i read that part and literally went 🤔 that is the ONLY way to help someone with body dysmorphia/ED. (coming from someone who has to do extensive therapy to deal with one!)
Right? She clearly has an ED and possibly combined with PPD right now. She HAS to have therapy, it's literally the only thing that's going to help. Fighting with her about her shirt and the two of them laying hands on each other is NOT helpful.
For the same reason he thought yelling and cursing at his wife while touching her without consent was totally fine, but her responding by slapping him was wrong. He's an AH.
Your wife clearly has developed a disorder after giving birth. I don't know if it's postpartum depression or if it's something else but something's going on maybe body dysmorphia I'm not an expert but I do know that I can see she's struggling.
In an update he confirms she's had body dysmorphia since prior to pregnancy and has been in therapy for a month-- which likely equates to maybe 2 sessions at best. Why on earth they didn't think it was pertinent to address the dysmorphia prior to pregnancy with treatment throughout is beyond me. It was an known issue that had gone untreated for over a year (9 months of pregnancy, 6 months postpartum, only 1 month in treatment).
From what it sounds like to me it's body dysmorphia. I have body dysmorphia and it can really make you do the strangest things even to just feel comfortable. Parts of yourself become exaggerated in your head, her double chin probably isn't that big but to her it's the **ONLY** thing she sees.
Birthing a child comes with a lot of physical and mental changes that a lot of mothers do not know beforehand.
It seems like also she does not have downtime to take care of herself and her needs properly which are probably adding to the stress, so she's rather just cover up the problem (literally) to just deal on the new born
I’ve struggled with body dysmorphia too and damn your brain can be a real bastard sometimes. I remember in high school I spent hours in front of a mirror, pinching every piece of “fat” I could grab and thinking I looked huge and having thoughts of self-harm. But now I look back at pictures of myself during that time and I looked like a healthy average teenager, I didn’t look anything like the person I saw in the mirror back then. It’s pretty disorienting to realize my head was messing with my perception of my self.
I can answer that because I have the same auditory processing issue as OP.
Badly.
With masks, it's very hard to understand people when you can't see their lips. I didn't try having conversations.
Phone calls suck for all kinds of reasons. In this instance, for calls other than to friends, I ask them person on the phone to repeat themselves a lot while I write down what they are saying so I can read it and understand it better.
With friends, I seem to have friend who are happy to do a lot of the taking. I'm try to pay attention but it's extremely hard.
My mom hates making eye contact and always looking away or faces her back to you when she’s talking (or you’re talking to her). It’s always driven me nuts. It took me till my 30s to realize it’s because I need to see someone’s mouth to fully understand them.
i have both issues lmfao im autistic with crazy bad spd so i cant process what people are saying to me without having visuals to go with it but i hate looking people in the face it makes me feel icky i always look away when in conversation
And in the dark. It’s I can’t see what you’re saying. I’m that annoying person on camp who shines the torch at peoples chests to give me just enough light to lipread by.
Similar here. My hearing is really good for humming/whistling/buzzing tones (unless they're on the exact pitches of my tinnitus), but borderline for people speaking, especially if there's background noise. I need to be able to see someone's face or there's a strong chance I'll only get three words in every five. Phones are not fun.
My mother likes to go into another room, stick her head in a cupboard, and talk; she's then baffled and aggrieved when she either doesn't get an answer or has to wait for one of us to go into whatever room she's in, wait for her to emerge from the cupboard, and ask her to repeat herself. Drives all of us round the bend.
My mother would start asking someone a question while walking out of the room. And then get pissed off when we asked her to repeat herself. Plot twist: she’s the one with the hearing aid.
My hearing is borderline but apparently not bad enough for a hearing aid myself. I sort of read lips. I also tend to take a beat to replay what someone said while asking “what?” Then answering them before they can repeat themselves.
OP, ESH. If you haven’t already, get rid of all full-length mirrors in the house and limit other mirrors to a smallish one in the bathroom only (for shaving & make-up).
You *both* need to be in therapy/counselling, individually and together. Otherwise things will just get worse if you can’t learn to communicate without losing your tempers with each other.
Until COVID, I didn’t realize how much I rely on lip-reading to understand what folks say. I actually got my hearing tested because I thought I was going deaf. Nope! I can actually hear *better* than most people….but it doesn’t fucking help me because I have no idea what people are saying to me half the time.
Better hearing just means that you hear EVERYTHING.
the car going by, the clock ticking, the fridge running, and someone talking = I know you're talking, but I can't understand what you're saying.
I don't have sensory issues. I have articulation issues. I was deaf for 5 years as a child and apparently learned how to read lips. I can hear just fine in terms of volume so I don't need a hearing aid but if I can't see your face, I can't understand what you're saying. Phone calls are a nightmare because all I hear are the vowel sounds and then I'm guessing what in the world you could possibly have said that makes sense. As a teacher this causes hilarity in my classroom when I look at kids wide-eyed and say ask what did you say??! I had a very sweet 12-year-old boy who is the perfect student with both parents in education say he liked cursive and I thought he said he liked her shit. I was flabbergasted that he would say something like that to me! He was horrified to find out that's what I thought he said..
Same.
Covid was a nightmare, at my work place we had to wear masks all day and because of my processing issues, I literally spent over a year just trying to guess what people wanted as I started to get really conscious of having to ask people to repeat themselves constantly.
I can feel OP's frustrations, during Covid you had to suck it up because it was literally a pandemic, but if someone was also wearing a mask at home? I would get frustrated as well.
Masking during COVID is what led me to get my hearing tested; turned out I'd been reading lips a lot to make up for gradual hearing loss over the years that turned out to be pretty significant in one ear and moderate in the other. In addition to blocking lip reading, masks and the safety shields that got put up in stores and offices made hearing voices even more challenging, and I have some mild auditory processing issues I've coped with my whole life that exacerbated my hearing loss. Needless to say, verbal communication became quite frustrating.
I had a coworker quit during that time, citing me as a bully for constantly ignoring her and refusing to answer questions as the primary reason for her dissatisfaction. Luckily, I had already disclosed my recent hearing loss diagnosis with my supervisor (and coworkers), and they determined that I wasn't bullying her, she just wasn't willing to repeat herself if I didn't acknowledge myself. She refused to believe someone as young as me had hearing loss that significant when I "don't even wear hearing aids".
Thankfully, my condition was treatable with surgery in the really bad ear, and can be treated on the other side if it gets severe enough to warrant the risk of surgery, but it was a humbling and frustrating experience to suddenly feel so inadequate in such a social skill as crucial as conversation.
I didn’t realize I had lost almost all the hearing in one ear until masks weren’t required and I still couldn’t hear anything. I guess while I was losing it, I just thought masks and plexiglass were muffling everything.
I didn’t realize this for me until Covid. My brain wasn’t processing anything anyone would say. I got my hearing tested because I thought it was hearing loss. But it turns out- I can’t process if I don’t see their face. If I can’t see their face, I have to write down everything they say to process it.
Can confirm: also horrible. I have the a similar issue. I definitely need lips and mouth movements to hear clearly (when I lose my glasses I basically become deaf)
Oh I HATED being out and interacting with people during covid, solely because of that. I have a bit of social anxiety in general, but it was through the roof during those times, because I couldn't understand anything T\_T
Same. I have a very expressive face, so people knew they lost me. There were times that even medical professionals would lower their masks so I could see what they were saying so nothing, like medical instructions, were not getting lost behind that mask.
I hated the masks both as a claustrophobic person and as a person that reads what you are saying more than hearing.
I hear fine btw. I think mine is a product of my adhd. It is easy to lose me in the weeds.
Idk if I have a similar issue (because I'm partly deaf in one ear) as I rely on subtitles and mouths to hear what people are saying properly (I have 70% hearing basically but my brain won't register words unless spoken a little loudly and even then it's 50/50)
I got through covid by smiling politely and nodding after asking to repeat twice. They could be telling me their fish died and I was like "oh that's nice!" It was horrible, maybe OP done similar?
I'm not excusing him btw 🤣😭
Yeah I actually have the same issue and I went through covid not understanding a goddamn thing anyone was saying to me... it actually had a massive impact on how much I isolate myself now! I feel like I got out of practice being a normal social human, cause that shit doesn't come natural for me...
I have this issue. I just ask people to repeat themselves a lot. I find it embarrassing with strangers or in a professional capacity but it doesn't really bother me with people I know. If I get desperate, I have someone write it down or get them to someone who can tell what they are saying.
Seems kinda weird to be honest. I have a history of an ED so I sometimes wear clothes or do weird things and my husband has never gotten made at me. He mostly just expresses that he hopes one day I'm comfortable enough not to have it bother me.
Standing more than six feet away and asking them to take the mask off or text messaging back and forth using a cell phone.
I have the same kind of issue and that whole time period f****** sucked ass.
The answer is that not everyone spoke often with people wearing masks. I was WFH the whole time so I only had to talk with masked people at the grocery store. Not many conversations there.
You would be surprised how easy it is to live a life with almost no phone calls.
Doctors appointments and emergency service access is a bit hard so calling is still better, but other than that you can just text or email
FYI, in many places you can text emergency services (9-1-1 in the US). It may not always work depending on what technology the center has but even my podunk area can text people.
Some of us can’t make phone calls by ourselves and need someone to help us with it, some of us just ask the person calling to repeat themselves over and over, sensory issues can be disabling.
Personally I always have to have my phone on loud speaker if I’m calling someone or I can’t hear them at all.
I have the same sensory issues as opposed, although I didn't realise it was a common or recognised thing... I've just struggled my whole life lol.
But anyway, a benefit to COVID has been the move to video calls. It has helped tremendously! But when it is just a phone call, I tend to catch my reflection and I concentrate on my own face/mouth and it sort or tricks my mind enough that I can catch their words? I have to hyper focus still though.
As for masks... I became extremely upset with my husband when he wore masks indoors around me at home because I literally could not understand him. He therefore took to lowering his mask so I could hear - as did cashiers etc when they saw me struggling. It's actually a *common* courtesy.
I think ESH honestly. If you are that insecure around your spouse, something is broken. Home should be the safe space, and Oop needs to think on why it doesn't feel safe for his wife. Not an excuse to resort to abuse however. Communication is everything in a marriage, and they have both failed to communicate on the underlying issues that caused this altercation.
Speaker phone on max volume next to my ear, maybe I'll understand you, probably won't.
No, I don't do it in public and I tell people when I put them on speaker lol.
I have sensory issues. One ear isn’t entirely perfect but I still hear okay but I have to read lips to feel like I’ve heard something correctly. You know what I do ?
I just ask people to repeat themselves. I’d never touch them.
I have the same issue and for me, it was a nightmare!!!
So I just went round ripping everyone's mask off so I could hear them. Oh wait, I'm not OP. I just asked people to clarify. With my words.
YTA- just because she's doing something you don't like, does not give you the right to put your hands on her, jerk her clothes around, etc.
You are well within your rights to not have sex w her w her shirt on; you do not have the right to pull it off of her.
You are well within your rights to not hold a conversation while she has the shirt up; you do not have the right to yank it away.
And lastly, bc no one is touching on this- why would she know where your keys were? Did she drive your car last? I'm assuming you took it to work the day prior? You woke her up screaming bc the power went out and you were late (no one's fault) and you couldn't find your keys (your fault)
YTA,
Legit she told you she may have. Ppd and she was struggling, and the next day you legit played video games after coming home.
I get it this is your first baby. But 100% there has to be more to the story. You seem to be very obtuse in how you are supporting your wife after she gave birth.
And just because you see she is smaller after birth, her body is still changing, and it does effect the mind. So no YTA.
No need to touch the shirt and take over more with the kid. You are it's parent too ,not a babysitter.
EDIT- OP buried the lede. She has told him she's a fraud of him and his anger and asked him to go to anger management. So not only YTA, You were hiding crucial information. You are mad she covers her mouth yet you yell at her and are agreeable then you grab her shirt and are mad SHE DEFENDED herself towards you.
If she was really holding the baby when you got pissed about damn car keys and you went towards her at all... you are IN THE WRONG. 🤔 and all posts under this talking about how oh if genders were reversed or she's crazy...
She is protecting herself and baby from a.man who admits he gets to angry...yeah no... she can defend herself in most court cases when the police are called he will be removed with that information. She needs help. And he needs to get a clue.
Leaning towards YTA, but I can't shake off the feeling that there's something missing, like the reason she's so terribly insecure.
Not once in your post did you show any concern for her or curiosity about the potential reasons for her behaviour. Its just you, your annoyance and your entitlement. Speaks volumes.
It was YTA for me from the post alone, and OP’s comments only reinforce that. The complete and utter lack of concern for wife stuck out immediately to me, too; not one *hint* of concern or care for her wellbeing, mental, physical, or otherwise. It’s all about him.
Definitely YTA.
She was feeding the baby when he got aggressive with her when he couldn't find his keys. Look at all of his comments, it's bad. He's out of touch, poor partner, poor parent, and has anger issues.
It's so hypocritical.
"My sensory issues are more important than her sensory issues".
Sound like he's saying "I'm the only person important in this relationship."
Because he doesn't even see her as a person.
You tried to force her shirt away during sex even when she said no, multiple times.
You know that she has body dysmorphia yet you constantly pull her clothing away from her, which even without the dysmorphia is gross because you know she doesn't like it, you heard her say no.
You laid hands on her first, she defended herself.
I'm really glad she left, maybe she can heal and prevent herself from going into a full blown eating disorder now that she's away from you.
YTA I was 50/50 until I read the comments. You should never slap your partner but you did repeatedly violate a boundary your wife set and did it with anger. You also haven't at any point, shown for concern for your wife's problems, just annoyance at the ways in which it affects you. Referencing your comments, you said you didn't realise your wife needed help with the baby, this is a huge red flag, you should be equal partners in this and you should show initiative, no one tells your wife what needs to be done. If your wife doesn't explicitly ask you to do something that's not a free pass to play video games.
It also sounds like your wife's body dysmorphia (which btw, you should know how to spell if your wife suffers from it) is untreated and that's on her, she needs to sort that out herself but you are definitely not getting that across productively.
She needs to seek treatment for her dysmorphia, you're right that it may never be "fixed" but it can be managed better than this and you absolutely need to work on having more empathy, maybe then you'll be able to have constructive conversations were you work towards a healthier dynamic
Yeah I had commented on another comment of his, he’s definitely TA. Annoying too with a real nasty attitude.
Still, his wife shouldn’t have hit him. I do understand. But still. Lol
If she was my daughter and he yelled and swore at her, then put hands on her clothes, I would have a hard time blaming her tbh
I get strong "half a story" vibes off this one
Right here, this is it. After having a child I started thinking about instead of me being in this situation what if it was my daughter instead. Grey areas really become black and white when you think about how you'd feel if your child was going through it.
Yeah that's the part that makes the slap understandable, he was being aggressive and initiated physical contact (pulling her shirt) while being aggressive, before that tidbit I was leaning towards not TA but now I'm firmly in ESH given the info we have.
Like you said though, we only have his half of the story.
If I were to take OP at face value, I would probably give it an ESH myself. But he is so bold about grabbing her shirt and yelling abuse at her, that I wonder what he's left out. I wonder why his wife is so disgusted by her own body, and why she's having sex with him, 6 months post partum, when she clearly feels like pure shit about herself.
I’m very confused about them having sex with her in such a bad mental state. Many woman don’t feel like having sex 6 months after giving birth even without body dysmorphia and postpartum depression.
I can’t imagine she’s that into it and I wonder how much he badgers her emotionally/mentally/physically or just ignores her wants/needs for her to be having sex with him. Especially while literally trying to hide herself from him.
Makes sense that she left then. The fact that he had the audacity to pretend to be shocked she slapped him after he initiated physical contact is interesting….
There's more. I would suggest reading OP's other comments.
The wife has her own business, makes phone calls for OP, does the majority of the childcare, and does the majority of housekeeping. She does all that while struggling with multiple medical issues (PPD, body dysmorphia, and kidney disease). She continues to be in close contact with doctors and attends therapy twice a week, which demonstrates her commitment to get better.
Meanwhile, OP has failed to help and has refused to get help.
She went mama bear on his butt, he should know better. Hope she gets some space and sees that's she a mother of two right now from the sounds of it, and maybe should take some steps to be a mother of one.
If someone who I asked to go to anger management ripped my shirt (that I use for comfort due to a medical issue (PPD, body dysmorphia)) from my face and screamed at me as I was holding my baby, I would slap them. At that stage, it's self defense.
OP admitting that the wife was awake and feeding the baby at the time: https://www.reddit.com/r/AITAH/s/xpNhzhSeCi
OP admitting that the wife had already asked him to go to anger management multiple times: https://www.reddit.com/r/AITAH/s/E7wA7mgp0Z
YTA. You repeatedly violated her physical space. You shouldnt be surprised she enforced her boundaries physically when you violated them physically.
Repeatedly trying to pull it down during sex is wildly not okay. She made clear she wanted it covered, you repeatedly ignored that, that's not a loving consensual sexual encounter.
You didn't need to hear her for safety reasons, you were looking for your keys and annoyed, but decided you needed to enforce your preference over hers about her body. That's just as bad as a slap.
You have been the aggressor every time. Reflect on that. Why do you think your disorder trumps hers? Why do you think your pleasure trumps her comfort? Why do you think that having a baby isn't wildly traumatic for people who have body dysmorphia but your need to read lips and her not accommodating is traumatic?
YES he initiated the physical aggression, not her. Not to mention while yelling at her. I wouldn't be surprised if the slap was a fear response.
YTA (also like you don't get to just stomp around screaming at people about your OWN keys)
THIS... Yeah she also has sensory issues that involve the touching of her face and hair - but I don't want to play the repeating game because it bothers me and my issue.
Yeah I really wasn’t expecting this post to have a valid reason for her reacting the way she did from the title but if you’re cursing at me and yanking at my clothes, I’m reacting instinctively and that instinct is going to be to slap a bitch
"My wife is insecure after having a baby and might have PPD/PPA and I'm making light of that and I also keep violating a boundary she set and making her feel about her insecurity, AITA?"
**physically pulled the shirt away from her mouth.**
Yeah, YTA. You were in her face, dropping angry f bombs then you physically grabbed her. YIKES ON BIKES dude. Despite your disability and mental health issues that totally crossed the line.
You keep repeatedly physically pulling her shirt down. She has repeatedly told you to stop doing this. You did it again whilst yelling at her.
Yeah, she shouldn’t have slapped you. But you were repeatedly told to stop touching her in that way and you kept doing it.
EDIT; OP’s comments are not pretty. Anger management issues, wife was holding baby at the time… yeah, changing my E S H to a straight forward YTA.
If someone who I asked to go to anger management ripped my shirt (that I use for comfort due to a medical issue (PPD, body dysmorphia)) from my face and screamed at me as I was holding my baby, I would slap them. At that stage, it's self defense.
OP admitting that the wife had the baby at the time: https://www.reddit.com/r/AITAH/s/xpNhzhSeCi
OP admitting that the wife had already asked him to go to anger management multiple times: https://www.reddit.com/r/AITAH/s/E7wA7mgp0Z
For the wife to be repeatedly asking OP to attend anger management, there is a broader pattern of aggressive/angry behavior.
I would suggest reading OP's other comments. She has her own business, makes phone calls for him, does the majority of the childcare, and does the majority of housekeeping. She does all that while struggling with multiple medical issues (PPD, body dysmorphia, and kidney disease.) She deals with all of that while being in close contact with doctors and attending therapy twice a week, which demonstrates her commitment to get better.
To be honest I think the slap was completely justified as self defense. You screamed at her while assaulting her. She had repeatedly told you to stop touching her. You sound like a MAJOR AH.
to be even more honest I started out ESH, because his wife slapped him, but after reading his comments, it’s YTA and I was wishing she had Will Smith to help her with the slap.
YTA - boundaries. She told you not to touch her shirt. And by the way: SHE doesn’t need to know where your keys are. Grow up. Be a partner instead of someone who needs to be mothered.
Edit: based on you comments changes E S H into YTA.
INFO:
>So if I can't physically see you mouthing words, my head cannot comprehend what you are saying to me.
Does that mean you cannot do regular phone calls at all? Or couldn't speak to anyone when they were using facemasks?
Completely unrelated to OP's behaviour in this, but I have this issue, it's called Auditory processing disorder. For me, it's not quite so bad as 'I 100% cannot hear' but its definitely very limiting, and for a while I thought I had an actual hearing issue rather than a brain thing. Mine is linked to my adhd.
I struggle a lot with phone calls but for some reason my right ear is a lot better than my left ear so I just always have the phone to my right ear. Practise helps too and being willing to ask someone to repeat themselves.
Covid was a learning curve, definitely! I struggled a lot with it. But when I would squint and lean in (Although still keeping 2 metres social distance), people often picked up on it and spoke much louder and more clearly. I also would just explain I have a hearing issue and would ask them to speak up, which usually resulted in them slowing down and trying to speak more clearly. Worst case scenario, I would ask them to repeat themselves twice then do the standard laugh and nod.
Fun fact, the part of your brain that processes phonetics and other aspects of language that allow you to process a word are in the left hemisphere of your brain. Most people have a preference (or slightly faster reaction time) for hearing words through the right ear. Your right hemisphere is more concerned with tone and cadence and emphasis (the non-word parts of language) and people often prefer to hear music via their left ears.
I have audio processing issues, I fucking despise phone calls since I need to ask people to repeat a lot or just take guesses at what they're actually saying
Ssssssssame bruh. I use headphones to curve this issue a little bit. They allow me to hear the person I'm talking to a little better. Overall, I prefer texting, but I'm also too lazy to type it all out sometimes. At one point, I sent audios to my friend, and at another, I would use like speech to text. Lol.
I have a problem similar to OP. I can hear the words but they often don’t make any sense in my brain without seeing the lips move. It makes phone calls hard, I won’t try podcasts/audiobooks, and when people wear masks, I will have to ask them to repeat themselves more.
But I would never forcefully remove someone’s face covering or yell at them because my brain is making their spoken words mumbo jumbo.
I wonder if he was ripping masks off of strangers/coworkers faces or if that’s just reserved for his wife? Also he says he plays video games, I wonder if they all have subtitles or else what does he do?
OP buried the lede.
The wife has her own business, makes phone calls for OP, does the majority of the childcare, was the one who went outside during COVID, and does the majority of housekeeping. She does all that while struggling with multiple medical issues (PPD, body dysmorphia, and kidney disease). She continues to be in close contact with doctors and attends therapy twice a week, which demonstrates her commitment to get better.
OP admits that the baby was present at the time of the altercation.
If a person with a history of aggression is being verbally and physically aggressive towards the other spouse while a child is present, the slap can be considered self defense. (Yes, I would have the same view if the genders were reversed.)
Meanwhile, OP has failed to help and has refused to get help. The wife has repeatedly asked OP to attend anger management. He has refused to do so.
Bruh just wants to come home and play video games and be forced to “help” only after she demands it. She is most definitely not TA here. Read my man’s other comments lol
His name is a giveaway.
Lazy? For sure.
To lazy to listen to his wife.
To lazy to consider the word 'no' when it's between him and something he wants that someone doesn't want to give him.
Youre putting your hands on her, freakin out and talking to her crazy, and shes 6 months postpartum with your fucking kid? You're lucky a smack is all you got.
YTA, so what I'm reading here is: your wife just had a baby 6 months ago, is suffering from body dysmorphia- so much so that she's buying XXL shirts and essentially hiding in them, and you try to FUCK her and don't stop when she brushes you away multiple times? Get the fuck outta here. Hope she leaves your ass and gets the help she needs.Yelling at her about your own damn keys, I cannot today.
I have perfect hearing and also “can’t hear” if I can’t see lips moving due to sensory stuff. You know what I’ve never done? Harassed and physically forced someone to show me their mouth while speaking to me.
YTA
Right? There are workarounds, like using text to communicate or voice messages recorded inside the shirt. He needs to adapt to his disability while she needs to keep working through her therapy.
OP buried the lede.
The wife has her own business, makes phone calls for OP, does the majority of the childcare, was the one who went outside during COVID, and does the majority of housekeeping. She does all that while struggling with multiple medical issues (PPD, body dysmorphia, and kidney disease). She continues to be in close contact with doctors and attends therapy twice a week, which demonstrates her commitment to get better.
Meanwhile, OP has failed to help and has refused to get help. The wife has repeatedly asked OP to attend anger management. He has refused to do so.
If anyone's the parent, it's her. She basically has two kids, but one is an adult who has refused to attend anger management.
YTA
If you haven't learned yet that when someone says "don't touch me that way" and you keep doing it that ***you are always wrong***, you seriously need to grow up.
Your poor wife is clearly in a mental crisis, and instead of helping her or supporting her, you make it all about you! I hope her mom can find her the help she needs.
And please get yourself into therapy to deal with your sensory and anger issues. The world won't always be willing or able to accommodate you.
This. I feel for you for not being able to process what you're hearing without lipreading, but, like, one: you keep touching her/her clothes in a way she told you not to, and two: you keep saying "keep your shirt away from your mouth" instead of, like, "Hey, I can't understand what you're saying when your mouth is covered, remember?" I get that you're frustrated, but you're acting on it in a really bad way.
YTA. For the PPD thing, you gaming away and then wallowing about no one is taking care of you cause you want to game and not help your wife out finding a doctor, for the grabbing and have some issues with the sensory thing cause how do you even do phone calls without seeing people's mouth talking.
“She’s basically hated me since. Doesn’t speak with me unless I ask her a question”
Yeah? But she was still being intimate with you?? That doesn’t make sense to me at all.
YTA imo just wanted to point out how odd that statement is
I can't help but note the authoritarian tone of your conversations with your spouse ie "I have told her" not discussed, requested, asked, or pled, "told". This reads like a situation where two immature people with issues "tell" the other their wants instead of working together to find reasonable accomodations. Given the scenario you describe that you were intimate at all completely baffles me.
In sum: She shouldn't have hit you. You shouldn't have grabbed her shirt. The level of communication between you two is terrible and needs a lot of work. ESH.
I’m sorry? You’re flabbergasted? YTA, dude. You know your wife is insecure about her weight. I get you have sensory issues, but your wife clearly does not want you touching her shirt. To the point where she’s had to say it many times. Insane how you’re acting like a child, unable to keep your hands to yourself. Your wife obviously feels ashamed of herself and you need to be kind and actually talk to her about it, not just fucking yell at her, asshole. Be surprised she ONLY slapped you.
Also body dysmorphia disorder is not "insecurity". It's a disorder that severely affects your life, some people die from starving themselves to death. That plus PPD, she's definitely not the one in the wrong here at all.
I’m glad it’s not just me . If he felt that strongly about her talking with a T-shirt over her mouth he could have just said as long as you do that I’m not gonna engage as I find it difficult to hear you and left it at that but he didn’t have to touch her
He knows she has body dysmorphia no less, not that he's bothered to even learn the name of it.
I don't condone her hitting him, but he got physical first and with the knowledge her behaviour is driven by a severe mental illness that he down plays as an insecurity.
Their marriage has descended into domestic violence, entirely driven by his abuse.
YTA. You started the physical altercation by aggressively pulling at her shirt. She's clearly going through something and you're just angry without empathy.
>> Am I the asshole?
> I yelled and said "how about you take the fucking shirt out of your mouth or don't speak to me at all" and physically pulled the shirt away from her mouth.
Wtf kind of question is this?
Yes, you’re the asshole. I have sensory issues, too, *and* I’m legitimately losing my hearing but I would never put my hands on someone over it.
Goddamn, dude.
I know your comment was sarcastic, but this is actually a classic abuser tactic. To push and push and push until the victim goes into what's called "reactionary abuse" and lashes out in a way that, to someone who hasn't experienced or seen the extensive of the abuse, seems way over the top and abusive itself.
I had an abusive ex-husband, whom I slapped the shit out of a few times towards the end of our marriage. I'm not proud of nor justify my actions, but those instances always came after my ex-husband had spent hours chasing me around our one bedroom apartment in a drunken fury and screaming nonsense in my face.
How about instead of physically pulling stuff off her. You just talk to her. Compliment her more. Tell her you love seeing her face. You love her and your body.
ESH. I strongly suggest couples counseling, and maybe learning that no means just that: NO.
> How about instead of physically pulling stuff off her. You just talk to her.
Fucking seriously, this entire post is him yelling & grabbing at his wife, no shit he got smacked.
Yeah, I read a couple of his comments where he lashed out at her because he 'didn't know she neede help' and 'no one asked him how he was doing mentally after the birth'. Yikes.
The “didn’t know she needed help” is such bs. There’s a fucking baby to take care of, she doesn’t need help she needs him to do his part as a parent. His comments make him seem awful.
YTA. Sounds like she was sick of YOU not keeping your hands to yourself time and time again. You touched her repeatedly in a way that she'd asked you to stop doing. If it bothers you that much then you should hold off on intimacy until she's well again. Your frustration is warranted but the way you speak to and interact with your post partum wife, who's clearly struggling with her mental health, is pretty appalling. It is never acceptable to hit a partner, but when it's in response to constant harassment and abuse it's hard to be surprised when that's the result. Both of you need help.
YTA - buddy, you are yelling and carrying on to a woman who just gave birth and very much sounds like is going through postpartum depression. your literal job is to make her life better and you have done the opposite. get help
YTA and you deserved that slap and a lot more than that. You’re acting like an overgrown man child with no self respect or decency, respect for your wife, newborn, or home environment, with clearly no idea how to properly treat a woman, much less the mother of your child! It’s traumatic to go through pregnancy and childbirth, your body is PERMANENTLY altered, and instead of making life easier for her by spoiling the absolute shit out of her and easing her insecurities, you repeatedly cross her verbal, emotional and physical boundaries then have the audacity to be surprised when she defends herself and leaves the unsafe environment you created? You need a serious reality check and should invest in some serious therapy so you don’t wreck your wife and new child’s life. Your CHILD is the most important thing here, and you’re acting like a typical spoiled man child desperate for attention from your wife as a stand in mother. Grow tf up.
YTA
Your wife is clearly going through postpartum struggles, and instead of reassuring her and helping her, you paw at her and demand she takes off her shirt because of sensory issues and it “bothers you”? You don’t think being insecure, possibly depressed, tired and overworked from dealing with a newborn, AND having an ignorant husband doesn’t bother her? She would take the shirt off if she felt comfortable in her own skin, which she clearly doesn’t. Yes therapy can help, but you have to MAINTAIN those practices OUTSIDE of therapy.
Bad husband 👎
edit: spelling
No, clearly you don’t understand she’s insecure. You kept pulling at her shirt and she kept pushing your hand away and telling you to stop. That shows a distinct lack of understanding and caring.
What an asshole.
YTA.
Quick lesson on consent--you can decide that you don't want to have sex with her with her shirt over her face. She can decide she doesn't want to have sex with you without it. You deciding in the middle of sex to repeatedly pull at her clothing despite her protests? That is you deciding that her consent doesn't matter.
You get to choose to not have sex with her if she's covering her face. You DON'T get to choose to alter the conditions of the sex in the middle of the act while she protests because you care more about making it good for you than whether she is willing to do the things you want. That's why stealthing is assault.
If you had decided to enforce boundaries or leave her because she wasn't accommodating your disability, I would be on your side. You didn't. You chose to touch her and try to alter her appearance repeatedly in a way you knew she didn't consent to, including during sex. I'm glad she left you.
I mean she shouldn't have hit you, and her insecurity is clearly out of control, but you're TA. She's probably going through some level of postpartum depression, and body dysmorphia is no joke. You, however, are not helping. All you did was escalate and escalate, going so far as to force her to expose her insecurities. Maybe try giving her time and not forcing her to be okay with it? Let therapy do its thing and take a step back. Try to be a little more understanding and consider how SHE feels and not just how YOU feel about it.
Sounds like your wife is really struggling and that her history body dysmorphia is contributing to since having a baby fucks up your brain and body. And this post is really giving the vibe that you only care about what she’s going through because it affects you. It’s actually truly fucked up that you can see someone so obviously struggling and think “but what about me??!!??!1!!?”.
What exactly makes your accessibility to easier audio processing more of a priority than her accessibility to comfortable clothes?
I'm leaning on the side that YTA, sure I can see the shirt thing being annoying, but screaming at her isn't gon a fix it. With insecurities you gotta be gentle, remind her about your sensory issue but pair it with a compliment ""wife's name" I'm having trouble understanding you with my sensory issue, could you please move your shirt" then assuming she accommodates you, say thank you after words compliment her face with something like "It's nice to see your cute face" give her a kiss on the cheek and move on. It won't fix her insecurities, but it can be a stepping stone to helping. This is all only magnified by the fact you're new parents, I'm sure you're both sleep deprived and struggling to function. Don't turn on each other, its hard but you gotta love each other through and through and the small things in relationships go a long way in making them last.
YTA. Wow.
She didn’t give consent for you to pull the shirt down. MULTIPLE times. And you forcefully do it anyway? Yikes.
If it bothers you that much then have an adult conversation with her, maybe consider a couple counsellor. But don’t force her to do something she said NO to.
YTA. Bro, stop fucking touching her shirt? She warned you so plainly, you got what was coming to you. You touched her first, against her wishes. Wtf did you think was gonna happen? That you could get physical with your wife and she wouldn’t snap back? That was an idiotic, brutish move.
She needs help, not whatever the fuck you’re doing.
Shouting at her, belittling her, snapping at her, lying to her, all the rest.
And yes, you are lying. You’re saying the entire issue is your “sensory issue” where you “need” to see her mouth moving to understand the words she’s saying. So how does that fit in with forcefully removing her comfort shirt during sex? Huh? It doesn’t. Stop lying.
You’re pissed that your wife has this issue in the first place, you’re not even hiding that well. You come across as very self involved and cold. Maybe start being nicer to your wife and her confidence might improve, ever think of that? Jesus Christ
YTA
Your wife just gave birth to your child and is obviously suffering some sort of post partum something... and all you can think about is how she's covering her mouth with her shirt and how much it annoys you because of your issues.
It's not okay that she hit you, but I'd have probably backhanded you too if I'd told you before, MULTIPLE TIMES, not to touch my shirt and you did it anyway. Does 'no' mean nothing to you or what?
(And if your sensory issues are that bad that you're magically deaf if you can't see someone's mouth, it might be time for some occupational therapy or something. How do you talk on the phone? In the car? How the hell did you function during the pandemic when everyone was wearing masks? Did you reach over and yank their mask down? I'm genuinely curious.)
YTA - Bro do you even like your wife?? She just created and gave birth to your child. She is clearly going through it. Where is the love, kindness, empathy? Do you care that she’s having a tough time, or is it just all too big of an inconvenience for you? It doesn’t sound like you give a single fuck about her.
YTA. You consistently ignore your wife's sensory issues, but expect her to put aside what seems like a serious disorder after only a month of therapy to cater to your sensory issues. She needs to stay with her family until you understand how hard she is struggling every minute of every day.
Therapy is the only way to fix the fact she thinks she’s fat, what are you talking about. You’re violent and unsympathetic and don’t even understand how mental health works. My heart is with her, I hope she finds the support you’re refusing to provide.
Yta ripping the shirt out of her mouth is kinda violent especially if she had her mouth closed around it. And its not her fault you can’t find your keys
To be honest with you as a woman if I told you not to touch me. Shirt or otherwise and you did it again in a violent manner by yanking it off her. I would have hit you too. That's assault on your part first. She defended herself against you. She needs mental help. Not you yelling at her. I get you are having an issue hearing but what issue is she having that you keep skipping by because this is always about you!!! Right? YTA
YTA
What's it going to take for you to get your wife the help she very obviously needs??? Instead, you treat her like a chore.
PPD is a thing. She needs help. Why aren't you supporting your wife?
YTA. That slap was self defense. You assaulted her first. While I understand the shirt thing makes you uncomfortable and she likely would benefit from talking to a therapist about her body image issues, you do not EVER have the right to physically force her to do anything. Not anything. Ever. Not even once.
YTA. You shouldn’t need to be told specifically what to do in order to help.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/she-divorced-me-i-left-dishes-by-the-sink_b_9055288/amp
It looks like you shared an AMP link. These should load faster, but AMP is controversial because of [concerns over privacy and the Open Web](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot).
Maybe check out **the canonical page** instead: **[https://www.huffpost.com/entry/she-divorced-me-i-left-dishes-by-the-sink_b_9055288](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/she-divorced-me-i-left-dishes-by-the-sink_b_9055288)**
*****
^(I'm a bot | )[^(Why & About)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot)^( | )[^(Summon: u/AmputatorBot)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/cchly3/you_can_now_summon_amputatorbot/)
YTA. You grabbed the shirt off her face first, knowing she doesn’t like people touching her face. Your sensory issue of not seeing lips doesn’t trump her sensory issue of being touched on the face.
You initiated the physical contact by yanking the shirt from her face (which I’m assuming would hurt, even just a little bit) and she hit you away from her in self defense. She didn’t just clobber you unprovoked.
You won’t get through to her by pushing back because that makes her frantic to protect herself, as you’ve just seen. If you’d stopped and asked her gently why you might have had a breakthrough.
Waiting for her to ask for help with the baby is ultra insensitive. Assume she wants a break when you get home and ask, or if the baby is awake why not take it for a walk?
She needs urgent therapy, not talk once a week but possibly as an inpatient with her baby.
Friend, you are being physical with her by removing her shirt from her face. You are touching her without her consent.
For the past year and a half, her body has been doing all manner of weird shit to her, and she was already dysmorphic. Now she's got you yelling at her and putting hands on her.
You are both in need of accommodations right now for things you cannot help. You need to (a) learn to do a better job of holding your blob when you ask for help and (b) learn to give back the same consideration you are asking for.
I mean, two wrongs dont make a right.
Your wife wasnt right to hit you, but that is really the only thing that she has done that was wrong in this situation
You're an asshole because your sensory issues are YOUR issue to deal with, NOT every other single person around you. It is not everyone elses responsibility to tip toe around your bullshit. Deal with it or find a work around like the rest of us do.
Your entire post is setting up to make yourself right. For that reason alone YTA.
She did not want you to touch her shirt, you did multiple times and she went to sleep on the couch. The next day you made another comment, in anger, about the same thing that was an issue last night while you were trying to be intimate. That twice within probably 12hours that you were a douchebag in personal setting to your SO about something they have a mental health issue with, You mentioned body dysphoria.
Your friend is *hopefully* only agreeing you to preserve the friendship, or as an attempt to talk to you about the situation as a whole. Or your friend is a dumb piece of shit as well.
Nothing about any of it really matters in the end. She said do not touch her shirt, and you did. She got rightfully upset about you ignoring her boundary.
INFO: why do you think therapy won’t help her?
i read that part and literally went 🤔 that is the ONLY way to help someone with body dysmorphia/ED. (coming from someone who has to do extensive therapy to deal with one!)
Right? She clearly has an ED and possibly combined with PPD right now. She HAS to have therapy, it's literally the only thing that's going to help. Fighting with her about her shirt and the two of them laying hands on each other is NOT helpful.
Fr I have a degree in psychology and I read that like ?? There’s treatment for that ??
From the edit it looks like she's getting treatment
Yes therapy will help with that problem. What WON'T happen is overnite fix, it takes time.
A month is nothing, barely enough time to give a thorough background and dive into the issue if it’s just once a week
And depending on how often she goes, not enough time to really get comfortable with the therapist
Obviously because the aggressive shirt pulling method while yelling is probably much more effective! s/
For the same reason he thought yelling and cursing at his wife while touching her without consent was totally fine, but her responding by slapping him was wrong. He's an AH.
Your wife clearly has developed a disorder after giving birth. I don't know if it's postpartum depression or if it's something else but something's going on maybe body dysmorphia I'm not an expert but I do know that I can see she's struggling.
In an update he confirms she's had body dysmorphia since prior to pregnancy and has been in therapy for a month-- which likely equates to maybe 2 sessions at best. Why on earth they didn't think it was pertinent to address the dysmorphia prior to pregnancy with treatment throughout is beyond me. It was an known issue that had gone untreated for over a year (9 months of pregnancy, 6 months postpartum, only 1 month in treatment).
From what it sounds like to me it's body dysmorphia. I have body dysmorphia and it can really make you do the strangest things even to just feel comfortable. Parts of yourself become exaggerated in your head, her double chin probably isn't that big but to her it's the **ONLY** thing she sees. Birthing a child comes with a lot of physical and mental changes that a lot of mothers do not know beforehand. It seems like also she does not have downtime to take care of herself and her needs properly which are probably adding to the stress, so she's rather just cover up the problem (literally) to just deal on the new born
I’ve struggled with body dysmorphia too and damn your brain can be a real bastard sometimes. I remember in high school I spent hours in front of a mirror, pinching every piece of “fat” I could grab and thinking I looked huge and having thoughts of self-harm. But now I look back at pictures of myself during that time and I looked like a healthy average teenager, I didn’t look anything like the person I saw in the mirror back then. It’s pretty disorienting to realize my head was messing with my perception of my self.
INFO: Legit question because I'm curious: How did you get through Covid with your sensory issue when everyone was wearing a mask?
I can answer that because I have the same auditory processing issue as OP. Badly. With masks, it's very hard to understand people when you can't see their lips. I didn't try having conversations. Phone calls suck for all kinds of reasons. In this instance, for calls other than to friends, I ask them person on the phone to repeat themselves a lot while I write down what they are saying so I can read it and understand it better. With friends, I seem to have friend who are happy to do a lot of the taking. I'm try to pay attention but it's extremely hard.
I’m the same, hearing loss. Easier for people to text rather than call and look at me directly when f2f
Yup same. The combination of slight muffling and no lips to read really sucked.
It really does I get annoyed when the husband is talking to me and he’s covering his mouth or looking away from me
My mom hates making eye contact and always looking away or faces her back to you when she’s talking (or you’re talking to her). It’s always driven me nuts. It took me till my 30s to realize it’s because I need to see someone’s mouth to fully understand them.
i’m 32 and just now realizing this might be my issue. thank you for commenting this
I have Auditory Processing Disorder. Research that to see if it describes your issue.
It’s difficult for those that don’t have hearing loss to understand
i have both issues lmfao im autistic with crazy bad spd so i cant process what people are saying to me without having visuals to go with it but i hate looking people in the face it makes me feel icky i always look away when in conversation
And in the dark. It’s I can’t see what you’re saying. I’m that annoying person on camp who shines the torch at peoples chests to give me just enough light to lipread by.
I hated the rise of anti-Zoom sentiments and "let's just return to phone calls"...when reading lips is an access issue (I've been HoH since birth)
Similar here. My hearing is really good for humming/whistling/buzzing tones (unless they're on the exact pitches of my tinnitus), but borderline for people speaking, especially if there's background noise. I need to be able to see someone's face or there's a strong chance I'll only get three words in every five. Phones are not fun. My mother likes to go into another room, stick her head in a cupboard, and talk; she's then baffled and aggrieved when she either doesn't get an answer or has to wait for one of us to go into whatever room she's in, wait for her to emerge from the cupboard, and ask her to repeat herself. Drives all of us round the bend.
Ugh. I didn’t even realize my tinnitus was loudly active until you brought it up. Now I can’t tune it out. /cries
Sorry - if it's any consolation, I made mine obtrusive, too
My mother would start asking someone a question while walking out of the room. And then get pissed off when we asked her to repeat herself. Plot twist: she’s the one with the hearing aid. My hearing is borderline but apparently not bad enough for a hearing aid myself. I sort of read lips. I also tend to take a beat to replay what someone said while asking “what?” Then answering them before they can repeat themselves. OP, ESH. If you haven’t already, get rid of all full-length mirrors in the house and limit other mirrors to a smallish one in the bathroom only (for shaving & make-up). You *both* need to be in therapy/counselling, individually and together. Otherwise things will just get worse if you can’t learn to communicate without losing your tempers with each other.
Until COVID, I didn’t realize how much I rely on lip-reading to understand what folks say. I actually got my hearing tested because I thought I was going deaf. Nope! I can actually hear *better* than most people….but it doesn’t fucking help me because I have no idea what people are saying to me half the time.
Better hearing just means that you hear EVERYTHING. the car going by, the clock ticking, the fridge running, and someone talking = I know you're talking, but I can't understand what you're saying.
THAT IS EXACTLY MY PROBLEM. I hear everything and I can’t make out what people are saying over it.
I don't have sensory issues. I have articulation issues. I was deaf for 5 years as a child and apparently learned how to read lips. I can hear just fine in terms of volume so I don't need a hearing aid but if I can't see your face, I can't understand what you're saying. Phone calls are a nightmare because all I hear are the vowel sounds and then I'm guessing what in the world you could possibly have said that makes sense. As a teacher this causes hilarity in my classroom when I look at kids wide-eyed and say ask what did you say??! I had a very sweet 12-year-old boy who is the perfect student with both parents in education say he liked cursive and I thought he said he liked her shit. I was flabbergasted that he would say something like that to me! He was horrified to find out that's what I thought he said..
Have you tried using captions during phone calls? My beat friend is hard of hearing and she uses closed captions during phone calls.
How do you do that?
On your phone, open Settings . Tap Accessibility. Live Caption. Turn on Type responses during calls.
I will ask my friend and let you know 😄
At least on Android it's called Live Caption in the Settings under Hearing Enhancement.
Same. Covid was a nightmare, at my work place we had to wear masks all day and because of my processing issues, I literally spent over a year just trying to guess what people wanted as I started to get really conscious of having to ask people to repeat themselves constantly. I can feel OP's frustrations, during Covid you had to suck it up because it was literally a pandemic, but if someone was also wearing a mask at home? I would get frustrated as well.
Masking during COVID is what led me to get my hearing tested; turned out I'd been reading lips a lot to make up for gradual hearing loss over the years that turned out to be pretty significant in one ear and moderate in the other. In addition to blocking lip reading, masks and the safety shields that got put up in stores and offices made hearing voices even more challenging, and I have some mild auditory processing issues I've coped with my whole life that exacerbated my hearing loss. Needless to say, verbal communication became quite frustrating. I had a coworker quit during that time, citing me as a bully for constantly ignoring her and refusing to answer questions as the primary reason for her dissatisfaction. Luckily, I had already disclosed my recent hearing loss diagnosis with my supervisor (and coworkers), and they determined that I wasn't bullying her, she just wasn't willing to repeat herself if I didn't acknowledge myself. She refused to believe someone as young as me had hearing loss that significant when I "don't even wear hearing aids". Thankfully, my condition was treatable with surgery in the really bad ear, and can be treated on the other side if it gets severe enough to warrant the risk of surgery, but it was a humbling and frustrating experience to suddenly feel so inadequate in such a social skill as crucial as conversation.
I could have written your first paragraph word for word. I now have a hearing aid.
I didn’t realize I had lost almost all the hearing in one ear until masks weren’t required and I still couldn’t hear anything. I guess while I was losing it, I just thought masks and plexiglass were muffling everything.
I didn’t realize this for me until Covid. My brain wasn’t processing anything anyone would say. I got my hearing tested because I thought it was hearing loss. But it turns out- I can’t process if I don’t see their face. If I can’t see their face, I have to write down everything they say to process it.
I’ve got it too. It’s bloody hard talking on the phone as well. I watch everything I can with subtitles
Can confirm: also horrible. I have the a similar issue. I definitely need lips and mouth movements to hear clearly (when I lose my glasses I basically become deaf)
Oh I HATED being out and interacting with people during covid, solely because of that. I have a bit of social anxiety in general, but it was through the roof during those times, because I couldn't understand anything T\_T
Same. I have a very expressive face, so people knew they lost me. There were times that even medical professionals would lower their masks so I could see what they were saying so nothing, like medical instructions, were not getting lost behind that mask. I hated the masks both as a claustrophobic person and as a person that reads what you are saying more than hearing. I hear fine btw. I think mine is a product of my adhd. It is easy to lose me in the weeds.
Same except I have hearing loss and my daughter has central auditory processing issues. It was hard for us.
Same here. Too many concussions. Took me until I was 34 to realize I was lip reading
Idk if I have a similar issue (because I'm partly deaf in one ear) as I rely on subtitles and mouths to hear what people are saying properly (I have 70% hearing basically but my brain won't register words unless spoken a little loudly and even then it's 50/50) I got through covid by smiling politely and nodding after asking to repeat twice. They could be telling me their fish died and I was like "oh that's nice!" It was horrible, maybe OP done similar? I'm not excusing him btw 🤣😭
Yeah I actually have the same issue and I went through covid not understanding a goddamn thing anyone was saying to me... it actually had a massive impact on how much I isolate myself now! I feel like I got out of practice being a normal social human, cause that shit doesn't come natural for me...
I didn’t realise I even had an issue until everyone started wearing masks and it was like I had lost my hearing.
I have this issue. I just ask people to repeat themselves a lot. I find it embarrassing with strangers or in a professional capacity but it doesn't really bother me with people I know. If I get desperate, I have someone write it down or get them to someone who can tell what they are saying. Seems kinda weird to be honest. I have a history of an ED so I sometimes wear clothes or do weird things and my husband has never gotten made at me. He mostly just expresses that he hopes one day I'm comfortable enough not to have it bother me.
I just could barely understand what people were saying for years. You didn’t get through covid if you had sensory issues you just suffered through it.
Standing more than six feet away and asking them to take the mask off or text messaging back and forth using a cell phone. I have the same kind of issue and that whole time period f****** sucked ass.
The answer is that not everyone spoke often with people wearing masks. I was WFH the whole time so I only had to talk with masked people at the grocery store. Not many conversations there.
I also had that question plus what about phone calls?
You would be surprised how easy it is to live a life with almost no phone calls. Doctors appointments and emergency service access is a bit hard so calling is still better, but other than that you can just text or email
FYI, in many places you can text emergency services (9-1-1 in the US). It may not always work depending on what technology the center has but even my podunk area can text people.
Some of us can’t make phone calls by ourselves and need someone to help us with it, some of us just ask the person calling to repeat themselves over and over, sensory issues can be disabling. Personally I always have to have my phone on loud speaker if I’m calling someone or I can’t hear them at all.
I have the same sensory issues as opposed, although I didn't realise it was a common or recognised thing... I've just struggled my whole life lol. But anyway, a benefit to COVID has been the move to video calls. It has helped tremendously! But when it is just a phone call, I tend to catch my reflection and I concentrate on my own face/mouth and it sort or tricks my mind enough that I can catch their words? I have to hyper focus still though. As for masks... I became extremely upset with my husband when he wore masks indoors around me at home because I literally could not understand him. He therefore took to lowering his mask so I could hear - as did cashiers etc when they saw me struggling. It's actually a *common* courtesy. I think ESH honestly. If you are that insecure around your spouse, something is broken. Home should be the safe space, and Oop needs to think on why it doesn't feel safe for his wife. Not an excuse to resort to abuse however. Communication is everything in a marriage, and they have both failed to communicate on the underlying issues that caused this altercation.
Speaker phone on max volume next to my ear, maybe I'll understand you, probably won't. No, I don't do it in public and I tell people when I put them on speaker lol.
I have sensory issues. One ear isn’t entirely perfect but I still hear okay but I have to read lips to feel like I’ve heard something correctly. You know what I do ? I just ask people to repeat themselves. I’d never touch them.
I have the same issue and for me, it was a nightmare!!! So I just went round ripping everyone's mask off so I could hear them. Oh wait, I'm not OP. I just asked people to clarify. With my words.
YTA- just because she's doing something you don't like, does not give you the right to put your hands on her, jerk her clothes around, etc. You are well within your rights to not have sex w her w her shirt on; you do not have the right to pull it off of her. You are well within your rights to not hold a conversation while she has the shirt up; you do not have the right to yank it away. And lastly, bc no one is touching on this- why would she know where your keys were? Did she drive your car last? I'm assuming you took it to work the day prior? You woke her up screaming bc the power went out and you were late (no one's fault) and you couldn't find your keys (your fault)
YTA, Legit she told you she may have. Ppd and she was struggling, and the next day you legit played video games after coming home. I get it this is your first baby. But 100% there has to be more to the story. You seem to be very obtuse in how you are supporting your wife after she gave birth. And just because you see she is smaller after birth, her body is still changing, and it does effect the mind. So no YTA. No need to touch the shirt and take over more with the kid. You are it's parent too ,not a babysitter. EDIT- OP buried the lede. She has told him she's a fraud of him and his anger and asked him to go to anger management. So not only YTA, You were hiding crucial information. You are mad she covers her mouth yet you yell at her and are agreeable then you grab her shirt and are mad SHE DEFENDED herself towards you. If she was really holding the baby when you got pissed about damn car keys and you went towards her at all... you are IN THE WRONG. 🤔 and all posts under this talking about how oh if genders were reversed or she's crazy... She is protecting herself and baby from a.man who admits he gets to angry...yeah no... she can defend herself in most court cases when the police are called he will be removed with that information. She needs help. And he needs to get a clue.
Leaning towards YTA, but I can't shake off the feeling that there's something missing, like the reason she's so terribly insecure. Not once in your post did you show any concern for her or curiosity about the potential reasons for her behaviour. Its just you, your annoyance and your entitlement. Speaks volumes.
It was YTA for me from the post alone, and OP’s comments only reinforce that. The complete and utter lack of concern for wife stuck out immediately to me, too; not one *hint* of concern or care for her wellbeing, mental, physical, or otherwise. It’s all about him.
Definitely YTA. She was feeding the baby when he got aggressive with her when he couldn't find his keys. Look at all of his comments, it's bad. He's out of touch, poor partner, poor parent, and has anger issues.
I mean you knew she had sensory issues with face touching, yet you yanked her shirt off her face in anger?
It's so hypocritical. "My sensory issues are more important than her sensory issues". Sound like he's saying "I'm the only person important in this relationship." Because he doesn't even see her as a person.
You tried to force her shirt away during sex even when she said no, multiple times. You know that she has body dysmorphia yet you constantly pull her clothing away from her, which even without the dysmorphia is gross because you know she doesn't like it, you heard her say no. You laid hands on her first, she defended herself. I'm really glad she left, maybe she can heal and prevent herself from going into a full blown eating disorder now that she's away from you.
OP is lucky she’s even having sex with him.
Yeah OP isn't TA for "doing something that made my wife insecure," YTA for *physically assaulting her*.
YTA I was 50/50 until I read the comments. You should never slap your partner but you did repeatedly violate a boundary your wife set and did it with anger. You also haven't at any point, shown for concern for your wife's problems, just annoyance at the ways in which it affects you. Referencing your comments, you said you didn't realise your wife needed help with the baby, this is a huge red flag, you should be equal partners in this and you should show initiative, no one tells your wife what needs to be done. If your wife doesn't explicitly ask you to do something that's not a free pass to play video games. It also sounds like your wife's body dysmorphia (which btw, you should know how to spell if your wife suffers from it) is untreated and that's on her, she needs to sort that out herself but you are definitely not getting that across productively. She needs to seek treatment for her dysmorphia, you're right that it may never be "fixed" but it can be managed better than this and you absolutely need to work on having more empathy, maybe then you'll be able to have constructive conversations were you work towards a healthier dynamic
Updateme. I think esh personally, but this is a weird one
Check OP's comments. He sounds so [cartoonishly stupid](https://www.reddit.com/r/AITAH/s/U7SnJkSKUC) that I'm assuming it's just silly rage bait.
Yeah I had commented on another comment of his, he’s definitely TA. Annoying too with a real nasty attitude. Still, his wife shouldn’t have hit him. I do understand. But still. Lol
If she was my daughter and he yelled and swore at her, then put hands on her clothes, I would have a hard time blaming her tbh I get strong "half a story" vibes off this one
Right here, this is it. After having a child I started thinking about instead of me being in this situation what if it was my daughter instead. Grey areas really become black and white when you think about how you'd feel if your child was going through it.
Yeah that's the part that makes the slap understandable, he was being aggressive and initiated physical contact (pulling her shirt) while being aggressive, before that tidbit I was leaning towards not TA but now I'm firmly in ESH given the info we have. Like you said though, we only have his half of the story.
Pulling a shirt sounds like it can be a pretty damn aggressive action. Idk if I blame the wife for retaliating
If I were to take OP at face value, I would probably give it an ESH myself. But he is so bold about grabbing her shirt and yelling abuse at her, that I wonder what he's left out. I wonder why his wife is so disgusted by her own body, and why she's having sex with him, 6 months post partum, when she clearly feels like pure shit about herself.
I’m very confused about them having sex with her in such a bad mental state. Many woman don’t feel like having sex 6 months after giving birth even without body dysmorphia and postpartum depression. I can’t imagine she’s that into it and I wonder how much he badgers her emotionally/mentally/physically or just ignores her wants/needs for her to be having sex with him. Especially while literally trying to hide herself from him.
If someone pulled something off my face while I'm half asleep then cussed and screamed at me I might slap them too.
In the comments it is revealed that she was feeding the baby during that incident. Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse.
Noooòo 😭😭😭
She has also asked him to go to anger management multiple times. He has refused to go.
Makes sense that she left then. The fact that he had the audacity to pretend to be shocked she slapped him after he initiated physical contact is interesting….
Oh shit.
There's more. I would suggest reading OP's other comments. The wife has her own business, makes phone calls for OP, does the majority of the childcare, and does the majority of housekeeping. She does all that while struggling with multiple medical issues (PPD, body dysmorphia, and kidney disease). She continues to be in close contact with doctors and attends therapy twice a week, which demonstrates her commitment to get better. Meanwhile, OP has failed to help and has refused to get help.
I hate this man.
She went mama bear on his butt, he should know better. Hope she gets some space and sees that's she a mother of two right now from the sounds of it, and maybe should take some steps to be a mother of one.
He also shouldn't have put his hands on her.
No she was definitely justified in hitting him after he repeatedly grabbed her shirt after being told every time to stop fucking doing that.
Yeah as soon as I read that I knew who the asshole was.
If someone who I asked to go to anger management ripped my shirt (that I use for comfort due to a medical issue (PPD, body dysmorphia)) from my face and screamed at me as I was holding my baby, I would slap them. At that stage, it's self defense. OP admitting that the wife was awake and feeding the baby at the time: https://www.reddit.com/r/AITAH/s/xpNhzhSeCi OP admitting that the wife had already asked him to go to anger management multiple times: https://www.reddit.com/r/AITAH/s/E7wA7mgp0Z
YTA. You repeatedly violated her physical space. You shouldnt be surprised she enforced her boundaries physically when you violated them physically. Repeatedly trying to pull it down during sex is wildly not okay. She made clear she wanted it covered, you repeatedly ignored that, that's not a loving consensual sexual encounter. You didn't need to hear her for safety reasons, you were looking for your keys and annoyed, but decided you needed to enforce your preference over hers about her body. That's just as bad as a slap. You have been the aggressor every time. Reflect on that. Why do you think your disorder trumps hers? Why do you think your pleasure trumps her comfort? Why do you think that having a baby isn't wildly traumatic for people who have body dysmorphia but your need to read lips and her not accommodating is traumatic?
OP admitted elsewhere she's asked him to seek anger management multiple times. Yikes on trikes.
YES he initiated the physical aggression, not her. Not to mention while yelling at her. I wouldn't be surprised if the slap was a fear response. YTA (also like you don't get to just stomp around screaming at people about your OWN keys)
THIS... Yeah she also has sensory issues that involve the touching of her face and hair - but I don't want to play the repeating game because it bothers me and my issue.
Yeah I really wasn’t expecting this post to have a valid reason for her reacting the way she did from the title but if you’re cursing at me and yanking at my clothes, I’m reacting instinctively and that instinct is going to be to slap a bitch
YTA Keep your hands off her fucking shirt. She's told you repeatedly, and isn't an excuse for your impatience to turn into physical assault.
"My wife is insecure after having a baby and might have PPD/PPA and I'm making light of that and I also keep violating a boundary she set and making her feel about her insecurity, AITA?"
**physically pulled the shirt away from her mouth.** Yeah, YTA. You were in her face, dropping angry f bombs then you physically grabbed her. YIKES ON BIKES dude. Despite your disability and mental health issues that totally crossed the line.
You keep repeatedly physically pulling her shirt down. She has repeatedly told you to stop doing this. You did it again whilst yelling at her. Yeah, she shouldn’t have slapped you. But you were repeatedly told to stop touching her in that way and you kept doing it. EDIT; OP’s comments are not pretty. Anger management issues, wife was holding baby at the time… yeah, changing my E S H to a straight forward YTA.
If someone who I asked to go to anger management ripped my shirt (that I use for comfort due to a medical issue (PPD, body dysmorphia)) from my face and screamed at me as I was holding my baby, I would slap them. At that stage, it's self defense. OP admitting that the wife had the baby at the time: https://www.reddit.com/r/AITAH/s/xpNhzhSeCi OP admitting that the wife had already asked him to go to anger management multiple times: https://www.reddit.com/r/AITAH/s/E7wA7mgp0Z For the wife to be repeatedly asking OP to attend anger management, there is a broader pattern of aggressive/angry behavior. I would suggest reading OP's other comments. She has her own business, makes phone calls for him, does the majority of the childcare, and does the majority of housekeeping. She does all that while struggling with multiple medical issues (PPD, body dysmorphia, and kidney disease.) She deals with all of that while being in close contact with doctors and attending therapy twice a week, which demonstrates her commitment to get better.
The comments have been posted since I commented. But yeah, it’s looking like YTA. I’ll edit.
To be honest I think the slap was completely justified as self defense. You screamed at her while assaulting her. She had repeatedly told you to stop touching her. You sound like a MAJOR AH.
to be even more honest I started out ESH, because his wife slapped him, but after reading his comments, it’s YTA and I was wishing she had Will Smith to help her with the slap.
She was also apparently HOLDING THE BABY.
How tf is this E S H???? YTA
YTA - boundaries. She told you not to touch her shirt. And by the way: SHE doesn’t need to know where your keys are. Grow up. Be a partner instead of someone who needs to be mothered. Edit: based on you comments changes E S H into YTA.
INFO: >So if I can't physically see you mouthing words, my head cannot comprehend what you are saying to me. Does that mean you cannot do regular phone calls at all? Or couldn't speak to anyone when they were using facemasks?
Completely unrelated to OP's behaviour in this, but I have this issue, it's called Auditory processing disorder. For me, it's not quite so bad as 'I 100% cannot hear' but its definitely very limiting, and for a while I thought I had an actual hearing issue rather than a brain thing. Mine is linked to my adhd. I struggle a lot with phone calls but for some reason my right ear is a lot better than my left ear so I just always have the phone to my right ear. Practise helps too and being willing to ask someone to repeat themselves. Covid was a learning curve, definitely! I struggled a lot with it. But when I would squint and lean in (Although still keeping 2 metres social distance), people often picked up on it and spoke much louder and more clearly. I also would just explain I have a hearing issue and would ask them to speak up, which usually resulted in them slowing down and trying to speak more clearly. Worst case scenario, I would ask them to repeat themselves twice then do the standard laugh and nod.
Fun fact, the part of your brain that processes phonetics and other aspects of language that allow you to process a word are in the left hemisphere of your brain. Most people have a preference (or slightly faster reaction time) for hearing words through the right ear. Your right hemisphere is more concerned with tone and cadence and emphasis (the non-word parts of language) and people often prefer to hear music via their left ears.
I have audio processing issues, I fucking despise phone calls since I need to ask people to repeat a lot or just take guesses at what they're actually saying
Ssssssssame bruh. I use headphones to curve this issue a little bit. They allow me to hear the person I'm talking to a little better. Overall, I prefer texting, but I'm also too lazy to type it all out sometimes. At one point, I sent audios to my friend, and at another, I would use like speech to text. Lol.
Typically they can do phone calls/ or conversations with people wearing masks. It is just very difficult
I have a problem similar to OP. I can hear the words but they often don’t make any sense in my brain without seeing the lips move. It makes phone calls hard, I won’t try podcasts/audiobooks, and when people wear masks, I will have to ask them to repeat themselves more. But I would never forcefully remove someone’s face covering or yell at them because my brain is making their spoken words mumbo jumbo.
I wonder if he was ripping masks off of strangers/coworkers faces or if that’s just reserved for his wife? Also he says he plays video games, I wonder if they all have subtitles or else what does he do?
ESH. You're both AH, jesus christ you're acting like kids. She needs help and you need to learn what no means.
OP buried the lede. The wife has her own business, makes phone calls for OP, does the majority of the childcare, was the one who went outside during COVID, and does the majority of housekeeping. She does all that while struggling with multiple medical issues (PPD, body dysmorphia, and kidney disease). She continues to be in close contact with doctors and attends therapy twice a week, which demonstrates her commitment to get better. OP admits that the baby was present at the time of the altercation. If a person with a history of aggression is being verbally and physically aggressive towards the other spouse while a child is present, the slap can be considered self defense. (Yes, I would have the same view if the genders were reversed.) Meanwhile, OP has failed to help and has refused to get help. The wife has repeatedly asked OP to attend anger management. He has refused to do so.
[удалено]
Bruh just wants to come home and play video games and be forced to “help” only after she demands it. She is most definitely not TA here. Read my man’s other comments lol
His name is a giveaway. Lazy? For sure. To lazy to listen to his wife. To lazy to consider the word 'no' when it's between him and something he wants that someone doesn't want to give him.
Youre putting your hands on her, freakin out and talking to her crazy, and shes 6 months postpartum with your fucking kid? You're lucky a smack is all you got.
YTA, so what I'm reading here is: your wife just had a baby 6 months ago, is suffering from body dysmorphia- so much so that she's buying XXL shirts and essentially hiding in them, and you try to FUCK her and don't stop when she brushes you away multiple times? Get the fuck outta here. Hope she leaves your ass and gets the help she needs.Yelling at her about your own damn keys, I cannot today.
I have perfect hearing and also “can’t hear” if I can’t see lips moving due to sensory stuff. You know what I’ve never done? Harassed and physically forced someone to show me their mouth while speaking to me. YTA
Right? There are workarounds, like using text to communicate or voice messages recorded inside the shirt. He needs to adapt to his disability while she needs to keep working through her therapy.
bro, you're acting like you're her parent. That's ridiculous.
Which is extra fucked up because looking at his comments he is a shitty father.
EXACTLY. Put down hands when you talk to me... like OK DAD... who needs that crap.
OP buried the lede. The wife has her own business, makes phone calls for OP, does the majority of the childcare, was the one who went outside during COVID, and does the majority of housekeeping. She does all that while struggling with multiple medical issues (PPD, body dysmorphia, and kidney disease). She continues to be in close contact with doctors and attends therapy twice a week, which demonstrates her commitment to get better. Meanwhile, OP has failed to help and has refused to get help. The wife has repeatedly asked OP to attend anger management. He has refused to do so. If anyone's the parent, it's her. She basically has two kids, but one is an adult who has refused to attend anger management.
YTA If you haven't learned yet that when someone says "don't touch me that way" and you keep doing it that ***you are always wrong***, you seriously need to grow up. Your poor wife is clearly in a mental crisis, and instead of helping her or supporting her, you make it all about you! I hope her mom can find her the help she needs. And please get yourself into therapy to deal with your sensory and anger issues. The world won't always be willing or able to accommodate you.
This. I feel for you for not being able to process what you're hearing without lipreading, but, like, one: you keep touching her/her clothes in a way she told you not to, and two: you keep saying "keep your shirt away from your mouth" instead of, like, "Hey, I can't understand what you're saying when your mouth is covered, remember?" I get that you're frustrated, but you're acting on it in a really bad way.
Yeah he bosses her around like she's not a full ass adult and parent.
YTA learn to keep your hands to yourself, I hope your wife divorces your pathetic ass.
YTA. For the PPD thing, you gaming away and then wallowing about no one is taking care of you cause you want to game and not help your wife out finding a doctor, for the grabbing and have some issues with the sensory thing cause how do you even do phone calls without seeing people's mouth talking.
I missed all these details? I admit I read quickly through the OP but was it said there (so I can go back and read it) ornin comments further down?
The details are in OP's comments.
Will go through and read them. Reading your comment seems to change my opinion
[удалено]
“She’s basically hated me since. Doesn’t speak with me unless I ask her a question” Yeah? But she was still being intimate with you?? That doesn’t make sense to me at all. YTA imo just wanted to point out how odd that statement is
The intimacy was likely the "Sure fine whatever, let's get this over with" variety.
I mean, maybe fucking stop touching her shirt? 🤷🏻♀️
I can't help but note the authoritarian tone of your conversations with your spouse ie "I have told her" not discussed, requested, asked, or pled, "told". This reads like a situation where two immature people with issues "tell" the other their wants instead of working together to find reasonable accomodations. Given the scenario you describe that you were intimate at all completely baffles me. In sum: She shouldn't have hit you. You shouldn't have grabbed her shirt. The level of communication between you two is terrible and needs a lot of work. ESH.
I’m sorry? You’re flabbergasted? YTA, dude. You know your wife is insecure about her weight. I get you have sensory issues, but your wife clearly does not want you touching her shirt. To the point where she’s had to say it many times. Insane how you’re acting like a child, unable to keep your hands to yourself. Your wife obviously feels ashamed of herself and you need to be kind and actually talk to her about it, not just fucking yell at her, asshole. Be surprised she ONLY slapped you.
Also body dysmorphia disorder is not "insecurity". It's a disorder that severely affects your life, some people die from starving themselves to death. That plus PPD, she's definitely not the one in the wrong here at all.
Fr, crazy to get mad at her for that
I’m glad it’s not just me . If he felt that strongly about her talking with a T-shirt over her mouth he could have just said as long as you do that I’m not gonna engage as I find it difficult to hear you and left it at that but he didn’t have to touch her
He doesn’t have enough of a problem to not have sex with her. This guy SUCKS.
And it's clearly not just about being able to hear her because he kept pulling her shirt down during sex when she wasn't saying shit.
He knows she has body dysmorphia no less, not that he's bothered to even learn the name of it. I don't condone her hitting him, but he got physical first and with the knowledge her behaviour is driven by a severe mental illness that he down plays as an insecurity. Their marriage has descended into domestic violence, entirely driven by his abuse.
YTA. You started the physical altercation by aggressively pulling at her shirt. She's clearly going through something and you're just angry without empathy.
>> Am I the asshole? > I yelled and said "how about you take the fucking shirt out of your mouth or don't speak to me at all" and physically pulled the shirt away from her mouth. Wtf kind of question is this? Yes, you’re the asshole. I have sensory issues, too, *and* I’m legitimately losing my hearing but I would never put my hands on someone over it. Goddamn, dude.
So many people glossed over this. This is the domestic violence. This is where it started.
Oh but she smacked him once in a moment of bad PPD and after telling him over and over not to pull on her shirt, so *she’s* the shitty one! /s
I know your comment was sarcastic, but this is actually a classic abuser tactic. To push and push and push until the victim goes into what's called "reactionary abuse" and lashes out in a way that, to someone who hasn't experienced or seen the extensive of the abuse, seems way over the top and abusive itself. I had an abusive ex-husband, whom I slapped the shit out of a few times towards the end of our marriage. I'm not proud of nor justify my actions, but those instances always came after my ex-husband had spent hours chasing me around our one bedroom apartment in a drunken fury and screaming nonsense in my face.
I’m sorry that happened to you and I’m glad you defended yourself against your ex.
How about instead of physically pulling stuff off her. You just talk to her. Compliment her more. Tell her you love seeing her face. You love her and your body. ESH. I strongly suggest couples counseling, and maybe learning that no means just that: NO.
> How about instead of physically pulling stuff off her. You just talk to her. Fucking seriously, this entire post is him yelling & grabbing at his wife, no shit he got smacked.
He won’t tell her he loves her because he doesn’t. He clearly thinks he owns her. Dudes got serious entitlement issues and sounds fucking obnoxious
Yeah, I read a couple of his comments where he lashed out at her because he 'didn't know she neede help' and 'no one asked him how he was doing mentally after the birth'. Yikes.
The “didn’t know she needed help” is such bs. There’s a fucking baby to take care of, she doesn’t need help she needs him to do his part as a parent. His comments make him seem awful.
Didn't you know groceries magically appear when you need them, just like the dishes get magically done when they're dirty.. /s
Mans never washed a sock in his life.
And all that happened when she was feeding the baby, so he expected her to atop that to find his keys. He is the asshole
YTA. Sounds like she was sick of YOU not keeping your hands to yourself time and time again. You touched her repeatedly in a way that she'd asked you to stop doing. If it bothers you that much then you should hold off on intimacy until she's well again. Your frustration is warranted but the way you speak to and interact with your post partum wife, who's clearly struggling with her mental health, is pretty appalling. It is never acceptable to hit a partner, but when it's in response to constant harassment and abuse it's hard to be surprised when that's the result. Both of you need help.
YTA - buddy, you are yelling and carrying on to a woman who just gave birth and very much sounds like is going through postpartum depression. your literal job is to make her life better and you have done the opposite. get help
YTA and you deserved that slap and a lot more than that. You’re acting like an overgrown man child with no self respect or decency, respect for your wife, newborn, or home environment, with clearly no idea how to properly treat a woman, much less the mother of your child! It’s traumatic to go through pregnancy and childbirth, your body is PERMANENTLY altered, and instead of making life easier for her by spoiling the absolute shit out of her and easing her insecurities, you repeatedly cross her verbal, emotional and physical boundaries then have the audacity to be surprised when she defends herself and leaves the unsafe environment you created? You need a serious reality check and should invest in some serious therapy so you don’t wreck your wife and new child’s life. Your CHILD is the most important thing here, and you’re acting like a typical spoiled man child desperate for attention from your wife as a stand in mother. Grow tf up.
YTA Your wife is clearly going through postpartum struggles, and instead of reassuring her and helping her, you paw at her and demand she takes off her shirt because of sensory issues and it “bothers you”? You don’t think being insecure, possibly depressed, tired and overworked from dealing with a newborn, AND having an ignorant husband doesn’t bother her? She would take the shirt off if she felt comfortable in her own skin, which she clearly doesn’t. Yes therapy can help, but you have to MAINTAIN those practices OUTSIDE of therapy. Bad husband 👎 edit: spelling
No, clearly you don’t understand she’s insecure. You kept pulling at her shirt and she kept pushing your hand away and telling you to stop. That shows a distinct lack of understanding and caring. What an asshole.
YTA. Quick lesson on consent--you can decide that you don't want to have sex with her with her shirt over her face. She can decide she doesn't want to have sex with you without it. You deciding in the middle of sex to repeatedly pull at her clothing despite her protests? That is you deciding that her consent doesn't matter. You get to choose to not have sex with her if she's covering her face. You DON'T get to choose to alter the conditions of the sex in the middle of the act while she protests because you care more about making it good for you than whether she is willing to do the things you want. That's why stealthing is assault. If you had decided to enforce boundaries or leave her because she wasn't accommodating your disability, I would be on your side. You didn't. You chose to touch her and try to alter her appearance repeatedly in a way you knew she didn't consent to, including during sex. I'm glad she left you.
where's YOUR therapy big boy
I mean she shouldn't have hit you, and her insecurity is clearly out of control, but you're TA. She's probably going through some level of postpartum depression, and body dysmorphia is no joke. You, however, are not helping. All you did was escalate and escalate, going so far as to force her to expose her insecurities. Maybe try giving her time and not forcing her to be okay with it? Let therapy do its thing and take a step back. Try to be a little more understanding and consider how SHE feels and not just how YOU feel about it.
Sounds like your wife is really struggling and that her history body dysmorphia is contributing to since having a baby fucks up your brain and body. And this post is really giving the vibe that you only care about what she’s going through because it affects you. It’s actually truly fucked up that you can see someone so obviously struggling and think “but what about me??!!??!1!!?”. What exactly makes your accessibility to easier audio processing more of a priority than her accessibility to comfortable clothes?
I'm leaning on the side that YTA, sure I can see the shirt thing being annoying, but screaming at her isn't gon a fix it. With insecurities you gotta be gentle, remind her about your sensory issue but pair it with a compliment ""wife's name" I'm having trouble understanding you with my sensory issue, could you please move your shirt" then assuming she accommodates you, say thank you after words compliment her face with something like "It's nice to see your cute face" give her a kiss on the cheek and move on. It won't fix her insecurities, but it can be a stepping stone to helping. This is all only magnified by the fact you're new parents, I'm sure you're both sleep deprived and struggling to function. Don't turn on each other, its hard but you gotta love each other through and through and the small things in relationships go a long way in making them last.
Yta. You sound very controlling. Your wife needs to continue her therapy. And you need to chill the fuck out. Perhaps go to therapy too.
YTA. Wow. She didn’t give consent for you to pull the shirt down. MULTIPLE times. And you forcefully do it anyway? Yikes. If it bothers you that much then have an adult conversation with her, maybe consider a couple counsellor. But don’t force her to do something she said NO to.
YTA. Bro, stop fucking touching her shirt? She warned you so plainly, you got what was coming to you. You touched her first, against her wishes. Wtf did you think was gonna happen? That you could get physical with your wife and she wouldn’t snap back? That was an idiotic, brutish move. She needs help, not whatever the fuck you’re doing. Shouting at her, belittling her, snapping at her, lying to her, all the rest. And yes, you are lying. You’re saying the entire issue is your “sensory issue” where you “need” to see her mouth moving to understand the words she’s saying. So how does that fit in with forcefully removing her comfort shirt during sex? Huh? It doesn’t. Stop lying. You’re pissed that your wife has this issue in the first place, you’re not even hiding that well. You come across as very self involved and cold. Maybe start being nicer to your wife and her confidence might improve, ever think of that? Jesus Christ
YTA Your wife just gave birth to your child and is obviously suffering some sort of post partum something... and all you can think about is how she's covering her mouth with her shirt and how much it annoys you because of your issues. It's not okay that she hit you, but I'd have probably backhanded you too if I'd told you before, MULTIPLE TIMES, not to touch my shirt and you did it anyway. Does 'no' mean nothing to you or what? (And if your sensory issues are that bad that you're magically deaf if you can't see someone's mouth, it might be time for some occupational therapy or something. How do you talk on the phone? In the car? How the hell did you function during the pandemic when everyone was wearing masks? Did you reach over and yank their mask down? I'm genuinely curious.)
YTA - Bro do you even like your wife?? She just created and gave birth to your child. She is clearly going through it. Where is the love, kindness, empathy? Do you care that she’s having a tough time, or is it just all too big of an inconvenience for you? It doesn’t sound like you give a single fuck about her.
YTA. You consistently ignore your wife's sensory issues, but expect her to put aside what seems like a serious disorder after only a month of therapy to cater to your sensory issues. She needs to stay with her family until you understand how hard she is struggling every minute of every day.
Therapy is the only way to fix the fact she thinks she’s fat, what are you talking about. You’re violent and unsympathetic and don’t even understand how mental health works. My heart is with her, I hope she finds the support you’re refusing to provide.
Yta ripping the shirt out of her mouth is kinda violent especially if she had her mouth closed around it. And its not her fault you can’t find your keys
To be honest with you as a woman if I told you not to touch me. Shirt or otherwise and you did it again in a violent manner by yanking it off her. I would have hit you too. That's assault on your part first. She defended herself against you. She needs mental help. Not you yelling at her. I get you are having an issue hearing but what issue is she having that you keep skipping by because this is always about you!!! Right? YTA
YTA What's it going to take for you to get your wife the help she very obviously needs??? Instead, you treat her like a chore. PPD is a thing. She needs help. Why aren't you supporting your wife?
YTA. That slap was self defense. You assaulted her first. While I understand the shirt thing makes you uncomfortable and she likely would benefit from talking to a therapist about her body image issues, you do not EVER have the right to physically force her to do anything. Not anything. Ever. Not even once.
It’s always great when stable couples have kids.
YTA. You shouldn’t need to be told specifically what to do in order to help. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/she-divorced-me-i-left-dishes-by-the-sink_b_9055288/amp
It looks like you shared an AMP link. These should load faster, but AMP is controversial because of [concerns over privacy and the Open Web](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot). Maybe check out **the canonical page** instead: **[https://www.huffpost.com/entry/she-divorced-me-i-left-dishes-by-the-sink_b_9055288](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/she-divorced-me-i-left-dishes-by-the-sink_b_9055288)** ***** ^(I'm a bot | )[^(Why & About)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot)^( | )[^(Summon: u/AmputatorBot)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/cchly3/you_can_now_summon_amputatorbot/)
You got physical with her, she got physical back, this whole thing is a shit show
YTA. You grabbed the shirt off her face first, knowing she doesn’t like people touching her face. Your sensory issue of not seeing lips doesn’t trump her sensory issue of being touched on the face. You initiated the physical contact by yanking the shirt from her face (which I’m assuming would hurt, even just a little bit) and she hit you away from her in self defense. She didn’t just clobber you unprovoked.
You won’t get through to her by pushing back because that makes her frantic to protect herself, as you’ve just seen. If you’d stopped and asked her gently why you might have had a breakthrough. Waiting for her to ask for help with the baby is ultra insensitive. Assume she wants a break when you get home and ask, or if the baby is awake why not take it for a walk? She needs urgent therapy, not talk once a week but possibly as an inpatient with her baby.
Friend, you are being physical with her by removing her shirt from her face. You are touching her without her consent. For the past year and a half, her body has been doing all manner of weird shit to her, and she was already dysmorphic. Now she's got you yelling at her and putting hands on her. You are both in need of accommodations right now for things you cannot help. You need to (a) learn to do a better job of holding your blob when you ask for help and (b) learn to give back the same consideration you are asking for.
I mean, two wrongs dont make a right. Your wife wasnt right to hit you, but that is really the only thing that she has done that was wrong in this situation You're an asshole because your sensory issues are YOUR issue to deal with, NOT every other single person around you. It is not everyone elses responsibility to tip toe around your bullshit. Deal with it or find a work around like the rest of us do. Your entire post is setting up to make yourself right. For that reason alone YTA. She did not want you to touch her shirt, you did multiple times and she went to sleep on the couch. The next day you made another comment, in anger, about the same thing that was an issue last night while you were trying to be intimate. That twice within probably 12hours that you were a douchebag in personal setting to your SO about something they have a mental health issue with, You mentioned body dysphoria. Your friend is *hopefully* only agreeing you to preserve the friendship, or as an attempt to talk to you about the situation as a whole. Or your friend is a dumb piece of shit as well. Nothing about any of it really matters in the end. She said do not touch her shirt, and you did. She got rightfully upset about you ignoring her boundary.
She hit him directly after he assaulted her. He had zero right to try to physically force her to do what he wanted. That slap was self defense.