My fiancé wants to wear her dead husband’s wedding ring when we marry — I feel like I’m in second place

She wants to say “I do” — while still clinging to “I did.”
One bride-to-be’s unconventional tribute to her late husband has sparked emotional fireworks before the ceremony even starts.
A 30-year-old groom shared on Reddit’s infamous “Am I the A–hole” forum last week that he’s locking horns with his fiancée over one particular wedding-day detail: her plan to wear her deceased husband’s wedding ring on a chain around her neck as they tie the knot this fall.
“There’s been one thing that’s been eating at me,” the poster admitted.
The woman, Emily, was previously married to Tyler, who died in a tragic car accident five years ago. The couple had wed in their early 20s and, the Redditor wrote, were “truly in love.”
“At first, she was very open about it, and I respected that. I knew coming into this relationship that I wasn’t her ‘first great love,’ and I was okay with that. I still am, mostly,” he explained.
“Over the years, I’ve supported her through moments of grief, anniversaries, random waves of sadness,” he went on.
The Reddit user noted that “she still visits his grave on his birthday, and she keeps a box of his things in our closet,” and he’s “never touched it.”
But when Emily revealed her plan to wear Tyler’s ring around her neck (à la “Sex and the City” jilted bride Carrie Bradshaw) as “a quiet tribute” during their nuptials, her fiancé was stunned.
“She said she wouldn’t be where she is now without having gone through that loss, and she feels like carrying that part of her story into this new chapter is meaningful,” he wrote.
“I didn’t say much at the time because I didn’t know how to respond. But the more I sat with it, the more it bothered me. So I finally told her how I felt.”
He confessed to her that it was difficult “to wrap my head around the idea of her wearing another man’s wedding ring — even if he’s gone.”
“I told her it makes me feel like I’m sharing the most important day of my life with someone who’s not here. I said it makes me feel like second place,” he continued.
Emily wasn’t thrilled.
“She got very quiet, then told me that she wasn’t ‘choosing’ him over me, and that she’s allowed to honor her past while still moving forward,” he recalled.
“She said grief isn’t a door you close — it just becomes part of who you are. I get that. I really do.”
“But at the same time,” he added, “I don’t think I’m asking something outrageous by wanting this one day — our day — to be about the life we’re building together, not the one she lost.”
Reddit users were largely in the groom’s corner, with the top commenter — who had also lost a spouse and remarried — weighing in bluntly: “Your wedding is inherently, implicitly and factually about your relationship together and her late husband shouldn’t be a part of it.”
“My worry for you is that she’s doing it as a sort of apology to him for moving on with you,” they added regarding Emily’s “Outlander”-esque move of wearing two wedding rings.
“I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of that either.”
Another user struck a more diplomatic tone: “I would strongly suggest couples counseling and having that unbiased third party help you both with this issue.
“If she wears the ring, you will be hurt. If she doesn’t wear the ring, she will be hurt. This could cause resentment from the start.”
Others recommended compromises — like lighting a candle in Tyler’s memory instead of wearing his ring “while walking back up the aisle.”
“You’re not wrong for your feelings and she isn’t either,” one Redditor wrote. “You just need to find a different compromise.”