AITA for being angry at my boyfriend ?

NTA, with the caveat that it’s only because you made it explicitly clear on multiple occasions that it makes you upset.

He’s being a complete asshole, but not because he’s a bad person. It’s just because that’s how he finds humor, and you should understand it’s not a personal attack or anything, and that you should like train him out of making comments like those, because for sure assholeish comments like that can be kinda reflexive on some level (especially the more comfortable you two are around each other), and the reason he then attacks you by saying you’re being overly sensitive is because he’s embarrassed and ashamed about having said it in the first place, knowing how terrible a comment it was to make. It sounds like he isn’t just a trash person, he just makes asshole comments, so instead of crying you could train him out of them and make him a better person. It won’t be quick, but don’t feel bad about ending the relationship if he can’t stop being an asshole.

I want to be clear that as I said, you’re NTA in this situation, at all. I’ll sometimes do the same thing with my fiancé (7 years in this relationship) where she’ll say something and immediately this completely asshole comment pops in my head and I’m like “ah this is rucking terrible but I just gotta” with full knowledge that it won’t be taken well. It’s not something I’m proud to say I do, but generally from when we first got together it’s definitely been quite a rollercoaster. At the beginning, I wouldn’t say anything because I didn’t trust her to know me well enough to know it was a joke, and it’s not something I’d want to affect her characterization of me. After the first year, when I was more confident in things, I would occasionally say something and depending on what it was she wouldn’t talk to me for like an hour or I’d get yelled at or she’d cry and it was incredibly frustrating for me at myself, because I didn’t want to make her feel this way. that went on for like a year. So like I’d stop, but then get really repressed feeling because I felt like I was hiding something from her and if she didn’t want me to be open about it. A year later it was affecting our relationship so we did talk about it and now four years later we’re engaged.

Just to be clear though, it wasn’t anything that I figured was personally demeaning, so that’s where the conversation we had really focused. I’d say things without a second thought because to me, in my head, it was such a complete fabrication that it couldn’t possibly be taken as seriousness or it opposes my viewpoints so strongly that I figured anyone who had a semblance of a conversation with me would know it was not a view I truly could ever hold and think “oh he’s just being an idiot”. His third comment does seem pretty demeaning, but if that’s the sort of home he grew up in where someone would say something like that to express affection (as my sort of home was) then it’s worth hashing it out with him.

Sorry for such a long response, but this situation resonated with my because I really wanted to be clear that you’re NTA for feeling the way you do, he’s being an asshole, but that doesn’t mean it’s because he just doesn’t care about you or anything, and it certainly sounds like he does care. I could’ve totally seen my fiancé and myself being in your situation, and she has remained the best thing in my life for the past ten years (though dating only 7) and While this relationship could end soon especially if he can’t get over himself in a year, I’d hate to see it be because of this.

/r/AmItheAsshole Thread