My 20M girlfriend “Lilly” 18F and I have been together for 2 years. For context I’m an mma fighter and she’s a Muay Thai fighter, an absolute vicious wee thing, but she’s the softest most gentle person in the world. To the point it’s worrying. She doesn’t apply her toughness in any other aspect of her life.
Lilly feels bad for the absolute scum of the earth. She’s had a traumatic childhood and so she’s afraid of people’s anger. If someone crosses her boundaries she makes justifications for them. I’m so thankful that it’s me who’s with her and she’s safe, because so many men would take advantage of her in my position.
Last night, she told me about a guy from work who won’t leave her alone. He crosses physical boundaries and I’m only just hearing about it, Lilly told me she just says things like “what are you doing” and pulls herself away, because she’s scared of how he’s going to react and he’s a lot bigger than her. I got her to demonstrate and had me pretend to be the guy.
She said it in the softest voice you can imagine. I was getting her to practise on me by saying loudly and clearly “fuck off and leave me alone”. A lot of guys like that are cowards and something as simple as that and gets them to, fuck off. My sister has been in similar situations.
Lilly started crying, saying that she just can’t bring her voice louder and she doesn’t like that I’m forcing her to shout. I felt guilty instantly so we went to bed and i told her we can talk about it in the morning.
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My 20M girlfriend “Lilly” 18F and I have been together for 2 years. For context I’m an mma fighter and she’s a Muay Thai fighter, an absolute vicious wee thing, but she’s the softest most gentle person in the world. To the point it’s worrying. She doesn’t apply her toughness in any other aspect of her life.
Lilly feels bad for the absolute scum of the earth. She’s had quite a traumatic childhood and so she’s quite afraid of people’s anger. If someone crosses her boundaries she makes justifications for them. I’m so, so thankful that it’s me who’s with her and she’s safe, because so many men would take advantage of her in my position.
Last night, she told me about a guy from work who won’t leave her alone. He crosses physical boundaries and I’m only just hearing about it, Lilly told me she just says things like “what are you doing” and pulls herself away, because she’s scared of how he’s going to react and he’s a lot bigger than her. I got her to demonstrate and had me pretend to be the guy.
She said it in the most softest voice you can imagine. I was getting her to practise on me by saying loudly and clearly “fuck off and leave me alone”. A lot of guys like that are cowards and something as simple as that and gets them to, fuck off. My sister has been in similar situations.
Lilly started crying though, saying that she just can’t bring her voice up an octave and that she doesn’t like that I’m forcing her to shout. I felt guilty instantly so we went to bed and i told her we can talk about it in the morning.
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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I was teaching my girlfriend to set boundaries andtalk loudly and clearly, against a guy who has been harassing her at work. She started crying because she cannot bring her voice to an octave and may have been AH because of the way I went about it.
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Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.
Lily does need to learn to speak up for herself. She can choose words that she is more comfortable with, the point is to be clear and firm, but also she can make a complaint about his physical harassment.
This is interesting. You’re coaching your partner in assertiveness. She hasn’t asked you for this coaching. Everything you know about her tells you that if she didn’t want the coaching, she wouldn’t offer much resistance to it.
Have you paused to consider what Lilly wants? Surely she doesn’t like this guy at work treating her this way, but she may be interested in finding her own solution, or finding a different one.
It really sounds like you consider this your problem to solve, and like you don’t see how your forcing her to practice resembles her coworker’s failure to respect her boundaries. For that you’re an AH, though surely your heart is in the right place.
YTA
Perhaps instead of focusing on the physical altercation just have her go to HR and report she feels unsafe… ask for measures to ensure she is not alone with this individual.
Asking your girlfriend to escalate is not the safest move here even though it may give you the most satisfaction to have him confronted directly.
You mean take advantage of her by imposing their will on her and try to make her do something that makes her feel uncomfortable? Because that’s exactly what you’re doing.
It’s well intentioned, but you need to let her handle this in her own way and not your way.
‘Up an octave’ means higher, not louder.
Wee Thing? Ew…
YTA. Not only could you get her in trouble at work, but you are pushing her into a dangerous situation. No amount of training aids victims if the size difference is above a certain threshold.
Your inner fighter doesn’t fit every social situation and trying to make her handle this “like you would” is blindly leading her into something she may come into harm’s way.
Go through the proper work channels to report this guy and stop trying to train her. Be her support partner and know full well, you aren’t qualified on how women should defend themselves to sexual harassment.
She is a Muay Thai fighter so she can handle herself. My assessment is that she isn’t all that scared how the other guy is going to react, but she is scared how SHE is going to react when it escalates.
You may think that a loud and clear ‘fuck off and leave me alone’ SHOULD be enough to scare of the guy, but she may very well have the experience (from herself and from others) that in the case of small women, this will merely encourage the guy to show who’s the boss.
Perhaps leave it to herself to deal with men? She can handle herself. She is balancing her reaction to risk the least trouble. Don’t make her act like you theoretically would, in a situation you cannot personally assess – the consequences of YOUR ‘demanded’ actions are HERS to deal with.
YTA.
All due respect: you’re speaking about dudes like this from a male pov, and it makes a huge difference. Men like this perceive women as inferior and other men as equals. Of COURSE, from your pov, they’re cowards. They see you as a peer, so they back off. This is exactly the reason we beg male allies to stand up for us.
Unfortunately this usually does not reflect how they will treat a woman. Any woman can tell you that if you try doing this, they will almost always escalate. Because now you’ve insulted them and they need to put you back in your place. They might insult you, start screaming, or even worse. But they almost always retaliate.
You mean well, but in this case you are literally asking her to put herself in more danger. This is not the way to try and build her boundaries, because this is not a boundary issue. It is a power imbalance issue. The scary reality is that he can do whatever he wants to her, there is almost nothing she can do to stop it, and both of them know that. Gentle YTA.
Edit: small edits because I didn’t realise which sub I was in, and I was accidentally breaking a rule.
I get that you want to protect your GF but unfortunately your way of doing things will not work for her. And ‘forcing’ her to do something she is not comfortable with will make matters worse.
What she needs is a therapy. She needs to learn how to set her own boundaries but she first need to understand few things about herself and what kind of person she is, what kind of personality she wants to be and what kind of person she sometimes needs to be.
You are right in saying that a lot of other guys would possibly take advantage of her. But be careful not to become a guy who sees himself as a ‘saviour’ as that can become really toxic really fast and make her feel trapped in the relationship.
You are a guy so you know what other guys can be like but instead using abusive language, harsh language or even harsh body language – teach her other options on how to deal with situations.
She should go to HR and report the coworker asap. She needs to make it clear that the behaviour is not acceptable and she needs it to stop.
Maybe pick her up few times from work and make sure the guy sees you and understands she is off market. If you start going after him and screaming at him calling him names etc, it will not look great in your GF eyes. From what you said she will most likely resent you for doing that, rather than be happy you stood up for her.
NTA for trying to help your GF but you also have a thing or two to learn about how to deal with people and your GF.
Soft YTA. You’re trying to help, but you’re going about it the wrong way.
NTA
But this approach doesn’t seem to work. I’d suggest you explain to her calmly that you understand that this is really difficult for her but that it’s important to stand up for herself. Would she accept such behaviour from men towards her female friends? Why should she accept such behaviour then for herself?
Maybe there is a self-defence class she could go to? I know you said she can fight but in my class i also learned how to say “no” really loudly and stuff like that.
Assertiveness from a smaller POV is not always about being loud and sounding vicious not even someone trained to fight. Assertiveness in this case means document and report and let the law deal with it.
You are being the opposite of supportive, pretty much doing the same thing he is, trying to dominate her and force her behaviour into a pattern you like.
YTA. look outside your skill set The way you would handle this isn’t the only way, it’s not even the best way for a guy like you to handle a bully and it’s a stupid way for a small person to do so. .
Your gf needs therapy. I feel you may have triggered something by accident.
What someone else said about men just pushing back if a woman tells him off is true- the worst of them just double down. And definitely dont use the word duck or anything else that can be mistaken for being sexual. Cause then you’re ‘asking for it’.
Different rules for you and for her? Oh yes there are.
Maybe taking a self defense class – hear me out – one designed to help women deal with male attackers – would be helpful. This is a different skill than martial arts.
If she has PTSD she may want to look into EMDR. If it works foe her its relatively fast. I recommend the version that uses paddles (little egg shaped things you hold in your hands and they vibrate).
I honestly think NTA because she does need to be able to set boundaries for herself and be able to speak up, so you do have a point there BUT she needs professional help, the way you approach that clearly doesn’t work and it sounds like this is something you cannot help her with. She should at the very least be able to bring that to someone’s attention at work that she is being harassed by a coworker, and she clearly isn’t able to. That’s a problem regarding her own safety.
Respectfully, you’re kinda being TA here…as a young woman there’s lots of factors that come into responding to threats. Lilly might be in ‘fight or flight’ and unable to control her nervous systems response to the situation – which can include ‘fawning’. I’d recommend reading up on the bodies survival responses and how people react differently in different situations.
It’s not always safe to be assertive.
Men are scary and she is valid in that.
NTA for wanting to help – but this isn’t the approach. Ask her what she needs, what would make her feel safer, what does she want to do?
YTA
How can you not see you’re trampling all over her boundaries in your quest to get at this coworker? You’re actively making the situation worse. Men can and will retaliate either physically, denying everything to HR, or trying to tank her career. She’s not asked your help, what she probably wants is emotional support. Back way the heck off and apologise. Martial arts aren’t the answer and you don’t have the life experience to coach her through this.
I know you want to protect her, but you have to let her find her own solution, or you’re just gonna push her away. I’m not gonna call you the asshole here, though. She does need to toughen it up, but she’s gotta be the one to decide when and how she will do it. Be supportive, but don’t try to fix it.
I’ suggest telling someone in her workspace that she feels insafe and handling the situation a little different Next Time, especially because of her personality, hope this helps 🙂
NAH
First of all, your girlfriend sounds like a wonderful person, and I truly admire her heart.
Still, she’s allowing other people to control her body and mind.
I used to be like her – completely terrified of how people would react, constantly worried that everything would be my fault.
My mother taught me that my “no” didn’t mean anything, and that I was a “bitch” for setting boundaries.
There’s so much more, but that mindset alone made me too anxious to stand up for myself.
She needs to understand that she has every right to set boundaries – and those boundaries might literally save her life one day.
I didn’t set boundaries, and I ended up with a stalker who waited outside my house in the mornings to drive me to school (I was 17 at the time).
Later on, I had men disrespect me over and over again, simply because I didn’t know how to say no.
I felt like I didn’t belong to myself, but to everyone else.
She needs to know: It’s her body.
She is the only one who decides who is allowed close, and who isn’t.
And if certain guys get angry about her saying no, that says a lot more about them than it does about her.
She doesn’t owe anyone an explanation. “No” is a complete sentence.
I don’t know if you want children someday, but maybe ask her this:
How would she feel if her daughter turned out exactly like her?
How would it feel to watch her daughter get harassed – and behave just like her mother, unable to defend herself?
She needs therapy. As soon as possible.
Good luck?