Man Pretending Not To Know Fiancé After Her 'Meltdown' on a Plane Cheered

Very few of us think our partners are totally perfect all the time. But one man has taken to Reddit and been voted 'not the a******' after explaining a difficult situation with his partner on a plane, which led him to pretend he didn't know her.

In the post the user (who has since deleted their account) explains how they were recently on their way back from vacation when his fiancé tried to board the plane with a bag that was too big for cabin luggage.

He titled the post, "AITA for pretending not to know my fiancé after she had a meltdown during boarding the plane and was eventually thrown off?"

"I got through just fine first with my little backpack," he explains, "but I could hear the argument from the boarding tunnel thingy and it was getting heated. I was about to go back and try to smooth it out but my fiancé rushed pass and just boarded plane.

"I assumed not having heard it super clearly that the attendant had given in and let her on. That was not the case!"

Research at the University of Western Ontario undertook three studies each with roughly 400 participants representing a wide age range to determine whether other people's behavior makes people feel that they, themselves, are in the spotlight.

The results showed that people felt more in the spotlight when their partner engaged in negative behaviors, and this was particularly true when the behavior occurred in front of strangers or acquaintances, rather than close friends.

The Reddit user then describes how an air steward and a police officer then turned up demanding that the woman gets off the plane.

"She tries to plead and cry, etc," he explains, "but they are not having it. And maybe in a moment of panic or just plain self preservation...the cop asks if we're together, and I blurt out, "NO!" shaking my head emphatically. I got kill dagger eyes from her as she shot up and grabbed her bag and followed the cop out. She was also swearing and screaming the whole way out."

He concludes that his fiancé managed to get the next flight and he picked her up from the airport, emphasizing that he would have missed an important work event if he had got off the plane with her.

Newsweek spoke to licensed marriage and family therapist Leya Navarro, MA, LMFT, about the controversial behavior.

"Given the issue described with the male partner who denied his relationship with his fiancé to the authorities in the midst of chaos, he was using a natural defense mechanism of denial," she explains.

"The male partner was in survival mode and chose to deny his relationship as he did not want to get into any legal trouble and had to be back at work. I am not saying this is the right way to have handled the situation but I empathize and understand what was happening internally throughout his quick thought process.

"The fiancé wanted it her way and to be able to bring whatever size bag she wanted to in the cabin. She was furious that the flight attendants did not enable her behavior, so she had an angry outburst, understandably so.

"Again, not the healthiest way to handle the situation but I see why she was so angry at her partner. She felt betrayed in the midst of distress and was counting on her partner to help her. In a healthy dynamic, the fiancé would have taken responsibility for her actions, apologize and offer to check her bag in; the male partner would have been truthful to their relationship status no matter the situation."

User BFIrrera wrote, "NTA. Get out while you still can. This is how she'll be forever. She'll never learn from this experience."

User Stoat__King said, "Conflicts like that can get you blacklisted. I wouldnt want to be anywhere near that either. Ditto for the police involvement."

User SL8Rgirl commented, "Dude. Get out. People who are not nice to the 'staff' are not nice people."