There are jokes. And then there are the “jokes” that are so monumentally, catastrophically stupid that you can actually hear a relationship crack in half. This, my friends, is a story about a joke that just took a “perfectly happy” marriage and lit it on fire.
Our narrator is a 30-something man who, by his own account, is in the “best relationship” of his life. He and his wife have been together for three years, married for one, and have a new baby. Their situation is “great.” No red flags, no stress. A happy, healthy family.
So, they’re at the grocery store. A normal, boring, everyday chore. The wife mentions that he shouldn’t buy a certain item because of BPA, a chemical that can “impact fertility.”
Our guy, in a moment of pure, harmless, dorky-dad energy, makes a joke. He says he “clearly didn’t have issues with fertility” since they had a kid right away. A classic, silly retort.
And his wife… his “fantastic,” “successful” wife… decides to “joke” back. And the joke she chooses? The one she just pulled out of her back pocket, “out of the blue”? Oh, just this: “well maybe our kid’s not yours.”
I… I am sorry, what? In what universe is that a “joke”? That is not a joke. That is a relationship-ending grenade. That is a sentence designed to plant a seed of pure, unadulterated poison.
The husband, like any sane person, didn’t laugh. He got “very sad and upset.” He told her, “don’t joke about that.” He went silent for the rest of the grocery trip, which is the universal sign for “my brain has just blue-screened.”
They get to the car. And the “joke,” that little seed of poison, has had time to sprout. The husband realizes, quite correctly, that this is a bell you can never, ever un-ring. This is a question that will now haunt him forever.
So he tells her, flat out, “I’m going to getting a paternity test immediately.” He’s literally shopping for one on Amazon in the car.
And this is where our “joker” shows her true colors. Does she apologize? Does she burst into tears and say, “My god, I am so sorry, that was the stupidest, meanest thing I have ever said, I don’t know why I said it”?
Of course not. She “pushed back.” She got defensive. She hit him with the classic, “why don’t you trust me?” Honey, you just told him not to.
But she wasn’t done. She then tried to pull the ultimate gaslighting uno-reverse card: “is your reaction saying something about you I should be worried about?” I am screaming. This is a level of defensive deflection so profound, it’s almost impressive. She’s not just defensive; she’s suspicious. Which, frankly, makes her look guilty as h*ll.
His response was, and I mean this, perfect. He told her, “I understand the idea is ludicrous, but you suggested it, completely out of the blue, and now it’s out there. And there’s no way to put this question away ever again except to actually get a test.”
He is 100 percent right. You cannot light your own house on fire and then get mad at your husband for calling the fire department. You cannot unleash a thought-vermin like that into your marriage and then be surprised when it starts to eat away at the foundations.
So, is he the ahole? Is he “overreacting”? Absolutely not. N-T-A. He is reacting in the only sane way possible. His “perfect” wife just showed him a very, very dark and ugly side of herself. She either has the worst sense of humor on planet earth, or she’s hiding something. And her defensive, gaslight-y reaction? It is not helping her case.
She started it. She put that little niggle of doubt in there with her cruel remark.We reap what we sow !