Relationship conflicts can be tough to navigate, and it’s sometimes all too easy to say the exact wrong thing.
A man on Reddit did just that when he asked his wife if she was jealous of their teen daughter after catching her trying on her mom’s prom dress.
The Original Poster (OP), who goes by dhosdpijs on the site, didn’t understand why his wife got so angry. So he went to the AITA (Am I The A**hole) subReddit for perspective.
OP asked:
“AITA for asking my wife if she’s jealous of our daughter?”
He explained:
“My daughter is 15. She will be starting Year 11 at school when the summer is over, and the school will be having a prom at the end of the year.”
“My wife (44F[emale] and a senior accountant) was talking to our daughter about her own school leaving party (it wasn’t called a prom back then in the UK) and she mentioned that she still owns the outfit she wore. She showed her a couple of pictures too.”
“Later when we were getting ready for bed my wife noticed that her wardrobe was open. On closer inspection she saw that the outfit she was discussing earlier was gone. She went into our daughter’s room to see her wearing it and taking pictures of herself in the mirror.”
“Obviously having our daughter go into her wardrobe and try on her things without asking was annoying, but I thought my wife’s reaction was a little extreme. She asked ‘what the fu*k do you think you’re doing?’ and demanded my daughter change out of it immediately. My daughter was almost in tears from how my wife spoke to her.”
“I tried to speak to my wife about why she was so angry, but she just kept saying our daughter is not to touch her things without permission. I understand this, but I don’t see why she’s so enraged about it.”
“My wife and daughter look very similar. They’ve even been called sisters in the past. Based on this, I asked if my wife felt jealous at seeing our daughter wear her dress. When I said this she got even more upset and said she was going to sleep in our spare room. She isn’t speaking to me today.”
“Did I go too far with comment? I’m just trying to figure out why my wife was so angry.”
People on Reddit were then tasked with judging who was in the wrong in this conflict based on the following categories:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
- NAH – No A**holes Here
And they were pretty unanimously NOT on OP’s side on this one.
“YTA the dress is probably something important to your wife and she took care of it and your daughter treated it like an accesory for her social media.”
“People have somethings that are important to them and wont let other touch it, it is normal even if the person is her daughter.”
“You f up and should apologize…” —Belf17
“Totally agree, that dress is pretty old by now and I would be pissed too if someone touched my military ball dresses since I didn’t go to prom. But a 15 year old girl is old enough to understand that you shouldn’t sneak into peoples rooms and take their clothes.”
“She knew it was wrong when she had to sneak around in the first place. She was probably embarrassed because she was caught and THATS why she was crying. I would never go into my moms closet, rummage around and wear her fancy dresses, especially WITHOUT permission.”
“It’s pretty easy to understand that you shouldn’t go through people’s valuables and sentimental items, then put it on, and then have the AUDACITY to take pics and act like the victim when YOU were the one who willingly stole them.” —Babybunnyboo
“Seriously. The daughter went through her moms closet – probably dug through a bunch of stuff to find it, and took something old and fragile without permission, and husband’s first response is ‘You must be jealous she looks better in it than you’???”
“Might as well have said ‘You are upset because you are fat and old and ugly.’ Dude is gonna need to get his grovel on. And reinforce that you can’t take things without permission.” —Music_withRocks_In
“‘I asked if my wife felt jealous at seeing our daughter wear her dress.’ What’s it like having a death wish, buddy? Do you get a rush from it?” —GumptheChump
“There are those of us that get burned by flying too close to the sun, and look back on our folly…and then there’s OP, who bored a hole straight through the crust of the earth, doused himself with gasoline, and dove needlessly into a lake of fire.” —buffalot
“‘Honey, are you upset because you know you’ll never be that slim again and that when you wear the dress you’ll now only see yourself as decaying beauty-depleted sad woman? … Is that why you threw a tantrum babe?'” —PolitelyHostile
“I imagine OP was having a out of body experience in which he saw a stupid man saying ‘Are you jealous’ and then questioned why this man was taking a roundhouse to the face only to realize it was indeed his face. Probably looked like a slow motion car accident.” —wordsarelouder
“…The mom was proud that she still had the dress and wanted to share that memory with her daughter. The daughter took that as permission to wear the dress (my mom would always show me old clothes she kept and offer for me to wear them).”
“The wife was probably mad because she hadn’t given explicit permission yet and didn’t expect her daughter to wear it so soon (prom isn’t until the end of the year), and was worried about it getting messed up.”
“OP is a major a** for asking if she was jealous. What a seriously thickheaded comment. What was he hoping to accomplish from that? ‘I just want to know why she was mad.’ then ASK HER WHY instead of making awful accusations.” —hxcn00b666
Hopefully OP can learn from this what NOT to say in the future.