTED PROPOSAL_ A Luxe Dining EXPERIENCE Turned Life-Changing Moment_

Episode Date: June 10, 2025

#redditstories #askreddit #aita #proposalstory #luxedining #lifechangingmoment #unexpectedlove #surpriseproposalSummary: A luxurious dining experience turned into an unexpected life-changing moment with a surprise proposal. The romantic setting and unexpected gesture left everyone in awe, creating a memory that will be cherished forever.Tags: redditstories, askreddit, reddit, aita, tifu, proposal, luxe, dining, experience, lifechanging, romantic, surprise, love, gesture, memory, cherished, forever, luxury, unexpected, romanticsettingBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reddit-stories--6237355/support.

My partner brought me to an upscale eatery and knelt before me with a box containing a ring. After I accepted the proposal, he revealed the contents of the box, which turned out to be only a small trinket. Notes saying you have been pranked. Me, 24F, and my boyfriend Andrew, 26M, have been together for five years. We met at this house party my roommate dragged me to during my sophomore year of college. I didn't even want to go, but she insisted that I needed to get out more. and stop being such a hermit.

Anyway, Andrew was there with some of his friends, and he was the one making everyone laugh with his stories and jokes. We started talking when I went to get another drink, and we just clicked right away. Andrew has always been the funny guy in our friend group, always making jokes and pulling pranks on people. When we first started dating, his pranks were small and actually kind of cute.

He'd send me on Little Scavenger Hunts around campus that would lead to a small gift or a picnic he'd. set up. Or he'd pretend to forget my birthday only to surprise me with something special later. I never really minded it because most of the time, his jokes were harmless and sometimes genuinely funny. I'm not super serious myself, and I'd prank him back occasionally too. We moved and together after we'd been dating for about three years. It was a small two-bedroom apartment in a decent neighborhood. The second bedroom was supposed to be an office but ended up becoming a storage room for all our extra stuff. We've been saving to buy a house for the past year or

so, and we even found one we both liked recently. Things were generally good between us, we had the usual arguments couples have, mostly about him leaving his clothes on the floor or me using too much hot water during my showers, but nothing major. At least that's what I thought. As time went on, Andrew's prank started to become a bit more annoying. Like he'd hide my car keys when was already running late for work, or he'd tell me my mom had called with an emergency when she hadn't called at all. One time, he convinced me that our landlord was selling the building and we had to move out in two weeks. I spent days stressing and looking for a new place before he told me it was just a joke. I got pretty mad at him for that one, but he apologized and promised he

wouldn't do something like that again. But he didn't really stop. He just found new ways to joke around. Sometimes he'd hide behind doors to scare me when I walked in, or he'd put salt in my coffee instead of sugar. One time he told me my car had been towed when it was just parked on the other side of the parking lot. I'd get annoyed sometimes, but I'd laugh it off because that's just who he is, you know? Plus, he'd always act all heard if I got too upset about his pranks, saying things like I was just trying to make you laugh or you used to have a sense of humor. So eventually I just got used to it, I guess. But what happened a few days ago crossed every possible line, and I'm still trying to process it all.

It started off as a totally normal day. I was asleep and Andrew woke me up at around 7 a.m., which was weird because he usually sleeps in on weekends. He was all excited and told me to get up because he was taking me to the spa. I was pretty confused because it wasn't my birthday or our anniversary or anything special. but I wasn't going to turn down a spa day. So I got ready, and we went to this really nice spa downtown, the one I've always wanted to go to but we could never afford. He paid for everything.

I kept asking him what the occasion was, and he just kept saying, can I just treat my girlfriend sometimes? I was suspicious, but I figured maybe he got a bonus at work or something that he hadn't told me about yet. After the spa, he told me he had made reservations at this fancy restaurant on the waterfront, the one with the glass ceiling that I've always wanted to try. At this point I was like, okay, something is definitely up. But he kept insisting it was just a nice day out. The restaurant was

amazing, like way fancier than anywhere we'd been before. The waiter brought a champagne that Andrew had apparently pre-ordered. It was all so perfect, and I started getting this fluttery feeling in my stomach because, well, it seemed like maybe this was leading to something big. Over dinner, We talked about normal stuff at first. Then Andrew started talking about the house we had been looking at. Nothing serious, just fantasizing about what furniture we'd get and how we'd decorate it. He mentioned something about turning one of the rooms into a nursery someday, which made me blush because we'd never really talked about having kids before. Everything felt so perfect, and for the first time in a while, I felt like maybe we were actually taking steps toward building a future together. After we finished the main course,

before dessert came, Andrew got this serious look on his face. He reached across the table and took my hand, looking straight into my eyes. Then he stood up, and my heart literally stopped. I think I knew what was about to happen, even though we'd never seriously talked about marriage before. He got down on one knee right there in the middle of the restaurant. People at other tables started noticing and getting quiet. Some even pulled out their phones to record. He pulled out. He pulled I pulled out a small black velvet box from his jacket pocket and started giving this speech about how I was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen and how he couldn't imagine his life without me. He talked about our first date, about how he knew from the moment he met me that I was special,

and how he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. I was crying at this point. I couldn't believe this was happening. He asked, will you marry me, my princess? And I said yes without even thinking about it. The whole restaurant erupted in applause. An older couple at the next table over were smiling and wiping away tears. The waiter brought over more champagne on the house.

And then everything came crashing down. He opened the box and instead of a ring, there was a little folded piece of paper. He was grinning in this weird way that I didn't recognize, and I knew something was wrong. I unfolded the paper and written on it in his handwriting was you've been pranked. The look on his face as he started laughing will haunt me forever. He was hysterical, like this was the funniest thing he'd ever done. Baby, this was just a prank, he said, still laughing. I'm not ready at all to marry you yet.

You should see your face right now. The restaurant went completely silent. I could feel everyone staring at us. The waiters didn't know what to do. The older couple who had been smiling a minute ago now looked horrified. and I just sat there, humiliated, with tears streaming down my face. But now they weren't happy tears anymore. He tried to lean in and hug me, like this was all just a big joke we were both in on.

That's when I slapped him. Hard. I've never hit anyone in my life, but I couldn't control myself. My hand just moved on its own. I grabbed my purse, stood up, and told him, we're over, you fucking scumbag. Then I walked out. I had to call an Uber because he had driven us there. The whole ride home I was sobbing so hard the driver asked if I needed to go to the hospital instead. I told him I was fine, just heartbroken. He was nice enough to wait until I got inside

my building before driving away. When I got home, I packed a small bag with essentials. Then I called my friend Lisa and asked if I could stay with her for a few days. She didn't even hesitate, just told me to come over right away. I didn't leave a note for Andrew. I didn't think he deserved one. He's been calling and texting non-stop ever since. At first the messages were like, babe, it was just a joke, don't overreact, and come on, you know I love you, I just wasn't ready to propose for real yet.

But then they got more desperate. Please come home, I'm sorry, I didn't think you take it so seriously and I can't sleep. without you here. Please just talk to me. I haven't responded to any of his messages. I just keep replaying that moment in my head over and over. I really thought we had a future together. We've been saving for a house. We've talked about getting a dog. We were supposed to go on vacation next month to visit his family. Now I don't know what to do. Part of me wants to never see him again, but we have an apartment together, shared bank accounts, and we were planning to buy a house. Our lives are so intertwined after five years.

Lisa says I should block his number and move on with my life, but it's not that simple. I still have to figure out what to do about our apartment, our shared stuff, all of it. And a tiny part of me still loves him, despite everything. Ida for breaking up with him over what he calls just a prank. Update, a lot of you were asking for a update, so here it is. First, I want to clear up some confusion from the comments. No, I didn't know about the prank beforehand. Some of you seemed to think I might have been in on it, which is ridiculous. Why would I make up something like this? And yes, the spa and dinner were real,

he actually paid for everything. Some of you suggested he might have been planning a real proposal but chickened out at the last minute and tried to play it off as a joke. I thought about that too, but after what happened next, I'm pretty sure that wasn't the case. After I made that post, I stayed at Lysas for a couple of days. She was great, letting me cry on her shoulder and binge-watch trashy reality shows to take my mind off things. I turned my phone off for most of that time because I couldn't deal with Andrew's constant messages. When I finally turned it back on, I had 47 missed calls and over 100 text messages, not just from Andrew but also from some of our mutual friends asking what happened. Apparently, Andrew had been telling people that I overreacted to a

harmless joke and walked out for no reason. That made me so angry that I decided I needed to talk to him face to face and set the record straight. So I went back to our apartment. I didn't tell him I was coming, I just showed up. He was there, still in his pajamas even though it was afternoon, looking like he hadn't slept or showered in days. For a split second I felt sorry for him, but then I remembered what he did, and any sympathy I had just evaporated. I told him straight up that we were done. I said I couldn't be with someone who, after five years together, still wasn't ready for marriage and thought it was funny to make a joke about it in front of a restaurant full of people.

That's when things got ugly. At first, he cried and begged me to reconsider. He said he loved me more than anything and couldn't imagine life without me. He promised he'd never prank me again. Then, when he realized I wasn't budging, he got angry. I'd never seen him like that before. He started yelling about how I was a fucking asshole for leaving him like this after everything he has done for me.

He went on this long rant about how he'd supported me when my dad died, how he'd always been there for me, how he'd spent all this money on the spa day and dinner, like that somehow made up for the humiliation. He was cussing me out so much that I honestly stopped listening at some point. The thing that stuck with me most was when he said, Don't be so fucking petty and drop it. You know we're happy together and you know you still want me. That's when I lost it.

I called him every name I could think of and told him exactly what I thought of his pranks and his childish behavior. We were both yelling so loud that our neighbor knocked on the wall. That kind of snapped us out of it, and we managed to calm down enough to discuss practical matters. We agreed that we'd not renew our apartment lease. and in the meantime, he'd sleep in the guest room. I spent the rest of the day clearing out some

space in the guest room so Andrew could move his stuff in there. Then I went online and started looking at apartments I might be able to afford on my own. Our lease isn't up for another four months, so ideally we'd find someone to take it over, but that might be difficult given the current rental market. Andrew is still not accepting the breakup. Throughout the day, he kept trying to talk to me, saying things like, can't we be together again? And this was just a small mistake I made. At dinner, we ordered takeout and ate separately, me in the bedroom and him in the living room. He came and knocked on the door to ask if we could talk about this like adults. I told him we'd already talked, and there was nothing more to say. Oh, and get this, he apparently

told his family about what happened, but I'm guessing he gave them a very different version of events. His mom called me that evening and went off on me for being selfish and not being able to handle a simple joke. She said Andrew had been planning the spa day for weeks as a special treat for me, which might be true, but doesn't excuse what came after. The call ended with her calling me a slut before hanging up, which I thought was rich coming from a woman who cheated on her husband, Andrew's dad, and thought nobody knew about it. After that, I started getting messages from his siblings, his dad, and even his aunt. all basically saying the same things, that I was overreacting, that Andrew was devastated,

that I should give him another chance. His younger sister, who I used to be close with, sent me this long, guilt-trippy message about how Andrew had been crying non-stop and couldn't eat or sleep. His older brother, who I never really liked, was more direct, calling me a heartless bitch who was throwing away a good man over nothing. I tried blocking their numbers, but they keep finding new ways to contact me. His mom even emailed my work address. How she got that, I have no idea.

It's exhausting having to constantly defend my decision to people who weren't even there and don't know the full story. I don't think much else will happen in the next few days. I'm focusing on selling stuff I don't need anymore, finding a new place to live, and sorting out the apartment situation. Andrew and I are trying to be civil when we have to interact, but it's tense. He keeps looking at me with these sad puppy eyes that you, used to work on me but now just make me angry. I'm also dealing with the practical stuff of disentangling our lives. We didn't share all our finances, thankfully, but we do have a joint

savings account that we were using for the house down payment. I'm going to talk to the bank tomorrow about how to split that. And then there's all the stuff we bought together. It's going to be a nightmare figuring out who gets what. Thanks again for all the support. It really means a lot knowing there are people out there who don't think I'm overreacting. I'll update again if anything significant happens. Update 2. So much has happened since I last posted, I don't even know where to begin. I guess I'll start with the living arrangement, which didn't work out at all. The idea of Andrew sleeping in the guest room lasted about a few days before it became unbearable. We kept having these massive fights every evening. He'd start by trying to apologize, then get frustrated

when I wouldn't accept it, and eventually start blaming me for ruining everything over a joke. The first night was actually okay. We stayed out of each other's way, and I thought maybe we could make it work until we figured out the apartment situation. The second night, he knocked on my bedroom door around midnight, clearly drunk, and tried to get me to just talk to him. I refused to open the door, and he eventually went away. The third night was the worst.

He came home from work in a mood, slamming doors and muttering under his breath. When I asked him what his problem was, he exploded, saying I was his problem, that I was being unreasonable, that I was throwing away five years over one little mistake. We had a huge argument that ended with him throwing a glass against the wall, not at me, but still terrifying, and me locking myself in the bedroom and calling Lisa in tears. After that, I knew I couldn't stay there anymore. It wasn't safe, and it definitely wasn't healthy. Lisa offered to let me stay with her until I could find my own place, and I took her up on it.

The next day, while Andrew was at work, I packed as much of my stuff as I could fit into my car, clothes, personal items, some kitchen stuff that was definitely mine and left. I left him a note explaining where I was going and that I'd be in touch about the apartment. When he got home and found me gone, he went ballistic. He called me non-stop for hours. When I finally answered, he was alternating between crying and yelling, accusing me of abandoning him and stealing things from our apartment. I tried to explain that I only took what was mine, but he wasn't listening.

He threatened to report my car as stolen, even though it's in my name only, and to throw the rest of my stuff out on the street if I didn't come back immediately. I ended up calling his brother, the only somewhat reasonable member of his family, and asking him to go check on Andrew because I was worried he might do something stupid. His brother agreed, thankfully, and later texted me to say that Andrew was okay, just upset, and that he'd stay with him for a while. The whole apartment situation is still a mess. The worst thing that's happened since my last update was running into Andrew's mom at the mall.

I was just minding my own business, shopping for some clothes, since I left a lot of mind behind, when I heard someone shouting my name. I turned around and there she was, storming toward me with this look of absolute fury on her face. She started screaming at me right there in the middle of the mall. People were staring and I have never felt so humiliated in my life. She was yelling things like, How could you do this to my son? And you're a terrible human being, she said I had ruined Andrew's life and that I would regret throwing away a good man. I didn't even try to defend myself.

I just turned and walked away, but I could still hear her yelling as I left. A security guard actually came up and asked if I needed help, which was both nice and mortifying. The messages from Andrew, his friends, and his family haven't stopped. They're getting nastier too. I've received texts saying things like, no one would give a flying fuck if you died, you are a waste of space and you are such a self-centered slut, leaving your boyfriend over a small joke. I've even gotten a few threatening messages from numbers I don't recognize, saying things like they know where I work and they're watching me.

I reported those to the police, but they didn't seem too concerned, saying there wasn't much they could do unless something actually happened. I try to ignore all the messages, but sometimes they really get to me, and I break down crying. Lisa has been great, holding me while I cry and reminding me that I did the right thing. She even took my phone away for a whole weekend so I could have to be. have a break from all the toxicity. This whole situation has also shown me who my real friends are. Some people I thought were my friends have taken Andrew's side, saying I'm overreacting or that I should have given him another chance. I've been looking for my own apartment, but it's tough finding

something I can afford on just my salary. I might have to get a roommate, which isn't ideal, but it's better than staying with Lisa indefinitely or, God forbid, going back to Andrew. The whole thing still feels so surreal to me. If you had told me a month ago that I'd be single, living with a friend, and dealing with this kind of harassment, I would never have believed you. Andrew and I had been together for so long that I just assumed we'd always be together. I had built my whole future around that assumption, and now I have to start from scratch.