Expecting your partner to support you is one thing, and being entitled is another. Could you tell us? A Redditor took to the forum and asked, “Am I wrong for telling my wife I can’t trust her after she didn’t text me about towels.”
Backstory:
The Original Poster (OP) and his wife are in their 30s. OP had a stroke last year and has aphasia as a side effect, but he is doing fine now. Since the stroke, OP says, communication has been worse.
He says, “Sometimes when I talk to her, she says I’m mean, and she cries, and I have no idea why. I don’t know if I’m misspeaking, she’s sensitive, or if something I say is mean. This didn’t happen much before the stroke, but it happens now. I try to be nice when we talk.”
What Happened Today?
He took the kids to the swimming class. When he got there, he realized that he had forgotten the towels. He immediately texted his wife, and she offered to go home and get towels and bring them to me. He replied, thanking her.
He got the kids inside the pool and called her to check the status. She was still at work and explained that her car was blocked in, and she was finding the person who blocked her so she could drive. She said that her coworkers were getting her towels, and she would come to the pool when she could.
OP didn’t hear from her for the next 15 minutes, which stressed him out. While he considered asking the front desk for towels, he was stuck because he didn’t know if she was coming.
OP says, “I didn’t hear from her for 15 minutes. I considered asking the front desk for towels or sun-drying the kids, but I was stuck because I didn’t know if my wife was coming. Some people would handle the uncertainty better, but it stressed me out. She showed up with the towels, we talked, and she left. I didn’t say much because I was upset and am very careful when talking to my wife.”
What Happened When They Got Home?
When she got home, she offered to finish dinner and put down the kids since she knew OP had been with them all afternoon. OP agreed to it and said he wanted to talk.
In OP’s words, “I told her I feel like I can’t trust her when I ask her to do something because she won’t update me if there are unforeseen circumstances. I was careful to say I wasn’t criticizing her, just sharing how I felt. I could tell she was upset. I asked her if she understood me, and she returned it. It sounded like she understood.”
OP asked her if OP had said something mean to her. She said that she didn’t blame OP but that it hurt her feelings that OP would complain without thanking her or thinking about how hard she worked to get me the towels. OP told her he DID thank her, reminding her that he immediately texted “thank you” when she said she would come.
According to OP, she also said something sarcastic like, “and you’re welcome for coming home and offering to take the kids!“
OP asks, what does my gratitude have to do with not trusting her? and says, “I appreciate everything she does for me. The offer to do my chores was very nice but came with strings. If she does that for me, then I can only feel gratitude. So I told her not to bother. I also said something like, “don’t do me any favors,” which is not the nicest choice of words.”
OP says that he thinks OP’s wife is a jerk because she is self-absorbed and can’t be there for him when he has negative emotions. He also says that he thinks he might be the jerk because she’s upset, and he knows she tries to give me the benefit of the doubt, and if so, he hopes you can explain it to the OP.
What do you think? Was OP right in confronting his wife after all she did? Was OP’s wife wrong in not communicating what was going on?
This article originally appeared on Mrs. Daaku Studio.