Divorce can be hard not just for the former spouses but also for the extended families that may have formed a friendship.

In today’s story, one man shares that his sister is mad at him for not telling her that he ran into her ex-husband at Target. He doesn’t understand her reaction.

Let’s see how the story plays out…

AITA for not telling my sister that I ran into her Ex husband?

So… I (M, 30 something) got a call at about 12:30 am this morning from my sister who is a year older than I.

She led the conversation with confirming details for a thing we have later today…

I’m confident that was just a lead in because we didn’t discuss anything different from what we had already confirmed earlier in the day so to call after midnight for THAT?

Not likely.

I didn’t have to wait long to find out what the true reason was for her calling.

OP ran into his sister’s ex-husband at Target.

A few months ago, I ran into her ex-husband at a Target self-checkout.

The two of them got divorced about a year and a half ago and are amicable but they both seem to hold on to some unresolved feelings.

He and I have always gotten along.

He’s also well liked by family generally although my(our) younger sister has expressed to me that she has harbored some resentment for some of his behavior around the time leading up to the divorce.

I wasn’t privy to the details and generally have grace for people not showing up as the best version of themselves during something as stressful as a divorce.

So… Yeah. We ran into each, spoke for a few minutes, hugged and went about our ways.

His sister seems mad that he didn’t tell her he saw her ex-husband.

I haven’t seen, heard from or reached out to him since. However, my sister feels offended that I didn’t tell her that I happened to run into him.

To be clear, it’s not for any safety concerns or things of that nature.

The phrase that she used was: “it got back to her”.

I guess he mentioned it to a mutual friend of their’s at some point and it recently got mentioned to her.

OP thought it would be a bad idea to tell his sister he saw her ex-husband.

She feels offended and thinks it should have been obvious for me to know that I should mention something like that to her and that she’s disappointed that she had to “hear it from someone else.”

Meanwhile I’m doing my best to be empathetic but I’m like… WTF?

I didn’t think such a random occurrence warranted me notifying her. If anything, I can see she’s had some highs and lows in the aftermath of it all so I was probably less inclined to even bring it up because you’re in the process of trying get over someone, me bringing them up for an unimportant, trivial reason seems like it could potentially be triggering.

OP doesn’t understand why his sister cares so much about whether or not he bumped into her ex.

As it is, I don’t need all of her requests to make sense to me.

If my sister wants me to do that for her it’s no problem at all, regardless of if it makes sense in my mind.

But I had to exit our phone convo rather abruptly to avoid it devolving into an argument because I felt like I was being chastised for something I had no awareness of and I don’t think my actions or non-actions were unreasonable or problematic.

She’s of the opinion that I should have known to alert her of any interactions I have with either of her ex husbands.

I’ve never been married but if the shoe were on the other foot I can’t imagine myself caring that much if at all.

Am I missing something here?

Is there some kind of etiquette or protocol for stuff like this that I’m not aware of?

It sounds like OP should plan on telling his sister every time he happens to see one of her ex husbands or know that she’ll probably be mad at him.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story…

This reader assumed OP and the ex were secretly friends.

Another reader assumes OP’s sister thinks he might be secretly friends with her ex.

This reader points out that the sister is probably being extra emotional because of the divorce.

This reader is on OP’s side.

Here’s a quick question OP could ask to figure out what to do…

His sister does seem to be overreacting, but it wouldn’t hurt anything to humor her and tell her next time he sees her ex.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a daughter who invited herself to her parents’ 40th anniversary vacation for all the wrong reasons.