My senior parents live across the country and flew over for our wedding reception this past weekend.
My wife just started a new job last week and has been suffering from sciatica pain so she’s been depressed and under a lot of stress leading up to the wedding. However despite of those circumstances, she’s always been easily agitated and irritable with me. She is a perfectionist who is always hard on me and on herself.
On the wedding day, my wife got wasted during the after party so she didn’t have good recollection of what happened towards the tail end of the night.
The next day while she was still hung over, her sister and I went back to the venue to pick up our belongings.
She had insomnia last night and told me this morning that she’s been dwelling on a few details that missed the mark in her eyes such as the bartended didn’t have the station set up until 15 minutes into the cocktail hour, lamented that she didn’t spend enough time and attention on some of her oldest and closest friends, and was bummed that she didn’t remember many details due to being drunk.
I am usually very regimented but I thought the wedding turned out exceptionally well. We got tons of compliments on how fun and memorable it was. So I tried comforting her by telling her to focus on the 95% positives, but she kept spiraling and looking for reasons to complain. One of which being that she thought she left her bra in the changing room and insisted that I once again cross-check the personal items list against what we picked up yesterday and suggested that we should go back to look at what we left behind at the venue again.
At that point I was about to head out to meet my parents at their hotel and wanted to spend as much time as possible with them over the next 2 days before they fly back. My wife said we should focus on closing out this matter first and put it behind us. I said I and your sister prioritized on closing this out yesterday I by taking the initiative to get the stuff while you were wasted so don’t put this on me now for having different priorities. I asked if I could share my perspective of how she always had something going on and didn’t make any attempt to spend time with my parents during their short stay here. Then I went a bit over dramatic adding that my parents may only have 10 years left on this earth and that she was taking my time away from them by assigning me those minuscule tasks. She blew up and accused me of creating this narrative to guilt trip her.
I left the house to hang out with my parents.
Reflecting back to my parents’ last trip here for our city hall wedding 2 years prior when my wife was dealing with work stress and IBS, I felt that she also avoided hanging with them.
As much as I wanted to be empathetic and understanding of her circumstances, I feel that she could have made a bit of an effort if she wanted to. So AITA?
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My senior parents live across the country and flew over for our wedding reception this past weekend.
My wife just started a new job last week and has been suffering from sciatica pain so she’s been depressed and under a lot of stress leading up to the wedding. However despite of those circumstances, she’s always been easily agitated and irritable with me. She is a perfectionist who is always hard on me and on herself.
On the wedding day, my wife got wasted during the after party so she didn’t have good recollection of what happened towards the tail end of the night.
The next day while she was still hung over, her sister and I went back to the venue to pick up our belongings.
She had insomnia last night and told me this morning that she’s been dwelling on a few details that missed the mark in her eyes such as the bartended didn’t have the station set up until 15 minutes into the cocktail hour, lamented that she didn’t spend enough time and attention on some of her oldest and closest friends, and was bummed that she didn’t remember many details due to being drunk.
I am usually very regimented but I thought the wedding turned out exceptionally well. We got tons of compliments on how fun and memorable it was. So I tried comforting her by telling her to focus on the 95% positives, but she kept spiraling and looking for reasons to complain. One of which being that she thought she left her bra in the changing room and insisted that I once again cross-check the personal items list against what we picked up yesterday and suggested that we should go back to look at what we left behind at the venue again.
At that point I was about to head out to meet my parents at their hotel and wanted to spend as much time as possible with them over the next 2 days before they fly back. My wife said we should focus on closing out this matter first and put it behind us. I said I and your sister prioritized on closing this out yesterday I by taking the initiative to get the stuff while you were wasted so don’t put this on me now for having different priorities. I asked if I could share my perspective of how she always had something going on and didn’t make any attempt to spend time with my parents during their short stay here. Then I went a bit over dramatic adding that my parents may only have 10 years left on this earth and that she was taking my time away from them by assigning me those minuscule tasks. She blew up and accused me of creating this narrative to guilt trip her.
I left the house to hang out with my parents.
Reflecting back to my parents’ last trip here for our city hall wedding 2 years prior when my wife was dealing with work stress and IBS, I felt that she also avoided hanging with them.
As much as I wanted to be empathetic and understanding of her circumstances, I feel that she could have made a bit of an effort if she wanted to. So AITA?
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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I accused my wife of taking my time away from my parents. I painted a narrative of guilt tripping her
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Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.
Why did you marry this woman? She’s cranky and demeaning and selfish. She drank so much at your wedding she doesn’t remember things and had a hangover. Your parents flew out to attend not one but two weddings and neither time could she bestir herself to go and greet them and spend quality time in their company.
You don’t need reddit, you need a therapist or a lawyer.
ESH. Stop guilt-tripping each other. State your boundaries and your needs/wishes. Do what you need to do. But don’t guilt-trip or put down each other.
NTA erring on ESH just for the comment on your parents age imo. Like yes, you’re right that you’ll naturally have less time with your parents left due to age, but assuming her parents are still alive, is that not true for hers, too? And for that matter, any amount of thing can happen in the next ten years. There’s a small but not impossible chance that you may even lose her in those ten years. Tl;dr basically being, you can’t predict when you’ll lose someone.
Other than that I think you did all you could. If she is that hung up over the fact that she may have left a bra, why can’t she go check herself? And it isn’t your fault she drunk so much she could only remember the parts that annoyed her about the wedding.
NTA That’s a whole lot of drama about a bra. Good luck, you’re going to need it.
Ugh. Your wife exhausts me just reading this. Why would you marry someone so narcissistic?
Good luck with this marriage buddy. ESH for going through with this wedding
NTA- She’s going through a hard time, sure, and sometimes depression, OCD, or similar behaviors can make you on edge or irritable, but it’s important to still remember how you’re impacting others. You do your best to support her when she’s going through her lows, but you also have the right to be supported as well and wanted to put a priority on something that had a very clear time limit
NTA. She needs therapy for her anxiety big time, I suspect that is what is causing her obsessiveness and perfectionism. She will exhaust you until no end until she is treated.
NTA. Why did you marry someone who
“always been easily agitated and irritable with me. She is a perfectionist who is always hard on me and on herself.”
As a fellow perfectionist, I’m hard on myself, not other people. I have expectations but they’re mine to manage. I sure as shit don’t get easily agitated and irritable with my husband because of it. That sounds like an awful way to spend “until death do you part”.
Your wife can go to the venue to get her bra. If she starts complaining about the wedding, just say “well I had a great time” and walk away. Stop feeding into her drama. YWBTA if you allow yourself to stay in a relationship like this, unless you’re both equally annoyed with each other, and in that case, glad you found one another.
NTA, leaning towards ESH.
You and her sister already cleaned up the venue while your wife was hungover from getting wasted at her own wedding. Your parents were only in town for a few days, and it was perfectly resonable to prioritize them over a lost bra. She needs to get some perspective.
But it’s how you handled it. You could probably say “I’ll call the venue later, but I’m going to see my parents now,” instead you launched into a huge attack, escalating the situation.
NTA, this marriage was over before it started
ESH
You don’t sound like you like your new wife, much less love her. She also sounds like she has her problems.
Why get married if you’re just going to view and treat your partner like an obstacle? I mean that for both of you.
NTA but like,, why did you marry her??
Your wife needs a therapist, and you already need marriage counselling.
You talk about things like its a business meeting, who says “close this out” when talking about post-wedding clean up?
ESH
Your wife sucks for coming up with tasks and reasons to have to go back and double check everything.
OP… you just had your wedding this last weekend, and instead of spending time with your wife, you told her to her face that you want to leave and spend as much time as possible with your parents.
You also were very dismissive of her concerns – telling someone to “just focus on the positives” is condescending and unhelpful.
Both of you… ugh. Good luck. Learn to talk to each other now, because jfc.
ew ESH
Best of luck
…Why did you guys get married? ESH.
Why did you marry her?
NTA. You were just given a huge glimpse into your future with your wife and she seems exhausting. Marriage is also a partnership and it doesn’t seem like either of you are on the same page or know how to communicate with each other. I would seek counseling for both of you asap.
Why did you marry this woman? It doesn’t sound like you like each other very much! Cut your losses and get this marriage annulled.
YTA. You knew who you married, idk why you’re surprised she didn’t suddenly change into a different person.. this is called consequences of your own actions and the bed you made