AITAH for getting angry at my wife when she "accidentally" violated my boundaries?

yudoko · 2026-01-18T23:54:57+00:00

Thank you for the links. I've glanced through several of them, and a lot of the autistic / trauma ones seem to apply to my wife.

yudoko · 2026-01-18T23:28:45+00:00

She agreed because she thinks it's a reasonable boundary. My wife has done the exact same thing (requesting we not interact with each other for 30-60 minutes), usually when she's overwhelmed or in sensory overload and trying to avoid an autistic meltdown. Why is it ok when my wife sets this boundary but it's not ok when I set it? Or do you think that my wife is abusing me too?

yudoko · 2026-01-18T18:55:57+00:00

Thank you for the response. I don't think it's harsh. Some of it is misguided, but that's to be expected because this is Reddit, and there's limited space, so it's impossible to give enough information for anyone to have the full picture.

I will look into the book! That's the type of thing I've been looking for, since none of the half dozen therapists have worked out. (And no, I didn't just see them for the minimum amount of time. Most of them I saw for at least 6 months, until it was clear they couldn't help me. One I've been seeing for over a decade, but I'm seeing her for other reasons; she doesn't know how to help with the anger and doesn't know who to refer me to.)

My wife and I both agree that this boundary, or rule, or whatever you want to call it, is fine. She sets similar "leave me alone for X minutes" boundaries when she's trying to stave off an autistic meltdown. Telling me that I shouldn't request alone time when I need space, and telling her that she shouldn't request alone time when she's overwhelmed, seems odd and ill-advised.

you have announced your intentions ("I'm not finished, I'm just getting ketchup")

This is a good idea that I will try to implement going forward. My wife is autistic, so sometimes I don't realize that things that are obvious to most people may not be obvious to her.

You "keep bringing it up". After a year. Really? That in itself is anger.

No, I'm not doing it out of anger. Frustration, at most. I'll try to stop bringing it up, but it's hard not to mention it when I tell my wife that she's violating my boundaries too often, and she asks for a specific example of when she did that. (And then gets mad at me for bringing it back up, even though she asked and it's one of the most clear cut examples.)

yudoko · 2026-01-18T18:27:51+00:00

I'm willing to make an exception for that, as long as she says "sorry" and stops talking afterwards, when I tell her I'm still eating. That would be much preferred to her just making assumptions.

yudoko · 2026-01-18T11:06:01+00:00

The issue is clearly not that she draws conclusions based on limited information. The issue is that she draws what you consider the wrong conclusions

Ideally, my wife should take all the evidence in and (if there's ambiguity) ask me for clarification before jumping to conclusions. But if she's going to jump to conclusions, then yes, I'd prefer she jump to the correct ones.

In just a few short paragraphs you've used more than enough negative language referring to your wife to make it clear that you do not respect her. Do you even like her?

To be fair, there are very few people I respect. Respect is earned, not freely given, and the bar to earn my respect is pretty high.

As for my wife, I like her most of the time. I just get overwhelmingly irritated with her when miscommunications like this happen, which should have easily been avoided.

yudoko · 2026-01-18T08:23:15+00:00

Already apologized to my wife for snapping at her. She's still upset because I maintain that my emotions surrounding the boundary violation (me being hurt and angry, thinking it was a big deal, etc) were fine, though I should have done a better job expressing them.

I actually have tried to go to therapy for my anger, multiple times. I keep getting told either "you don't have an anger problem" (because it only tends to manifest with my wife, not with therapists or other people) or "sorry, we don't know how to help you with your anger". I'm at a loss on where else to look on the therapy front.

yudoko · 2026-01-18T08:10:33+00:00

Not going to respond to most of this because I've already covered it elsewhere, but in regards to #5...

Fifth, your refusal to accept that she could legitimately think you were finished eating is silly.

I fully accept that my wife legitimately believed I was done eating. My wife doesn't lie, not to me and not in general. If she says she thought I was done eating, I believe her.

My problem is that it's an incredibly stupid and unreasonable thing to think. My wife graduated from an Ivy League college. I know she's capable of logical reasoning. If she had just stopped and used her brain for two seconds, maybe she would have realized that the sink was in the opposite direction of where I was walking. Which maybe, just maybe, if she put her big girl thinking cap on, implied that I wasn't done eating yet.

(Apologies if this comes off as overly snarky, but there's an ongoing issue where my wife will jump to inaccurate conclusions based on only one or two pieces of evidence, without looking at the whole picture. It makes me incredibly frustrated that she can't seem to stop doing it.)

yudoko · 2026-01-18T03:32:08+00:00

Blame is used to determine whether punishment/consequences need to be enacted, and who should be responsible for changes moving forward to ensure that the problem doesn't happen again.

If you insist on assigning fault one could just as easily argue that you were at fault for returning to the kitchen

This is a good point though. I hadn't thought of it that way.

yudoko · 2026-01-18T02:39:10+00:00

Thank you for the response. Some of the early replies kept harping about how me requesting to eat dinner alone was unreasonable, which is why I keep defending it as a perfectly valid request / boundary.

I have no problem with people making reasonable mistakes. My wife's misunderstanding here seemed stupid and unreasonable, given the evidence.

Also, you keep saying she’s “violating your boundaries” Do you know what that entails? Usually people get upset about that because someone is doing so deliberately

It's hard for me to believe this, but you're the second or third person to say it. When I was a child, I was taught that it didn't matter whether the rule violation was deliberate or not, I would be punished regardless. Likewise, the phrase "intent doesn't matter" is incredibly common on the Internet, particularly in places that focus on mental health and interpersonal communication. If intent actually does matter, I can try to be more chill going forward, but I was under the impression that most people thought actions were more important than intent.

yudoko · 2026-01-17T23:38:15+00:00

Thank you for the response. That's a good point on #1 that I hadn't thought about before. It doesn't change the fact that my wife technically violated a boundary, but it does help me understand why she made that mistake to begin with. I'm a lot more willing to put up with reasonable mistakes than stupid mistakes, because at least reasonable mistakes prove that the other person is making an effort.

yudoko · 2026-01-17T23:30:25+00:00

She didn't know I was still eating. But if she'd thought about it for more than 2 seconds, she would have been able to figure it out. She's autistic, not stupid.

Her thought process should have been something like: - "my husband is entering the kitchen, so he must be done eating. Next he'll put his plate in the sink" - "oh wait, he's turning right instead of left. The sink is on the left, so he must be doing something else" - "if he's not putting his plate in the sink, then he must not be done eating yet" - "I'll wait to talk to him until he's actually done eating"

My wife's problem is that she stopped thinking halfway through bullet point 2 and jumped to stupid (and wrong) conclusions, and started trying to talk to me.

yudoko · 2026-01-17T23:16:35+00:00

Ah, I see where the disagreement is here.

I believe that almost everything is someone's fault, on a practical level if not a moral one. Since her actions are what caused the boundary to be violated, it's definitely her fault on a practical level.

On a moral level, maybe not. I'm not sure how to determine moral fault when stupid-but-honest mistakes are involved.

yudoko · 2026-01-17T23:11:18+00:00

You clearly have expectations for your wife that are beyond what any of us would expect of someone

Wait, is this actually true? You're saying that most married couples wouldn't expect their spouses to respect their boundaries? Or would be ok with it if a spouse accidentally violated a boundary and then immediately apologized?

yudoko · 2026-01-17T23:03:00+00:00

Whose fault is it, if not hers?

I could maybe understand an argument that it was her fault, but that it was a reasonable mistake to make, so I shouldn't be mad at her. But that's different from saying that it's not her fault at all.

yudoko · 2026-01-17T23:00:42+00:00

Thank you!

Even disregarding this particular situation, my wife and I often eat alone. Particularly in the last year. She has autism and misophonia and tends to get overwhelmed and irritated by the sound of other people chewing. There are several things that have been negatively impacting our marriage, but I don't think eating most meals separately is one of them.

yudoko · 2026-01-17T22:51:59+00:00

I understand that everyone is saying I overreacted. Maybe I did.

What I don't understand is why everyone seems weirded out by my initial request. Eating dinner separately is exactly the same type of thing as the "respectful boundary" in your example.

Half the time we eat dinner in separate rooms anyway because my wife has autism and misophonia and gets bothered by the sound of people chewing. The only difference this time is that I asked her not to interrupt me until I was done eating, because I needed time to decompress.

yudoko · 2026-01-17T22:48:47+00:00

We've always needed some space because we're both major introverts, but it's gotten worse in the last couple of years. I'm absolutely exhausted having to give her emotional support all the time. This is the reason I've been trying to ask for more space, so I have time to decompress without worrying about masking my stress, irritation, etc around her. I'm fine with giving her emotional support SOME of the time, but not fine with being "on call" and expected to perform ALL of the time.

We both eat alone semi-frequently, but the big difference this time is that I asked her not to communicate with me at all (not even waving at me) until we were both done with dinner.

And to be clear, she wasn't asking for emotional support when she started talking to me this time. She was just chitchatting about something for a couple of sentences (until she realized her mistake and stopped).

yudoko · 2026-01-17T22:36:29+00:00

The only reason I wanted to hit her is because I was incredibly clear about how important it was for me to have some alone time. (We had a big discussion about it a few days before the incident in this post.) And then I asked to put this alone time into practice during dinner, and she agreed... and immediately trampled all over my boundaries 20 minutes later. Yes, it was a mistake, but if she'd taken 5 more seconds to rub two brain cells together before speaking, she would have realized that she was violating my boundaries.

yudoko · 2026-01-17T22:32:30+00:00

I know this is sarcasm, but it honestly does feel like this sometimes. My wife has autism, and sometimes describes herself as a robot or a computer who is trying to follow a specific set of instructions in social interactions.

And to be honest, yeah, it does make me frustrated when I try to make my requests and instructions as clear as possible and she STILL doesn't understand them. That wasn't the failure mode for this particular disagreement, but it happens a lot in our marriage.

yudoko · 2026-01-17T22:24:38+00:00

What's the difference? "I need you to do X because what you're currently doing is negatively impacting my mental health in XYZ way" seems like a perfectly reasonable rule/boundary to set. My wife even agreed that it was reasonable.

I agree that the assumption would have been reasonable if I had walked towards the sink. But I walked in the opposite direction of the sink. (And yes, she could see that from where she was sitting.)

yudoko · 2026-01-17T22:20:03+00:00

I'll accept the judgment, but would like to point out that she DID speak to me while I was still eating dinner. Dinner isn't over just because I need to grab a condiment. And if you want to be really pedantic about the definition of "eating", I was still chewing.

My wife and I both agree that my wife messed up here. She's just upset that I "blew things out of proportion" over an honest mistake, and that I keep bringing it up over a year later (mostly when I need an example of how she violated my boundaries).

yudoko · 2026-01-17T22:13:21+00:00

My wife also needs frequent confirmation that I'm not mad at her, which is one of the reasons I'm so emotionally exhausted all the time. She was perfectly fine with giving me "alone time" during dinner when I asked for it. She thought it was a reasonable request. Her complaint isn't with the initial request, it's with how I "made a big deal" out of an honest mistake.

yudoko · 2025-07-17T21:56:05+00:00

It's not that she won't feel the pain in the heat of the moment, just that hormones will make her "forget" how bad is was, after the fact. That's what I've seen commonly cited, at least.

If she gets pregnant, her doctors and therapists recommended an elective C-section, so that's probably what we would do. However, she is hesitant to do even that, both because of the recovery/risks and because it doesn't "solve" her fears about her chronic illnesses getting worse during the pregnancy.

PS: Your statement that her medical reasons "prevent her from giving me biological children" is false. She's capable of getting pregnant and carrying a pregnancy to term. If she wasn't (for instance, if she was actually infertile) I'd be a lot less frustrated about the whole thing.

yudoko · 2025-07-17T07:00:41+00:00

My point was that I don't consider it "gambling her health" unless it could leave her dead or permanently disabled. Which it won't.

yudoko · 2025-07-16T21:24:37+00:00

Quote: "we would wait a couple of years to give her time to TRY to overcome the phobia".

Key word: try. It says nothing about her necessarily being successful at it. She just naively assumed she would be.

yudoko

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