We might not want to think about it or admit it, but we've all been late to something important at some point. Some people are simply late more frequently than others.
For some, time management and time blindness are a constant struggle, and the best thing their loved ones can do is try to be understanding and find a way to work around these obstacles, agreed the "Am I the A**hole?" (AITA) subReddit.
But Redditor ForwardClock9113 was sick of how often their wife was late. They blamed her for always making them late and for doing "dumb" things like not realizing what time it was.
To teach her a lesson, the Original Poster (OP) decided to leave for an event at the scheduled time even though she wasn't ready, and they left without warning her about it.
They asked the sub:
"AITA for driving away without my wife because she can't plan?"
The OP was really looking forward to attending a baseball game with their wife.
"For the past week, my wife and I had been anticipating a baseball game for which we had purchased tickets. We like baseball, but we don't attend many games, so traveling into the city to see games is a rare treat."
"I know, though, that it would take time to drive there and find parking, due to traffic."
"Because the game started at 7:00 PM, and we live about 45 minutes from the stadium, I told her this morning that she needed to be ready to get in the car and go by 6:00 PM."
But as was typical of their wife, she wasn't ready when it was time to leave for the game.
"Well, my wife is an avid gamer, so she was engrossed in her latest video game when the clock struck 5:45 PM."
"She has struggled to plan in the past, and I get tired of reminding her that she needs to budget time to get ready. It's as if she has no concept of time at all, similar to a young child."
"I was ready to go by 6:00 PM, and she was in the bathroom."
The OP decided to teach her some responsibility.
"I saw this as an opportunity to teach her personal responsibility, so I simply left the house without saying a word, got in the car, and started driving to the game."
"It took my wife a few minutes to figure out what I had done, but when she called me, she was absolutely furious."
"She said that it was a completely unacceptable move for me to leave without telling her and that she now had no way to get to the game without paying for parking."
"I told her that I got tired of constantly waiting for her and that she would plan better next time if she didn't want to get left behind. I also reminded her that I had told her that morning when I expected her to be ready to leave."
"Absolutely none of this seemed to matter, though, and she rudely hung up on me after yelling out more insults."
The OP felt it was their wife's own fault.
"Frankly, I think it's completely insane that a grown woman is unable to budget her time, and I'm starting to suspect that she is doing this on purpose because she's a narcissist who expects me to accommodate her."
"After all, she's not a dumb woman. She has a science degree."
"Well, she never showed up to the stadium, and I didn't hear from her the whole game, but when I got home, there was a note on the door. She told me that I wasn't welcome in the bedroom and that I should sleep on the couch."
"I can't believe she wants to be this much of a pill. If I had waited for her, I would have missed the first pitch. I made my expectations clear, and she couldn't be bothered to meet them."
"I feel like she should be apologizing to me."
"AITA?"
Fellow Redditors weighed in:
- NTA: Not the A**hole
- YTA: You're the A**hole
- ESH: Everybody Sucks Here
- NAH: No A**holes Here
Some were really bothered by the OP's use of the term "narcissist."
"The only narcissist I see in this post is OP. YTA." - BosiPaolo
"My dad has undiagnosed ADHD and he's always late. My poor mom has put up with it for years. She would get all six of us kids ready and in the car before my dad would come sauntering out at least 10 minutes later, completely oblivious to how late we were."
"He's not an id**t or a narcissist, he's just really bad at managing his time. And we love him anyway and do what we can to help him."
"OP, you are 1000% the AH for leaving without a single word AND for calling your wife a narcissist simply because she struggles with being on time. A simple, 'Hey, I'm leaving in the next five minutes whether you're ready or not,' would have sufficed." - AnyStick2180
"Contempt is normally the nail in the coffin for marriages. He comes off as much more of a Narcissist by his choice of words!" - angelwarrior_
"Gods forbid we expect adults to COMMUNICATE about their frustrations before they escalate to grand gestures of pettiness and delivering 'punishments' to other grown-a** adults."
"Like, has OP actually talked to his wife about why this keeps happening? Or is he just jumping to the most malicious possible explanation (she's a narcissist doing this to manipulate me) without trying to put on his big boy pants and talk to her first? Because that's sure what it looks like to me." - JadeLynKaia
"Pulling the narcissist card for being chronically late had me rolling my eyeballs HARD." - No_Station270
"You know who likes to accuse people of being narcissists? Narcissists."
"I had an ex that, during our exit fights as we were breaking up, kept accusing me of being a narcissist. I didn't know much about it, so after it was over I was like, 'Maybe I AM a narcissist.'"
"So I did a deep dive on narcissism and wouldn't you know... it was her point-for-point. Baiting arguments, love bombing, gaslighting, never apologizing or taking any sort of personal responsibility for our struggles. All of it throughout the entire relationship was her and my reactions to her mind-f**king me." - TheDonkeyBomber
"Bet you she just has ADHD or something and this clown pulls out the Narcissist card because it fits his agenda of no respect for this woman." - bugbugladybug
Others agreed and felt the OP's wife struggled with time management or undiagnosed ADHD.
"YTA. My partner is CONSTANTLY late and is the furthest from 'narcissistic' ever. It's literally an ADHD symptom."
"You passive-aggressively leaving, and trying to 'teach her a lesson' like that, though? Red flaggy and potentially narcissistic as f**k."
"Baseball should not be as important as your marriage." - ohheyaine
"My ADHD got diagnosed when I was 39. I always had trouble being on time, as timeblindness is a thing. It got better with my diagnosis as I was able to find ways to deal with it... alarms and stuff."
"If my husband would have treated me like this, I would have gone." - zauberval
"Time blindness is a b***h to deal with, honestly. Everything is Now or Not Now. I have ADHD, but I wasn't diagnosed until I was 46, and getting medicated has been a huge game changer."
"But for years, I just thought it was a personal failure for standards I couldn't live up to. The moral is that time blindness isn't on purpose, it isn't to make anyone's life hard, or that we don't care. It's called blindness for a reason." - kraftypsy
"I have ADHD and autism. As a teen, I was regularly late by an hour or more. It was awful. Time blindness was not the only factor at play by a long shot, so it wasn't as simple as getting a watch."
"After 10 years of working very hard on my punctuality, I'm on time half the time and five to fifteen minutes late for the rest. This is a MASSIVE improvement for me, but still unacceptable to most people."
"I'm not saying it's acceptable to be chronically late, but a little understanding goes a long way for those of us who are actually working to improve our tardiness." - soulpulp
"Seriously, my main thought when I started reading was, 'Ooh, she gets lost in video games, she loses track of time... I bet she's ADHD.'"
"And then there was this gem: 'Ooo, she's a scientist, and her husband says she's very smart. She needs an evaluation.'" - hazelowl
"He is attempting to DIAGNOSE HER with narcissism for being late."
"My partner and I both have ADHD. I was offering a different mental health condition that I know has an issue with being late and time management."
"He didn't communicate he would leave without her. She was getting ready, maybe only a few minutes behind him. He just left as 'punishment.' You don't 'punish' or 'teach your partner a lesson' like that. You communicate and make boundaries. 'I am leaving at 6:00 PM, whether you're in the car or not, I am not missing the game,' would be a fair boundary."
"Leaving while she's in the bathroom is just rude and immature. He didn't have a boundary; he had an 'expectation,' so he's the AH. So are a lot of his comments about her in the post. YTA." - ohheyaine
"I'm so glad someone else mentioned ADHD, I'm a grown-a** woman and I can't manage my time for love nor money. I have ADHD, diagnosed and medicated."
"But I (and my family) will still do things to help lessen the effects:"
"Like, if I'm going out later, I'll get my bags and clothes ready now so I can just get myself ready faster, and I'll start the getting ready process an hour before."
"Or I'll tell myself I need to be here at 6:00 PM, I need X minutes to travel plus extra to account for possible delays, so be mostly ready 15 minutes before that and keep an eye on the time!"
"I also try not to start something I know I'll get sucked into. If I end up hyperfocusing on said task, forget it, game over."
"There are also watch alarms. Phone alarms. Actual alarm clocks. I set them all, and then there's no chance to forget."
"I think OP's wife needs an assessment, and OP needs some compassion and to support her." - snaphappylurker
We can all agree that it's annoying to arrive somewhere late, and it becomes increasingly infuriating when we are late all the time, especially when it's because of someone we love.
But instead of ridiculing our loved one, there have to be ways to assist them with their time management. This is where the subReddit believed the OP fell short. Instead of understanding their wife and looking for solutions, they resorted to punishment and writing a Reddit post that contained a concerning amount of scorn.
Woman Breaks Up With Boyfriend Who Worried People Would Think She Was Trans For Using Stand-To-Pee Device
Content Warning: Transphobia, Transphobic Comments
There are countless different reasons that a relationship might end, and a red flag could arise at any time. Some of these might have been learned in childhood and could improve over time.
Transphobia is absolutely a red flag that should be acted on immediately; however, with no option to fly again, pointed out the members of the "Am I the A**hole?" (AITA) subReddit.
Redditor funnelfuss was in the car with her boyfriend when they got stuck in a traffic jam.
She really needed to use the restroom, so since she had a device with her to make the process easier, she decided she'd step out of the car.
But when her boyfriend panicked and thought people might mistake her for a man, the Original Poster (OP) realized that her boyfriend was not who she thought he was.
She asked the sub:
The OP had to use the restroom while stuck in a traffic jam.
"My (26 Female) boyfriend (25 Male) and I got stuck in an insane traffic jam. My boyfriend was driving."
"We were at a standstill. Found out later on, they had closed the highway."
"I had to pee really bad, like bad bad bad. I saw that a couple guys had run to the side of the road to pee, and I decided to do the same."
"It was super open, with a few bushes by the side of the road, really not much cover."
The OP's boyfriend became uncomfortable when he realized she had a pee-to-stand device.
"I have a stand-to-pee device in my car, but when I grabbed it, my boyfriend got all weird."
"He said people would see me pee standing up and think I was Trans."
"I said no one would think that, plenty of women have pee funnels, and that also I didn't care. I have no beef with Trans people!"
"He said I should squat, just to put his mind at ease."
"I said I didn't want to get my butt and c**ch out on the highway in front of everyone, or get pee on my shoes, and I just wanted to be quick and clean."
"He said he didn't want people to look at the girl he was dating and think she was Trans and that I should squat, like GIRLS do."
The OP decided she was over it.
"I was dying by this point. I couldn't hold it anymore, and I really didn't want to show the world my butt, so I ran to the side of the road and slipped the device into my jeans and just peed standing up with my back to traffic."
"No one could see anything; it just slides through the zipper. But I guess maybe if someone was looking, they would be confused? But also, who's LOOKING?!"
"When I got back to the car, my boyfriend wouldn't talk to me. He says I disrespected his feelings. But it was 100% an emergency, and I don't get what his problem was."
Fellow Redditors weighed in:
Some reassured the OP that there was nothing wrong with using the restroom how she wanted.
"OP, don't think for one more second about this. Your boyfriend is being ridiculous."
"As if you will ever see any of those people again! Plus, holding it in for too long can cause a whole host of issues."
"It's actually genius that you have something like that in your car, just in case. I'm going to order one too now! NTA." - m_alice88
"'Honey, please show all these strangers your c**ch and a** so they know I'm not gay, mmmm'kay?'"
"A weak man, a very weak man." - lefteyedcrow
"You must have a she-wee! Those are so great for women."
"Tell your boyfriend to get over himself. You had to pee. He does not understand that squatting can suck and leave you exposed."
"If he is that upset you did this, rethink this relationship. I would find it hysterical."
"NTA." - Oktodayithink
"NTA, OP. You just needed a makeshift restroom."
"Your boyfriend apparently thought that it was normal for people to stare at strangers who are trying to pee to evaluate who they are, who they're with, and what the status of their relationship is."
"You know, to pass the time while in gridlock traffic." - Pixichixi
"You did nothing wrong, OP! When you have to go, you have to go. It's healthier to go."
"And don't apologize! We're so wired to reduce conflict, even to the point of downplaying how we feel to keep the peace or end the silence. Don't do it."
"It's a him issue. He thinks his feelings on this are more important than your discomfort about showing your naked body on the side of the road. If he can't figure that out for himself and apologize, it would be a dealbreaker for me." - lelawes
Others agreed and pointed out that the ex-boyfriend was very transphobic.
"NTA. Your boyfriend is clearly transphobic. That is 100% on him. And who cares if people think you are Trans?"
"'He said he didn't want people to look at the girl he was dating and think she was Trans.' And you don't want people to think you're dating someone bigoted and hateful." - GreekAmericanDom
"He may not consider himself transphobic ('I don't hate Trans people! I just don't want to be associated with them or have anyone think I'm with a Trans person!'), but he absolutely is, probably with a healthy side helping of homophobia."
"Why would he care, unless a) Trans women are not women in his eyes, or b) it somehow would be emasculating or embarrassing to his ego to be with a Trans woman."
"Also, you're in a traffic jam. Who the f**k is even watching close enough to care, and who of those people matters enough to give two s**ts about what they think."
"Not to mention, he's being weirdly controlling about your behaviors and how they reflect on him in a scenario where arguably he's never going to interact with a single person he's worrying about." - maladicta228
"This post reminds me of the time I got dressed to go to a function. It was a casual gathering. My kid (this was solidly on their father, my ex, as he's gotten insanely bigoted as he's aged) said, 'Mom, you're dressed like a Lesbian.'"
"Me: 'Lesbians have great fashion sense, I'd love to be mistaken for one.'"
"They paused for a second and realized that I truly wasn't dressing for men (despite it being my husband's work function), and that being seen as a lesbian was a good thing. I'm so glad I raised them to think for themselves, and realize that one can be wrong, admit it, and work on being a better person every day. They've never said anything like that since." - baconbitsy
"He's so insecure (and transphobic) that he cares more about what some strangers in a traffic jam might wrongly assume about you (and thereby him) than YOUR needs, comfort, and health."
"He expected you to prioritize his insecurities (feelings) above that and then punished you when you prioritized your health."
"You sure you want to be with someone like that?? NTA." - molotovmerkin
"Your boyfriend is so transphobic that he wants you to expose your genitalia on the side of the road to prove that you're not a Trans woman because he can't stand the idea of a total stranger, in a neighboring car, whom he will never speak to or see ever again, thinking he MIGHT be SHARING A CAR (because the strangers in other cars have no idea that you're dating) with a Trans woman."
"You're NTA, but get a better boyfriend." - HighCsummer
"Literally, you have to be super transphobic to think people in traffic are gonna judge you if your girlfriend is standing to pee. Like come onnnnnn, this is some insane insecurity." - Responsible-Pickle-2
Some pointed out that not only was the ex-boyfriend transphobic, but also controlling.
"This won't be the last time he expects OP to sacrifice things or make her life worse so that she can conform to his ideal of feminine stereotypes and keep up appearances for his fragile masculine ego."
"And that he gave her the silent treatment for not obliging his transphobia and misogyny disguised as 'feelings' is also problematic." - blancamystiere
"He's insecure and transphobic. He also puts his insecurity and transphobia above your comfort."
"NTA, and honestly, you can do better than this specimen." - PetersMapProject
"NTA. Your boyfriend would have preferred for everyone to see your a** and vagina than have a random stranger think his girlfriend is Trans. He would rather you expose yourself for his personal gain."
"Get a better boyfriend." - Amaze-balls-trippen
"The transphobia? The insecurity? And the silent treatment when he doesn't get his way?"
"So many red flags!" - CarolynDesign
"He also puts his insecurity and transphobia above your comfort and safety."
"He would rather you invite unwanted attention and risk by exposing your private parts to the world than have people think he (who most of the onlookers couldn't even see) might be dating a Trans person."
"NTA. OP, he's too insecure, self-centered, and immature to be a good partner to you, given that he's willing to compromise your safety to avoid a single twinge of discomfort. Dump him." - Hari_om_tat_sat
After receiving feedback, the OP was reassured and shared some positive updates.
"UPDATE: Thank you, everyone, for helping me feel sane again!"
"I got quite a few questions about which device I use, and honestly, it's about what fits you best. There are a ton of options. It's what fits you. Check out pStyle, Freshette, and EllaPee."
"I tried peeing standing up in a toilet, and it worked fine. I think my aim was pretty good, but then I saw little droplets on the floor. No thanks, don't need that. Also, it's loud? Awkward."
"But for the outside, it's pretty fun! I drive a lot, that's why it was in my car. Lifesaver."
"Also, I guess in this case it brought out an ugly side of my (ex) boyfriend and clarified some stuff for me. A winner all around."
"And to all the commenters asking, YES, he is an ex-boyfriend now."
"And yes, there were other red flags."
"Ditched the man, kept the pee funnel. Gonna laugh at him every time I pee standing up."
There's no way to imagine just how awkward the rest of the car ride was after using the restroom and returning to the now-silent and very entitled boyfriend, still stuck in a traffic jam.
But fortunately for the OP, she learned something vital about her relationship during a moment that should have been a total non-issue.
By being concerned about this and expecting the OP to prioritize her ex's pride over her comfort, safety, and cleanliness, her ex told her everything she needed to know.